Bell Stark was tired of living in terror... She had done everything she could to protect herself, but it didn't help; the maniac who attacked her a year ago was still out there...watching her. When Belle discovers her lover's bloody corpse draped over the furniture, she finds herself suspected of murder and in the hands of a ghost from the past; a man she hoped she'd never see again. Having spent the last ten years erasing Detective Brian Cranston from her life (and heart) she has no intention of letting him back in. Brian Cranston had been a Portland cop for almost twenty years...hard years that not only took his love, but his dreams as well. When he woke up one morning forty and alone, he swore he'd never investigate another murder and walked away from Homicide without looking back. But this new case is different; Belle Stark is the prime suspect. His Belle Stark. He simply can't resist. Together, they uncover a mystery that reaches much deeper than the ravings of a lunatic. Unaware of their danger, they dive headlong into an investigation that leads them into a magical underworld that neither of them knew existed and a love that is poised under the knife of a madman.