P. I. Emma Howe has been working at the trade for a long time, but she has a bad track record for keeping employees, and she desperately needs a replacement for the most recent one who's taken off for greener pavements. The new hire has to be willing to accept Emma's far from handsome salary offer. That's okay with Billie August; she's glad to find someone who will train and pay her any salary at all. Billie is a single mother with no practical job skills, which she demonstrates by botching her first assignment. When the case of a missing teenager comes along, Emma reluctantly and with reservations gives Billie one more chance. Although the missing girl's mother claims her daughter Penny has been seduced into joining a cult, the young man who drove Penny away is actually a member of a benign, established international group that enjoys recreating the Middle Ages. What turns out to be perilous, however, is a locket Penny finds in the meadow where a tournament is being held. This "lucky talisman" of hers leads to the discovery of two long-dead bodies and puts her - and others, including Billie - in real danger.