What is death? Darcy Lott asks her Zen teacher. While scouting a location site on the Golden Gate Bridge, stunt double Darcy Lott sees a woman about to jump. The woman fights, but Darcy manages to pull her back. Before disappearing, the woman tells Darcy that by Thanksgiving she’ll be dead. Darcy has four days to find her and keep her from killing herself, but she has no idea who she is.
Darcy Lott is thrilled to be reunited with her brother Mike, who disappeared twenty years earlier. But her joy at bringing him home to San Francisco turns to fear when she learns that he has become the victim of escalating attacks—and he has no idea who is targeting him. Darcy determines to find out who is after him and why—before the attacks turn deadly.
Stunt double Darcy Lott is on location at the Port of Oakland, positioned for a power slide — a dangerous trick in which she falls off a bike and skids under an 18-wheeler. Late getting to the set, Darcy’s intermittent boyfriend and stunt driver Damon Guthrie is forced to rush the scene. His truck malfunctions and Darcy is injured. Tensions have never been higher between them.
San Francisco stunt double Darcy Lott specializes in creating the illusion of serious danger. But when her lawyer brother calls and asks her to wine and dine a mysterious client, the danger is no illusion. Darcy takes an instant liking to the client, Karen Johnson, but there are too many unanswered questions. Who is this woman? And why does she need a high-powered lawyer?
Recently returned to San Francisco to assist her Zen teacher in his new zendo, Darcy Lott cannot shake the pain of her brother's disappearance. When she spies him on the roof of the zendo, she hurries to catch him—and finds him gone. When another disappearance rattles Darcy, she realizes something is afoot. A bit of digging uncovers a terrifying plot, and Darcy must race to thwart a killer.
After a terrifying stunt gone wrong leaves her plummeting into the tops of forest trees, a shaken Darcy Lott is dispatched by her Zen master to a remote monastery in California's redwood forest to face her worst fear — but also to deliver a message. This monastery has its own secrets. A student has disappeared and is feared dead.
When her Zen teacher is attacked in front of her by a silent, hoodie-clad assailant, Darcy Lott feels uncharacteristically helpless. If she cannot identify Garson-roshi’s attacker, she cannot protect him. For whoever it is will surely strike again.
But who would have a reason to assault this wise and gentle man?