Edward Cunningham, once a powerful self-made billionaire publishing tycoon and presidential hopeful, now a disgraced former governor turned paranoid recluse living atop the Waldorf-Astoria, summons a former prot g to search for his missing son, Peter. Recently divorced, nearly bankrupt after squandering a six-figure bonus, and grossly underemployed in Northern Virginia, Devon Barton meets his one-time mentor in New York City and despite his best judgment, agrees to look into the boy's sudden disappearance. The trail moves swiftly from a deadly blizzard pounding the Great Plains, to a strange late-night turn of events at an obscure Catholic college hidden high in California's rugged Los Padres Mountains. When a dying nun in a sweltering jungle convent eleven thousand miles from home finally reveals horrifying secrets of the past, a presumably innocent romantic elopement turns into something far more sinister. After old scores are settled violently, raw emotions explode. Humiliation turns to rage, and the search for Peter becomes a frantic race against time...