At The Shelter, no one judges the runaway teens who come in off the rainy Seattle streets. Volunteers, like police psychologist Daphne Matthews, want only to rescue and rebuild lives. But, what she encounters in a sixteen-year-old girl chills her in a way she thought a case no longer could. Daphne turns for help to the best cop she knows, a man with creative instincts and an appreciation for forensic lab techniques, Lou Boldt.

An arsonist in Seattle is using rocket fuel to set fires so hot nothing is left to identify the victims. The victims are all divorced women, but their children are spared and the arsonist sends the fire department philosophical quotations. Detective Lou Bolt and police psychologist Daphne Matthews go to work. By the author of No Witness.