Part One: Victims. Chapters 1-5: The Town Jail, Coming Home, The Dead Woman, The House Next Door, Three Bullets Summary

Deputy Paul Henderson sits in the police station in Snowfield, California, reading. Paul thinks he hears a scream and stops to listen. Silence follows and the deputy settles in to read again when he hears another scream. Getting up to check things out, Paul hears a noise behind him and turns to discover he is no longer alone and reaches for his gun.

In chapter two, Dr. Jennifer Paige and her sister, fourteen-year-old Lisa, drive to Snowfield. Jenny is now the legal guardian for her sister, as their mother had died suddenly of a cerebral hemorrhage six weeks earlier. Jenny has not been home much since she...