Maris Matherly-Reed is a renowned New York book editor, the daughter of a publisher and the wife of bestselling author Noah Reed. It isn't often that an unsolicited submission so captivates her that she feels she must immediately meet its author. But Maris has just received a tantalizing partial manuscript submitted by a writer identified only as P.M.E., with the return address of an obscure island off the Georgia coast. P.M.E.'s blockbuster potential - and perhaps something else - compels Maris to search for him.
On an eerie, ruined cotton plantation, she finds Parker Evans a man determined to conceal his identity as well as his past. Working with him chapter by chapter, Maris is riveted by his tale of two friends who charter a boat with a young woman for a night of revelry ... an excursion from which only one person returns.
As the story unfolds, Maris becomes convinced it is more than just fiction. Disturbed about her growing attraction to Parker and gripped by a chilling suspicion about his novel's characters, she searches for the undisclosed truth about a crime committed decades ago. Then someone close to her dies, while even closer looms the presence of evil - a man who will use her, or anyone, to get what he wants ...