A young American au pair, Charlotte Clancy, vanishes without a trace in Mexico City. The case is left cold, but its legacy will be devastating. A decade later, Los Angeles is shaken by a spate of violent murders. Psychologist Nikki Roberts is the common link between the victims, her patients at the heart of this treacherous web. When someone makes an attempt on Nikki's life, it's clear she is a marked woman. Nikki makes a living out of reading people, drawing out their secrets, but the key to this shocking pattern eludes her. With the police at a dead end, Nikki drafts in Derek Williams, a private investigator who isn't afraid to put his hand into the hornet's nest. Williams was thwarted in the notorious Charlotte Clancy case all those years ago, but what he unearths in Los Angeles and the mention of one name in particular leaves him cold and takes him on a dangerous path into the past. A shadowy manipulator has brought him.