Content Warning: This section of the guide contains descriptions of suicide, abuse, physical and sexual violence, and torture. The source text also draws on stereotypes about mental health conditions to explain criminal behavior.

The novel opens in a Los Angeles neighborhood. A badly injured teenage boy named Scott Harden walks up to a house. Inside the home, Nita Harden is grieving the loss of her son, who has gone missing and is presumed to have been killed by the Bloody Heart Killer, a serial killer who has been targeting teenage boys in Los Angeles. She expects that her son’s body will turn up any day now, but suddenly, she hears Scott’s familiar ring at the front gate of the house. Nita runs outside to find that her son Scott has come home.

Psychiatrist Dr. Gwen Moore, who specializes in criminal behavior and treats patients who have violent tendencies, is listening to a voicemail from one of her patients, John Abbott. Based on recent sessions, she is worried that he will kill his wife, Brooke. Gwen has been treating him for over a year and has determined that he has pathological jealousy and obsessive fears that his wife will leave him for another man.