Clancy Evans has been summoned back to McAdams County in the western North Carolina mountains by her friend, Starnes Carver to help locate a missing fourteen year old girl named Laurel Storm Shelton. This is the same forthright and independent young girl who helped Clancy a few years back hide her friend Rosey Washington in the forest of the Blue Ridge. Old now, and more independent, Laurel believes that her mother's latest boyfriend has evil on his mind after he made suggestive advances towards Laurel, her mother wouldn't believe her, and Laurel left via the mountain trails she knows so well. Clancy and Starnes have the task of finding Laurel before those who are after her get there first. The twists and turns of the story are as numerous as the twists and turns of the forest trails that Laurel follows seeking to escape her newly discovered enemies.
