"Your girlfriend is dead. You have 24 hours before your wife finds out."Former crime beat reporter Clay Burton has no idea what the cryptic note means, or who sent it. What worries him most is the reference to his wife Lindsey, a once-vibrant artist now rendered an invalid after a tragic fall. In Lindsey's fragile condition, even a mean-spirited practical joke like this would be too much for her to handle.Clay dismisses the note as a prank until more envelopes arrive. Now the sender has switched to coded messages, bizarre riddles, and even gruesome "mementos" of the alleged girlfriend. Using his reporter's skills and instincts, Clay deciphers the clues and follows their trail to an abandoned lake house where he makes a shocking discovery. The mysterious notes aren't a practical joke after all; they're signposts leading to a grisly crime scene.When the stream of clues and messages continues, each more clever and devious than the last, Clay learns that his faceless tormentor is just getting started and that Lindsey might be his ultimate target. Is it all a twisted game of psychological torture, or is Clay the pawn in some dark, complex scheme whose endgame can't even be imagined?