Abigail Campano experiences a mother's worst nightmare when she comes home to find a stranger has brutally attacked her daughter Emma -- and is still standing over the girl's body with a knife in his hand. When he approaches Abigail, a violent struggle ensues and she kills him.

As Will Trent, an agent from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, helps Atlanta detectives piece together what happened, he finds some of the crime scene details don't make sense in the scenario. Then Paul Campano, Emma's father, begins to insist that the murdered teen is not his daughter, but her friend Kayla. Emma has a birthmark that is not on the victim's body. Suddenly, the murder case becomes a murder-kidnapping and the search is on for a missing girl. Not only that, but the young man Abigail killed may have been a friend of Emma and Kayla's who was actually trying to help them.

Detective Faith Mitchell assists Will as the GBI takes over the case. Will has recently investigated the Atlanta Police Department, which resulted in the firing of several detectives and a commander's forced retirement. The commander just happened to be Evelyn Mitchell, Faith's mother. Faith and her colleagues want nothing to do with Will, but she is given no choice. Besides, there's no time for personal grudges in the race to save Emma, and Will seems to have a knack for seeing things from a different angle than everyone else.

This book begins with a horrifying life-or-death struggle and keeps the tension ratcheted up all the way to the end. The importance of each passing hour in a case such as this heightens the suspense, especially when readers are as in the dark as the investigators as to where Emma is and what is happening to her. Abigail's guilt over what she did and her worry about Emma is heartbreaking, and there are some disturbing glimpses into the world of today's teens. Will and Faith's partnership develops slowly and naturally from dislike to mutual respect, and Will's wry sense of humor provides some much-needed lighter moments. This story isn't always easy to read, but it's nearly impossible to put down.