Tanya Bigelow was a solemn little girl when Dr. Alex Delaware successfully treated her obsessive-compulsive symptoms. Now, at nineteen, Tanya returns with a curious request: that Delaware investigate her aunt's deathbed confession of murder. While Delaware doubts that Patty Bigelow was capable of such a horrific act, he agrees to look into the matter. Armed with only the vaguest details,Delaware and LAPD detective Milo Sturgis retrace Patty's and Tanya's nomadic and increasingly puzzling life. Then a very real murder tears open a terrifying tunnel into the past,where secrets--and bodies--are buried. As the tension mounts, Delaware and Sturgis uncover a tangled history of desperation, vengeance, and death--a legacy of evil that refuses to die.