Aurora Teagarden is basking in her new pregnancy when disaster strikes her small Georgia town: 4 kids vanish from school. Aurora’s 15-year-old brother Phillip is one of them. And then there’s a worse discovery—at the kids’ last known destination, a dead body.

While the local police comb the county, Aurora and her new husband begin their own investigation. Could it have anything to do with bullies at the middle school? Is Phillip’s disappearance related to Aurora’s father’s gambling debts? Or is Phillip himself responsible for taking the other children?

With Christmas approaching, Aurora is determined to find her brother.