Beth Rivers is still in Alaska. The unidentified man who kidnapped her in her home of St. Louis hasn't been found yet, so she's not ready to go back. However, as October comes to a close, Benedict is feeling more and more like her new home. Beth has been working on herself: She's managed to get back to writing, and she's enjoying these beautiful months between summer and winter in Alaska. But everything in Benedict changes after a mudslide exposes a world that had been hidden for years. Suddenly, two mud-covered and silent girls appear, and a secret trapper's house is found in the woods. The biggest surprise, though, is a dead and frozen woman's body in the trapper's shed. No one knows who she is, but the man who runs the mercantile, Randy, seems to be in the middle of all the mysteries. Unable to escape her journalistic roots, Beth is determined to answer the questions that arrive: Are the mysterious girls and the frozen body connected? Can Randy possibly be involved? And - most importantly - can she answer these questions before the cold wind sweeping over the town and the townspeople descends for good?