Stay-at-home mom Yvonne Landis enters her kitchen one day to meet a huge surprise: Seated on a chair is her son, Gabe. He went missing when he was ten years old, more than three years ago. It turns out he was abducted by pedophiles who made his existence a living hell. Yvonne is determined to heal Gabe. Her husband Ben is not completely on board with that idea, especially since Gabe stabbed him with a fork shortly after they were reunited. Then disturbing things happen to their younger son, 9-year-old Joseph, and Gabe may be behind those, too.... 

Jennifer Hanson comes home and catches her 12-year-old son, Shane, stabbing their cat to death. Thankfully, he doesn't see her. She has long known Shane has a brain with psychopathic tendencies. Ever since he accidentally shot his father to death at age six, she has done everything she can to ensure Shane doesn't become a full-blown psychopath. She can tell he's changing, becoming increasingly dangerous, but she can't stomach putting him in a psych ward. But then she finds pictures of a dead girl in his phone, a girl everyone thought had died accidentally.

Ava only left her daughter in the pushchair for five minutes. The buckle was fastened, and she was sure it was safe. But when she came downstairs, the door was open and Abi was gone - she walked down the road, past the Lovegoods' house, and was never seen again. A year later, the Lovegoods throw a housewarming party, showing off the results of their renovation. Ava doesn’t want to go. She can’t bear to look down that end of the road, to see the place where Abi vanished, and she doesn’t want to spend time with people who don’t share her grief. 

Yvonne Landis has escaped from a mental institution, where she was treated for psychosis. Accused of murder, she will stand trial once psychiatrists deem her fit enough to understand her charges. Only Yvonne knows that she didn't kill her husband; her son Gabe did. Because she was onto him, he tricked the authorities into believing that Mom killed Dad. Having been traumatized in his tweens, he suffers from extreme anger issues. In order to deal with them, he must kill on occasion.

Harley, reeling from her being put on leave, from her long-term relationship falling apart, and from her father’s dying, is hardly ready to return to her hometown, to its long-buried secrets, and her tortured past. She spent her life escaping this small town—but, as she settles back in, she wonders: Might she have been wrong all this time? Yet as more bodies surface and as every clue leads to a dead end, Harley, clashing with her new partner, realizes she’s in a race against time.