Medical examiner Sara Linton finds herself at the center of a terrifying hostage crisis when as assailant shoots down a police officer and wounds sheriff Jeffrey Tolliver in the Grant County police station.

When a young girl is found dead, Sara Linton, pediatrician and medical examiner of Heartsdale, Georgia, joins her ex-husband, police chief Jeffery Tolliver, and Detective Lena Adams, on the case and uncovers a web of evil in the small town.

Will Trent is a brilliant agent with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Newly in love, he is beginning to put a difficult past behind him. Then a local college student goes missing, and Will is inexplicably kept off the case by his supervisor and mentor, deputy director Amanda Wagner. Will cannot fathom Amanda's motivation until the two of them literally collide in an abandoned orphanage they have both been drawn to for different reasons. Decades...