Special agent Kathryn Dance and her partners at the California Bureau of Investigation hunt down escaped killer Daniel Pell, a self-styled Charles Manson. Pell is a master of control, who mesmerizes, seduces, and exploits people for his own murderous ends. Pell embarks on a mysterious and deadly quest once he's free.

A tragedy occurs at a small concert venue on the Monterey Peninsula. Cries of "fire" are raised and, panicked, people run for the doors, only to find them blocked. A half dozen people die and others are seriously injured. But it's the panic and the stampede that killed; there was no fire. Kathryn Dance --a brilliant California Bureau of Investigation agent and body language expert--discovers that the stampede was caused intentionally and that the...