In this novel, Dobs and Nikki are reunited through Facebook after being apart for thirty years. They are living happily in Laguna Beach, California with Nikki's two adopted teenage daughters, Allison and Jamie. Suddenly, fifteen year old Allison's birth mother appears at their front door and demands to have her daughter back. She had given her up for adoption fifteen years earlier. But now, ravaged with bipolar disorder, she wants her back at any cost. She attempts to have Nikki killed, thinking it would then be easier to get her back. She takes Allison on a harrowing trip up to Washington State to meet her real birth father, now a science fiction writer. Finally, through much struggle, Allison is back with her adoptive parents and foster sister after having experienced the strange and frightening world of her birth parents.