Vicki learns from the police that her ex-husband, David, has gone missing. She insists she last saw him years ago when they divorced, but the police clearly don't believe her. And her memory is hardly reliable. Meanwhile, Scarlet is arrested for dealing drugs, and her eight-year-old daughter, Scarlet, is forced into years of foster care --- an experience that will shape the rest of her life. David's new wife, Tanya, is the one who reported him missing, but what really happened on the night of David's disappearance? And how can Vicki prove her innocence, when she's not even sure of it herself? The answer lies in the connection among these four women --- and the one person they can't escape.

Three little girls set off to school one sunny morning. Within an hour, one of them is dead. Fifteen years later, Kitty can't speak and has no memory of the accident that's to blame. She lives in an institution and is unlikely ever to leave. But that doesn't keep her from being frightened when she encounters an eerily familiar face. Art teacher Alison is struggling to make ends meet and to forget the past. When a teaching job at a prison opens up, she takes it, despite her fears. Then she starts to receive alarming notes; next, her classroom erupts in violence. Meanwhile, someone is watching both Kitty and Alison. Someone who never forgot what happened that day. Someone who wants revenge. And only another life will do.

When young lawyer Lily marries Ed, she’s determined to make a fresh start and leave the secrets of the past behind. But then she takes on her first murder case and meets Joe, a convicted murderer to whom she is strangely drawn and for whom she will soon be willing to risk almost anything. Lily is not the only one with secrets, however. Her next-door neighbor Carla may be only nine, but she already has learned that secrets are powerful things. When Lily finds Carla on her doorstep 16 years later, a chain of events is set in motion that can end only one way.