Diana O'Hehir returns in the new novel featuring Carla Day and her elderly father, an Egyptologist suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Dr. Day was once famous for the ancient coffin lid he discovered, and he and Carla are at the museum that houses it when someone falls to the floor, choking. Dr. Day rushes to pry off the victim's tie. But instead of praise, Day faces charges of murder by strangulation and is accused of faking Alzheimer's. The police take him into custody, only to learn that the museum-goer isn't dead, but comatose. It has been Carla's father's experience that the dead (and nearly-dead) do not hop out of bed. But once the nurse turns her back, the patient vanishes. Now, when someone refers to the disappearance-or to a subsequent murder-Carla's father asks to visit the coffin. Are these ramblings from a faulty memory? Or is there a connection between a millennia-old Egyptian death-and a present-day California one?