Teenager Luke Mullen is missing. He was last seen by schoolmates getting into a car with an older woman, and it is unclear whether he has disappeared voluntarily or been abducted.

Police looking for the boy are pretty certain they are dealing with a missing-persons case. The son of a former police officer, Luke has no history of being out of touch, no track record of truancy or misbehavior. And they know that the longer he is missing, the more likely he is to turn up dead.

Then the videotape arrives. . . .

On special assignment, Detective Inspector Tom Thorne searches desperately for the boy and for anyone who might have a grudge against him or his father, former detective Tony Mullen. As someone responsible for convicting many tough villains in his time, Luke's father is asked to list a few potential suspects. But it is the names Mullen carefully omits from the list that intrigue Thorne. Has Mullen simply forgotten about the criminal who threatened him? Is he so distraught in the emotional trauma of his son's disappearance? Or is he hiding something?

When the kidnapper demonstrates, shockingly, that he is not reluctant to kill, Thorne knows he does not have the luxury of time. He must dig hard and deep into old cases and past lives. He learns that secrets are as easily hidden as bodies, and that even if Luke Mullen is still alive, making assumptions is the quickest way to get him dead and buried.