Discovering an ancient skeleton can be murder, as homicide detective Eileen Reed discovers when her parents ask for her help in a missing person’s case. The missing man, an archeologist, has been excavating a Lakota buffalo jump at the Reed Ranch near Devil’s Tower, Wyoming. The discovery of his murdered corpse and the crystal skull he took from the remains of an Aztec warrior are complicated further when a hired assassin targets Eileen’s fiancé, Joe Tanner, a top-secret defense programmer. The big-city killers come to do murder in a small Wyoming town, and Eileen Reed finds herself in a fight for her life and the lives of her family, trying to solve a very personal murder and keep two very impersonal murderers from their intended slaughter.