Marlene Whitman moves to the city to escape the constraints of life in a small town and avoid the fi nancial hardships she experienced while growing up. But pursuing her career in the business world means that she has to put her naturally adventurous spirit on hold. After years listening to other people's stories and reading about exotic places, she is at last financially able and ready to experience more of life. On her vacation to Florida she sheds some pent up inhibitions, discovers a clue to the secret of the universe, and is very strangely drawn to earrings made out of gold from a long-lost treasure galleon. Curiosity about them, her mother's heritage, and a mysterious Spanish document she finds among her late parents' papers leads Marlene to the land of the Incas and the lost city of Machu Picchu. She is seeking adventure, but is totally unprepared for what she finds on this trip.