Blood on an ax in the snow. A blood-spattered manuscript on the table. From a lonely cabin in the woods, a writer vanishes without a trace. Her latest book is about a true crime case: the cruel death of twelve-year-old Becca, still unsolved after twenty-three years. Does the writer know the killer?

Detective Sergeant Calista Gates is haunted by the case. Becca was her best childhood friend. When Becca was found lifeless, gagged and tied to a tree in the searing summer heat of British Columbia’s interior, the girl’s suffering shook the public. And it devastated Calista.

Now it is winter and Calista wants to lure the killer back to the crime scene in the snow-covered hills around the city of Kamloops. She’s convinced he’s hiding near where Becca’s body was found. And not far from the missing writer’s cabin.

This time, Calista wants to catch him with bait he won’t be able to resist: her. A risky and dangerous experiment that nearly destroys everything she has believed.