Adam Schwartz is a motivated high school teacher bothered by the lack of his students’ creative ideas in their attempt to write essays for their college applications. Together with his best friends, Drew, a twice-divorced attorney; Kenny, a senior trade consultant in a real-estate company; and his brother-in-law Rob, an IT guy turned stay-at-home-dad, he initiates The Pencil Pro, a program aimed at finding the next genius. Soon their Facebook page becomes a social-media hit with over 15,000 followers and countless motivated minds. 

Eric Gutenheim is a detective with the Providence, RI, police department. When Eric is called on to solve the murder case of a 16-year-old girl, he soon learns that this case is not going to be run-of-the-mill. Together with his deputy Sergeant Elaine Hernandez, the two detectives search for the killer through the codes of ancient tribes from thousands of years ago. 

 The two parallel stories are woven together to the climax of an unexpected ending.