'A man can only take so much pretty walking back and forth in front of him.' When nineteen-year-old Wendy White disappears, the small town of Haeden, New York, is shaken to its core. The police are unable to trace the missing waitress; everyone assumes that she has run away. But, six months later, Wendy's tortured body is found in the nearby woods. She has only been dead for a matter of days. With no one willing to talk, the investigation slows to a halt. But local reporter Stacy Flynn and high school student Alice Piper have their own reasons for finding out what really happened. The truth behind Wendy's disappearance has a devastating effect on the town: what was once a rural idyll is now the backdrop to murder, violence and revenge.