Don't look back

Twenty-five years after Walter Bowman abducted her, Eliza Benedict has built a settled life in a comfortable Washington suburb, with a prosperous husband and children. That calm ends when a letter arrives from the man she least expected to hear from, and she would rather never have heard from at all. In the summer of 1985, Eliza was fifteen when Bowman kidnapped her during a sexually motivated spree that targeted young girls.

Bowman is now awaiting lethal injection on death row, and he says he wants to reach out to Eliza so he can atone before his execution. Eliza is wary but eventually allows him into her life, first through letters and then in person. He insists he has changed, yet it soon becomes clear that he is pursuing a goal he has not openly admitted. Calculating and controlling, he is at his most dangerous when frustrated, and he is determined to get what he is after.

Worse, Bowman appears to have an accomplice on the outside who knows intimate details of Eliza's life, including where she lives. As he begins to regain his grip on her, Eliza must summon every bit of her resilience and judgment in a struggle between hunter and hunted, and she has to confront the past directly to survive.