Suddenly, without warning or apparent reason, Jessie Arnold is threatened by an anonymous stalker. One of her sled dogs is badly injured in a steel trap and an ominous note leaves no doubt that the trap was set with malicious intent. The harassment continues with alarming telephone calls and unsigned messages, and Alex urges Jessie to go into hiding while he tries to trace the source of the threats. But it takes the deliberate puncture of a brake line on her truck and a near fatal crash to convince Jessie that she must leave Knik and let Alex fly her to an isolated island more than two hundred miles away on Kachemak Bay.

While Alex frantically works to track the stalker from a list of vicious killers who may be seeking revenge against him, Jessie tries to relax, hiking the island trails with her dog Tank and marveling at the splendor of her solitude. But as a storm breaks, crashing a maelstrom of surf on the beaches, Jessie discovers that she is not alone. Driven by gale force through a wilderness filled with hazards and hiding places; forced onto perilous cliffs above rocky shores, she finds herself in a deadly game of hide and seek with a madman. With Alex miles away, Jessie, face to face with her executioner, must depend solely on her own resources. And she must call up every skill she knows if she is to survive.