When Avery Archer, an eleven-year-old boy, telephones Ken Driscoll, a young accountant, and pleads for help in escaping from his kidnappers, Ken thinks the boy is playing a sick prank. But after several daily calls, Ken truly believes the boy is in danger. When Ken contacts the local police for assistance, he learns Avery was abducted sixty-seven years ago and eaten by alligators in a nearby lake. Were they just prank telephone calls in the middle of the night, or was it a desperate cry for help? The calls eventually force Ken to examine what is important in his life. His job? His relationship with his fiancée? Or the life of the boy at the end of the telephone line?