Her grandmother was killed in the very same house where her mother committed suicide. Now, in the suffocating heat of a Southern August, Amy Steadman, heir to a merchandising and publishing empire, returns to the old family homestead to clear out her grandmother's things...and perhaps find some answers.

Frightened by parallels between her parents' stormy relationship and her own troubled marriage, Amy desperately needs to connect the dots between her life and the dark heritage that shaped her. Yet the more she learns, the closer she comes to a murderous force that may be part of her own family--and one that will not hesitate to lie, deceive, or kill...