Phoenix, Paul Rice's spirit sidekick, is helping Paul check out the Fullbright estate for any haunting evidence Finding none; Paul leaves, but Phoenix stays and wanders outside the house to the estate grounds where she comes across the spirit of a young, nine-year-old girl, who isn't sure of her name or what happened to her or why she's there on the estate. after talking to her, Phoenix suspects that something bad has happened to the girl but doesn't know what, and the girl doesn't remember anything. So Phoenix takes her to Pual and asks him to help her find out what happened to the girl, Paul starts digging and soon find that other young girls, much like the one Phoenix found, have encountered the same circumstances - they all have suddenly disappeared from their normal without a trace of what happened to them. The author resides in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and has been hooked on mysteries and supernatural thrillers since reading his first H.P Lovecraft novel. He has written seventeen novels and a book of short stories, fourteen of them are Paul Rice novels, his reluctant paranormal investigator. Although two of the Rice novels feature his war buddies, he is still a major part of the story, which is important to the Rice series.