When Alex Delaware first saw Lauren Teague she was a sullen teenager with the usual problems: bad grades at school, moody, uncommunicative with her parents - which is why they thought she needed to see a psychologist.

Then years later, a shock: at a batchelor party for a fellow doctor, Delaware finds himself uncomfortably watching two strippers going through a degrading display - and one of them is Lauren Teague. And now her mother is pleading for help once again. Lauren has disappeared - and she thinks Delaware can find her. He's not so sure - but when her disappearance turns into a murder investigation, he knows he owes it to the dead girl to find out what demons drove her to such a horrifying end . . .