The girlโs prom dress, the color of champagne, shimmers in the dying light. A corsage of wilting pink sweetheart roses decorates her wrist. She is perfectly still, lying on the ground like a delicate china doll, trapped forever in a sleep from which she will never wakeโฆ
When a call comes in about a young girl found dead at a high school promโher life drained away from a fatal stab woundโDetective Josie Quinn drops everything to attend the scene. Taking in the girlโs neatly braided hair, Josie feels a flicker of recognition. But no one comes forward to identify this innocent child, murdered on what should have been the happiest night of her life.
Trawling missing persons files, Josie realizes where she has seen the girl before. Gemma Farmer disappeared a few months ago, shattering her family. But why would her body appear now, on her sixteenth birthday? Josieโs only clue is the five neat little cuts on Gemmaโs pale arm. Days later, another missing girl shows up, tucked neatly into her bed on the morning of her birthday, her favourite teddy beside her, her skin as cold as iceโand the autopsy reveals scars on her arm matching Gemmaโs.
Her head spinning, Josie fears the marks are a serial killerโs twisted way of counting his victims. But where are the other girls heโs killed, and how many more could follow? The case takes a terrifying turn when a local teen goes missing just days before she turns sixteen.
Clock ticking, Josie turns the town upside down in search of answers. But when her own chief comes forward with a missing piece in this devastating puzzle spanning decades, will it be enough to get inside the mind of the most unexpected and elusive killer she has ever encountered, or will another precious life be taken?