Cedar Rapids, Iowa. A Catholic priest has been found half-naked and dead in a seedy motel room, with his tongue cut out. Ex-FBI profiler Robert Payne has been called in to investigate by his childhood friend Steve Gray, now a monsignor. With a fund-raising drive coming up, Steve wants to squelch a scandal. But all the signs point to unholy doings in the tightly knit parish.Why did the pugnacious president of the Parish Board remove a gold earring from the scene of the crime? Was his beautiful blonde wife doing more than confessing to the profligate priest? And why was the dead priest hoarding newspaper stories about two other brutal murders? As Payne examines the evidence and pieces together the profile of a subtle and devious killer, it's clear that there will be hell to pay--with no end in sight...

Ex-cop, security guard and sometime actor Jack Dwyer feels a familiar buzz when, after fifteen years, he sees Karen Lane, his old high school flame. But things are going so well with his girlfriend Donna, that he's pretty sure Karen is not what he needs right now. Still, he agrees to retrieve a suitcase for her which she'd left with her last lover, Glendon Evans, a psychiatrist. Then, Karen dies.