When the seventeen-year-old Samantha Hardgrave disappears, Kate is sent to take her place at the college to follow up on leads. What she finds is a girl more complicated than most people thought with plenty of her own secrets. Samantha’s parents painted a picture of an upstanding girl who never hides anything, but that isn’t what Kate hears from Samantha’s roommate. Who is telling the truth?

Patrick doesn’t even feel like they should be on the Hardgrave case. It is clear to everyone except her family what happened: she ran off with a visiting professor. Yet, as he learns more about her from her friends and family, he begins to doubt. Would Samantha have done something like that? And how come Kate is getting such a different picture of who Samantha was?