For FBI special agent Maggie O'Dell, there is nothing routine about being called in to work these two cases. As an expert criminal profiler, Maggie provides psychological insight on cases that involve suspected serial killers. She can't understand, then, why she has been assigned to two seemingly unrelated crimes.

But as Maggie and her partner, Special Agent R. J. Tully, delve deeper into the cases, they discover there is a connection: Reverend Joseph Everett, the charismatic leader of a high-profile religious sect.

Is Everett a psychotic madman who uses his power to perform heinous crimes? Or is he merely the scapegoat for a killer more cunning than he? Maggie realizes the only way to find out is to use her own mother, a member of Everett's church, as a pawn in a deadly trap.