For history professor Tom Strange summer beckoned. He'd escape the heat of Prescott and go north. Montana called to him. Having recently lost his wife in an auto accident, her memory still heart-achingly fresh, the beauty of Big Sky country seemed like a soul-saving deliverance. She was sitting in his pickup, distraught, terrorized. His student, Abeline Davis, pleaded with him. She'd just witnessed the brutal murder of her mother and little brother. The killer was her estranged father...a cop and he was coming after her to eliminate the only witness. Tim must make a decision and the one he makes will change his and her life in unimaginable ways and cost others theirs as a deep mystery unravels. His dead wife's shocking secret, the key to everything, stalks their every move.