When Ruth Turner walks into the Sheriff's office in Jefferson County's Port Townsend claiming her sister Ida Watson has been missing for over a month, Detective Megan Carpenter's instincts tell her that she needs to do more than just file a report. Racing over to Ida's secluded farmhouse in the hills above Snow Creek, Megan finds Ida's teenage children alone and frightened. She can't help but notice there's no TV. No video games. Nothing of the outside world. Something about the Watson family doesn't add up. She's sure they're hiding something, and Megan is taken straight back to her own terrifying childhood, back to the time she was a kid called Rylee, fighting to survive. As Megan begins to delve deeper into the investigation, the body of a woman is discovered in an abandoned pickup truck close to the Watsons'; home and Megan is convinced the cases are connected. If she has any chance of catching the killer, Megan must first unravel the disturbing secrets of the isolated Snow Creek community. But Megan has dark secrets of her own too. Hidden in the back of her closet is a box of tapes containing every single recording of her therapy sessions over thirteen years ago. Can she finally confront the past she's spent years trying to block out? And will reliving her own painful story help her solve the complex case before another innocent life is lost?