There was the moment eight-year-old Ruth Corrigan ran away from playing in the woods with her best friend, and then the moment after, when Ceely was gone. Murdered. Now the silence of that day lives within Ruth. Lives in the judgment she sees in the faces of so many in the small town she still calls home. Ruth may be older now, tougher, a cop by trade, but her life has been unraveling ever since that tragic day in the woods. Alcohol, sex, broken marriages--nothing can lighten the truth she knows inside.

Until the child-killer returns, free and unencumbered. A predator who will act again unless Ruth can prove him guilty. Only no one will listen to a police officer on suspended duty, a woman whose life has been one personal disaster after the next, not even Maddie Pardeau Klein, her dead playmate's older sister. It's up to Ruth alone to trap the vicious criminal before he strikes once more. No matter what it takes. Or who gets hurt.

Praise for Mary McGarry Morris

"Morris can depict society's outsiders . . . with rare understanding and compassion." --Publishers Weekly

"A superb storyteller." --The Washington Post

"Morris's nearly flawless prose is mesmerizing." --Booklist