DCI Crowe and his Sergeant Rolly Burke are investigating the disappearance of three-year-old Evie Mortimer from her home in the village of Brightworthy. Despite intensive searches and house-to-house inquiries, they're unable to discover a single clue to the girl's whereabouts, until one of Evie's pink shoes, the ones she was wearing the day she disappeared, is discovered in the alley behind the Mortimers' house, an area that's been searched and cleared more than once, an area that is under constant police surveillance. That can mean only one thing, or so it would seem. Just when Crowe and Burke think they've figured out what happened to Evie, the sequence of events and evidence takes a strange and disturbing turn. The clock is ticking on little Evie Mortimer and if Crowe and Burke can't find her, she may never be seen again ... alive.