A young woman is found laid out on top of a coral sarcophagus in the Key West Cemetery, her nude body wrapped carefully in a white silk sheet tied at the waist with a wide red ribbon and a diamond ring in her mouth.

Key West detectives David Sharkey and Doug Webber are baffled by the bazaar staging of the body. As they start their investigation, Titus Steel, a young private investigator from Miami, offers to help with valuable information that this has happened twice before.

Forensic psychologist and author Rex Jamison is brought in to help profile the killer and decides to look deeper into the case using the information Steel has to offer on the first two cold cases, while Sharkey and Doug are trying to keep the newspaper from starting a panic as the word slips out that they may be dealing with a serial killer.

Rex finds the lead investigator on the first case had retired but continued to investigate it on his own time when the case went cold until an identical murder occurred on the same day, one year later in Big Pine Key. The retired but excited investigator was murdered a few days later under suspicious circumstances.

Rex and the police decide that these are not just random killings, but they have a killer sending a message and that one or all of them could be in grave danger from a killer who is watching and waiting. Rex decides to risk it all, decode the messages, and go after the killer.