Contemporary Women's fiction with historical bookends from the years of 1931-1940. Third novel in a trilogy. In 2017, during a seven-year drought, Emily and Dr. Jack Conner meet an elderly woman named Astrid who is in heat stress while hiking the trail up from Vikingsholm Castle in Lake Tahoe, California. She soon becomes interwoven in their lives in strange and unusual ways. Emily distrusts Astrid and researches her sketchy past. The woman claims as a teenage to have personally known Lora Knight who built Vikingsholm Castle in Emerald Bay which earns her respect among the Tahoe locals. Jack and Emily are trying to help a young widower who has cancer with his infant son. Brock, still deep in grief, is struggling to learn how to be a dad while juggling work, chemo, and demanding baby Benny. Astrid and her slick sidekick Detert are also interested in the baby, and in people around town who need help with their finances while struggling in troubling economic times. Jack and his father, retired physician Doc Walters, become more and more aware of Astrid's overwhelming influence as Jack moves his medical practice into an office at home. A supernatural aura surrounds the mysterious woman who knows Tahoe history from the early Vikingsholm days along the azure shores of Lora Knight's private kingdom and Fanette Island's heydays.Is she dangerous? The current company she keeps is questionable, Detert exhibits low-key criminal attitude and ability. Astrid seems to disdain her partner which makes their relationship a curious thing. And they both loathe Doc Walters with a passion. Emily is coping with reoccurring problems from a past traumatic brain injury that makes her doubt her instincts. Her research begins to pay off but not until after Astrid is able to talk Brock into a decision that will forever alter his life. Soon there is a race against time as truth surfaces and baby Benny disappears.Will local Sheriff Derrick Thomas be able to help find one innocent among masters of deception when the price of a human life is up for the highest bidder? Off season small town Lake Tahoe faces the unthinkable, and heartbreaking loss is but a plane flight away. Time is ticking and the clock is running.