The Malevolent Homebuyer

In the past 25 years over 250 real-estate agents have been assaulted on the job. Many of them raped and murdered. Charlie Daniels president of Montana's largest board of Realtors read this statement to his associates. It was from the National Association of Realtors and arrived only days before the first-ever rape-murder of a city Realtor. Another killing followed. A rapist-killer is now established and on the prowl in Montana's largest city and he leaves no evidence. He has a fixation on beautiful real-estate women with black hair. He is a lawman's worst nightmare--a rapist-killer from a distant place with two years spent building local trust. Now he has a plan to rape and kill and repeat his grisly work. The killings send a message to female Realtors--a killer walks among us business as usual is over. Women are the backbone of the real-estate sales force but apprehension hangs in the air. Sally Stokes attractive middle-aged widow with two young daughters cannot afford to hole up. Neither can gorgeous Sheena Lovely the rumored great-grand daughter of Montana native Gary Cooper. Law enforcement is stymied. They look to a retired man-hunter Sheriff Wade Hollingsworth for input but his conclusion is surreal the contrast too large--would a killer leave the protective concealment of peopled Seattle for the vastness of Montana? Two years past the Seattle media tagged a similar killer The Taker. Can The Taker really be in Montana operating under a guise of innocence? When the aging sheriff's beautiful protégé Sheena is taken he acts on his hunch. Alone he trudges to a suspected wilderness hide-away where he finds her--hopeless-- waiting. Now they must elude the returning sadist. Apprehensively they start an arduous trip out of the mountains with no conception of the horror awaiting them.