A woman commits suicide for no apparent reason. A week later, her son- fifteen year old Mark Underhill- vanishes. His uncle, novelist Timothy Underhill, searches his hometown of Millhaven for clues that might help unravel this hoorible dual mystery. He soon learns that a pedophillic murderer is on the loose in the vicinity, and that shortly before his mothers suicide, Mark had become obsedded with an abandoned house where he imagined the killer might have taken refuge. No mere empty building, the house whispers from attic to basement wiht the echoes of a long-hidden true life horror story, and Tim Underhill comes to fear that in investigating its unspeakable history, Mark stumbled across its last and greatest secret: a ghostly lost girl who may have coaxed the needy, suggestible boy into her mysterious domain.