Thanks to years of working with the dark side of society, Detective Reuben "Diego" Montoya's youthful swagger is gone, replaced by straightforward determination. He'll need it, because a serial killer is turning The Big Easy into his personal playground. The victims are killed in pairs--no connection, no apparent motive, no real clues.

His only lead is Abby Chastain, ex-wife of one of the victims. Twenty years ago, Abby watched in horror as her mother, a patient at the Our Lady of Virtues Mental Hospital, plunged through a window to her death--and Abby has always dreaded that she too would one day go insane. Abby's honest fear gets to Montoya. His gut tells him she's innocent, and that there's something significant about the once-grand hospital. Abby can help unlock the mystery--if only Montoya can get her to trust him enough to face the ghosts of her past.

As more bodies are found in gruesome, staged scenarios and the FBI moves in, Montoya's in a desperate race to find a killer who's getting closer all the time. Plunging deep into a nightmare investigation will uncover a shocking revelation--a deadly connection between Abby and Montoya and an asylum where unspeakable crimes were committed, evil once roamed free, and a human predator still waits...