When Celia Donnelly’s husband, Jonathon, surprises her with a family vacation to Mexico, the harried book editor couldn't be happier. She is overworked and exhausted, a situation that has taken a toll on her eighteen-year marriage, not to mention her relationship with her teenaged son. Escaping the perpetually rainy Pacific Northwest for the sugary sands of Mexico could be just what the doctor ordered. Yet shortly after their arrival south of the border, a chance encounter with a stranger sparks illicit memories of a former affair. The moment passes, but that brief encounter proves enough to change her life forever. Hours later, Celia is lured from the beach and abducted off the street. At first a seemingly random victim, Celia quickly realizes her captors know exactly who she is. Desperate for news of her family and devastated by the betrayal of someone she trusts, Celia, along with an unlikely ally, is soon running for her life. Pursued from the balmy shores of Mexico to the steamy thickets of the jungle, to the crisp, cold mountains of Zurich, Celia will stop at nothing to find her way home.

Memories of her dire past fade as Celia Hagen enjoys life in Switzerland as a best-selling author, surrounded by an extended family, her beloved Benicio, and their imaginative young son Benny. But when Benny disappears from a train during an unexpected stop in the French Provencal countryside, Celia suspects her past may not be buried after all. With Benny gone, she quickly realizes her life wasn’t nearly as idyllic as she believed. Infuriated by the unorthodox search efforts of Interpol and the French police, Celia, along with her older son Oliver, undertakes her own search, only to find that the village where Benny vanished has its own chilling history, and her interference in the case will have grave and irreversible consequences. In the follow up to Audrey Braun’s bestselling debut, A Small Fortune, Celia discovers just how quickly everyone she loves can spiral toward a life—or death—that none of them could have seen coming.