The dead girl lay face up on the edge of the pond, a snake coiled in the muddy hollow of one arm. For Police Chief Nalen Storrow, it was a shocking reminder of the violence he thought he'd left behind when he moved his family to Flowering Dogwood, Maine. Then, Storrow's investigation leads to a chilling possibility...the murderer might be his own son, Billy. Eighteen years later, a different cop is obsessed with the unsolved case--Rachel Storrow, Nalen's grown daughter. But no sooner does Rachel reopen the investigation than another young woman disappears. Once again Billy is a suspect--but not the only one in a town with long-buried secrets. A cunning psychopath is moving undetected through Flowering Dogwood, taking Rachel on a relentless journey of suspicion, doubt, and bone-deep fear. And nothing can prepare her--or the reader--for the staggering revelation that awaits.