When Paula Holliday's friend Lucy asks her to tag along on an all-expense-paid junket to the Titans Hotel, it seems like a good idea. Paula even manages to squeeze a few bucks and a byline out of the local paper for writing an article on the rare titan arum, or corpse flower, that's just about to bloom at the hotel. Then her friend is detained, a would-be suitor is found with a gaping hole in his head, and the flower refuses to bloom ...