On the night of her 13th birthday Jane Howard made a vow to her warring parents - she would never marry or have children. Many years and many lives later she is a professor in Boston in love with a brilliant erratic man named Theo. And then Jane falls pregnant. Motherhood turns out to be a welcome surprise - but after a devastating turn of events she has no choice but to flee all she knows. Just when she has renounced life itself the disappearance of a young girl pulls her back from the edge. Convinced that she knows more about the case than the police do she is forced to make a decision - stay hidden or bring to light a shattering truth.