As Detective Bill Corde looks down at the beautiful face of the murdered girl in the mud, he cannot know that his own life is about to turn into a terrifyingly real nightmare Before Corde knows it, the girl's killer is trailing him and his unsuspecting family - his wife, his teenage son, and his imaginative but vulnerable daughter Sarah Sarah - who alone knows the identity of the man who took the life of the girl, the man who may be responsible for further deaths And the lesson Bill Corde is about to learn - the lesson of her death - is an education that no one will ever forget