the first time in more than a decade, #1 New York Times bestselling author Lisa Jackson's pulse-pounding novel--featuring two of her most acclaimed characters, New Orleans detectives Rick Bentz and Reuben Montoya --takes readers into the heart of fear, as a series of ritual slayings draw a psychology student back to a decaying asylum...

EVERY SERIAL KILLER . . .
A serial killer is stalking the streets of New Orleans. The victims are killed in a ritual fashion, a series of numbers tattooed into their bodies. There are no clues, no connections except one: a crumbling old asylum that was once the scene of unspeakable madness--and is now the calling card of a new kind of fear.
IS SEARCHING FOR . . .
Eve Renner knows Our Lady of Virtues Hospital well. As the daughter of one of its doctors, she spent her childhood exploring its secrets chambers, hidden rooms, and forbidden passageways. Now, somewhere in the decaying asylum lies the key to a betrayal from the past whose echoes are being felt with a vengeance--a crime beyond imagining that seems to lead to Eve herself.

THE PERFECT VICTIM . . .
As each new body is found and forgotten, memories surface, and Eve must race to put together a deadly puzzle, one terrifying piece at a time. A killer is watching, planning, luring her back to the ruins of Our Lady and the shocking truths hidden there. For the sins of the past must be revealed, and the price paid--in blood . . .