It’s a foggy early September evening when Dr. Maslow Atkins, a psychoanalytic candidate and student, is assaulted and disappears in Central Park. The only people who know what happened to him are Pee Wee, an inebriated homeless man hoping for a handout; Brandy and David, two wealthy private school kids who roam the Internet and Central Park; and Allegra, Maslow’s disturbed young patient who’s obsessed with him.

Investigating outside her jurisdiction of Midtown North and without authority in the sacred confines of the Central Park Precinct, NYPD Detective Sergeant April Woo prompts a media frenzy and the rage of the whole department with a K-9 search that yields nothing. Nothing, that is, except the keen interest of Brandy and David, who think they can tease the cops, bluff the tracking dog, and get away with murder.

April’s gut instinct still tells her that Maslow is alive, and she won’t stop until she finds him. Working against the clock and demons of her own, she and psychoanalyst Dr. Jason Frank become embroiled in a surprising and lethal tangle of family secrets and adolescent rage. Nobody escapes unscathed, for no family’s story is as innocent as it seems.