Something precious and beautiful is being ruthlesslydestroyed. And those who champion the small, fragile, threatened lives are endangered themselves. An agent for the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Rachel Porter has been assigned to the northern California wilds, where a biologist recently vanished while searching for a rare blue butterfly believed extinct -- a hunt that may well have led him to his death. And now a young girl has gone missing also, and her disappearance might be connected, so Rachel cannot ignore it. But bodies and lies are piling up in her path, and beyond them catastrophe is waiting for Rachel Porter. Because in a world of heartless greed and cruel obsession, there may be nothing that separates a fanatic collector from a cold-blooded killer.