When a nervous stranger appears at Em Dowell's glassblowing studio begging to her kiln for an experimental gem treatment, she finds it a little odd, though nothing to be alarmed about. After all, the annual Gem Show is in town, and everyone in Tucson seems obsessed by it at the moment.

Besidees, Em's too worried about her missing brother Cameron to pay much attention, until a dead body found in the desert turns out to be linked to the stranger--and to Cam. Soon Em finds herself following trails in the lawelss land of the Arizona desert and the nearby Indian reservation, while her police chief boyfriend searches fora a way to crack the case...