Some secrets won’t stay buried… When people start to succumb to a virulent strain of plague in the seemingly idyllic hamlet of Stillness, the CDC is called in to investigate. Pulled from her training with the Epidemic Intelligence Service, Dr. Lynne Bosworth is tapped to head the investigation. Many questions surround the outbreak, not the least of which is how did plague find its way to the heartland of America? Determined to find the answers and her own way out of the long shadow cast by her father, Lynne embarks for Iowa. Unable to isolate an index case of bubonic plague, patient zero is traced to Nikolai Markov; an old Russian bio warfare scientist. Rumors of a bioterror attack are rampant. Under examination, the bacteria present Lynne with many anomalies but few answers. The antibiotic resistance noted in the field is absent in the lab, while a synthetic gene is found that seemingly has no purpose. For her superiors it’s enough to deem the outbreak a biological attack, a conclusion that Lynne does not share. For her, something about the whole incident remains…elusive. In search of evidence to either prove or disprove the bioterror claim, she crosses paths with FBI Special Agent Caleb Fine. Together, they come to believe that something other than a biological attack is going on in Stillness, and that the answer to what may lie in solving the fifteen year old murders of Bobby and Maggie Sullivan. As the body count rises and the pressure mounts, they delve deeper into the shadowy past of this quiet town; in the process exposing secrets long thought forgotten until finally uncovering the shocking truth behind the cause of the outbreak.

A killer is stalking the city… FBI Special Agent Caleb Fine—along with the rest of the nation—sees the enigmatic predator known as “The Toymaker” lurking in every shadow. Always just out of reach, with each new victim he nabs; Caleb loses more of himself to the pursuit of darkness. We have your wife… The blinking light on his answering machine reveals these four words to Roger Whittaker as he returns home. They are destined to change the rest of his life. Bo Lester from the Major Crimes Unit in Atlanta views the abduction of Miriam Whittaker as an inside job—someone at the CDC sold Roger out. For him the prime suspect becomes Lynne Bosworth. Her case is not helped by the animosity that has existed between her and Roger for the past six months. With few leads to follow, Bo demands that she return home from Peru—where she is stationed with the World Health Organization—to face questioning. Brought back to face the accusations she is aided in her defense by Caleb who works to free her and find out who is really behind Miriam’s abduction. As the pressure builds a single demand is delivered—Roger is to attend the International AIDS Conference in Toronto and renounce HIV as the cause of AIDS! Stunned by this demand and fighting interests from all sides, what is Roger to do? If he refuses to comply Miriam will die. If he endorses the claim millions more could die. Unless it’s true…

Hope is lost. On a small island off the coast of North Carolina the unthinkable has happened; 400 people have vanished without a trace. So far every government investigation has been stymied in their attempts to explain the sudden mass disappearance. Now as the public clamor for answers the very people tasked with finding them start to disappear as well, leaving many to wonder if what caused the vanishing is still lurking on the island? Consumed by darkness. Caleb Fine is a changed man. The events of Toronto have left him wracked by guilt and filled with a barely constrained rage. The search for the Toymaker is no longer about justice for him—the killer has made it deeply personal. Now nothing and no one—including the FBI—will stand in his way. In the realm of shadows… Following a trail of obscure riddles and scant clues, Caleb finally discovers where the Toymaker has gone to ground. With the aid of his partner, Li Ling Tran, he heads into the unknown to find that in the shadows of his soul, a promise softly spoken has become tragically true. Nothing will ever be the same again.