A woman is found brutally murdered. A cry for help is scrawled in blood - "Help me Jane". Forensic psychiatrist Jane Halifax is presented with her worst nightmare, the killer might be one of her own patients.
Jane delves into a suspicious bus accident in a tight-knit Christian community. A bus full of local teenagers collides with a station wagon and runs off the road and the town, where Jane's mother now lives, goes into shock.
Jane Halifax is summoned to investigate a murder within a prison's High Security Unit. There are five suspects, one of whom is a multiple murderer John Garth, whose handiwork has haunted Jane since she helped put him away.