Troy Turner and Rand Duchay were barely teenagers when they kidnapped and murdered a younger child. Troy, a remorseless sociopath, died violently behind bars. But the hulking, slow-witted Rand managed to survive his stretch. Now, at age twenty-one, he’s emerged a haunted, rootless young man with a pressing need: to talk – once again – with psychologist Alex Delaware. But when the young killer comes to a brutal end, that conversation is silenced forever.

Did karma catch up with Rand? Or did someone wait eight long years to dine on ice-cold revenge? Both seem strong possibilities to Sturgis, but Delaware’s suspicions run deeper... and darker. Because fear in the voice of the grown-up Rand Duchay – and his eerie final words to Delaware: “I’m not a bad person” – betray untold secrets. Buried revelations so horrendous, and so damning, they’re worth killing for.

As Delaware and Sturgis retrace their steps through a grisly murder case that devastated a community, they discover a chilling legacy of madness, suicide, and multiple killings – and even uglier truths waiting to be unearthed. And the nearer they come to understanding an unspeakable crime, the more harrowingly close they get to unmasking a monster hiding in plain sight.