In 1940, a teenage blind boy named Danny Callahan witnessed the scuttling of the SS Tahoe Steamer, the grandest ship to ever sail Lake Tahoe. Eighty years later, a killer beats up old man Daniel Callahan, demanding to know the truth about a secret that went down with the ship. If Callahan doesn't tell all he knows, the people closest to Callahan will die ...
Tahoe detective Owen McKenna receives a call for help from a young boy named Paco who had just witnessed the murder of his foster mother and is hidden in the back of the murderer's pickup truck and Owen races to find Paco before the murderers can find him.
When Tahoe Detective Owen McKenna answers his phone early one morning, a young boy named Paco cries out, “Help me!” McKenna talks to Paco and discovers that the boy is trapped in the back of a speeding pickup somewhere in Tahoe. In the front of the truck are two men who have just murdered Paco's foster mother. The men want the boy, but they don't yet know that the boy witnessed the murder and that he hid in their truck. As McKenna races to find Paco, he learns that the two men are contract killers from Las Vegas. They've killed before, using electronic stun guns to immobilize their victims prior to asphyxiating them with plastic wrap. While McKenna doesn't have a clue why the killers are after the boy, he knows that if he does nothing, the killers will keep coming for Paco. So McKenna plans to set a trap for them using Paco as bait. McKenna's plan carries a huge risk. If it goes wrong, he will be handing the boy to the killers....
Simone Bonnaire, a young French woman who lives in Tahoe, has a sadistic boyfriend who abuses her. Simone's only friend is Cynthia Rorvik, an older woman who provides comfort.When Cynthia falls from her deck and ends up in a coma, her 92-year-old, former Olympic ski racer husband Joe Rorvik calls Tahoe Detective Owen McKenna and asks him to investigate.McKenna discovers a string of deaths that look like accidents. But he can find no other connection between them until he learns that all of the victims opposed a new, proposed ski resort development in Tahoe.As McKenna gets closer to a devious killer, he realizes that Simone is to be the next victim. But McKenna can't save her because she has left on a solo ski trek into the Desolation Wilderness, and she is unreachable except by the killer who has been following her and has already begun his final chase...