Lee Donne feels like a misfit in a family of geniuses, an appendix in a family of brains. With no prospects and no job, she welcomes the opportunity to house-sit her grandfather's isolated Oregon house while he is lecturing in Oxford, but her peace and quiet are shattered by strange noises at night. With the help of her best friend and computer genius, Casey, Lee realizes that an intruder is not stalking her but is after something in the house. Searching for that something begins a dangerous voyage of discovery into the mysteries of her family, a search that takes her from Oregon to California and on to New Orleans, one that uncovers secrets more far-reaching and sinister than she could have imagined.