Try turning the clock back two generations in time and experience the sweltering summer of fourteen-year-old Dalan Dawson—the new kid in town—as he meets the new neighborhood kids in the dusty, small, cotton-farming town of Coolidge, Arizona. His boring summer turns very interesting when Dalan first lays eyes on the brown-eyed, dark-haired Marie Palermo. She is special from his first shy glimpse of the sassy, rich, and very smart girl, and leads him into an excitement-filled world of ancient intrigue. From the action of the neighborhood kids' street game—kick the can—to the ancient spider web–filled caverns with their long-forgotten treasures, the two teens are caught up in mysteries, muggings, and murders. Who killed the town's high school hero, and who abandoned the three-hundred-year-old Spanish padre and his jewel-encrusted gold cross? Dalan and Marie's story seems too bizarre to be true—or maybe not.