At an AA meeting, handyman and part-time investigator Jay Porter meets a recovering addict who needs his help. In the midst of another grueling northern New Hampshire winter, Amy Lupusโ younger sister, Emily, has gone missing from the Coos County Center, the newly opened rehab run by Jayโs old nemeses, Adam and Michael Lombardi. As Jay begins looking into Emilyโs disappearance, he finds that all who knew Emily swear that sheโs never used drugs. Sheโs a straight shooter and an intern at a newspaper investigating the Center and the horrendous secret hidden in it―or beneath it.
When Jay learns of a โmissingโ hard drive, he is flung back to five years ago when his own junkie brother, Chris, found a hard drive belonging to Lombardi Construction. For years Jay assumed that the much-sought- after hard drive contained incriminating photos of Adam and Michaelโs father, which contributed to Chrisโ death. But now he believes that hard drive may have harbored a secret far more sinister, which the missing Lupus sister may have unwittingly discovered. The deeper Jay digs, the more poisoned the ground gets, and the two cases become one, yielding a toxic truth with local fallout―and far- reaching ramifications.
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