Amid the sweltering heat of southern California, a serial killer with a passion for sharp knives and naked flesh attacks their way across the affluent coastal neighborhoods of San Diego County. Male or female, it doesn’t seem to matter. No one is safe. A banking executive is found slain in his beachfront hotel room. Then the nude body of a beautiful young woman from a prominent family is found slashed and brutalized in a public park. Former NYPD Detective Micheline Avila is still reeling from a failed marriage and the recent death of her mother. To avoid the painful memories of her past, Micheline abandons her old life and relocates to the tranquility of the Coronado peninsula overlooking San Diego Bay. As a detective with the county sheriff’s department, Micheline is absorbed in the investigations of the first two murder cases. During her off-hours, she befriends an interesting group of local strangers who welcome her openly to share in their west coast lifestyle. But one of them may be a sadistic, cold-blooded killer. As leads in the murder investigations dissolve, so do Micheline’s relationships with her newfound group of friends. In a heartbeat, the world as Micheline knows it is flipped upside down. She is left wounded at the scene of a bank robbery and taken into police custody. Based upon iron-clad, indisputable video surveillance and forensic evidence, she is accused of conspiring with the bank robbers to perpetrate the heinous crime. Against seemingly impossible odds, Micheline must prove her innocence or face the consequences of an open-and-shut jury trial. She’s destined to spend the rest of her life behind bars or worse. How will she ever survive this conflict?