On the windscreen of his SUV, Billy finds the first note:
‘If you don’t take this note to the police and get them involved, I will kill a lovely blonde schoolteacher somewhere in Napa County. If you do take this note to the police, I will instead kill an elderly woman active in charity work. You have six hours to decide. The choice is yours.’
Billy thinks the note is a hoax. The schoolteacher dies.
More communications from the killer follow, more hideous choices, with ever tighter decision times, and with each choice Billy is drawn deeper into an accelerating nightmare, which steadily becomes more confrontational, until he is isolated, with no one to turn to and no one to rely on but himself. Finally he must risk everything to save the intended victims …