One of fiction's mega-stars delivers an engrossing tale of unpredictable, haunting suspense. When a convicted killer escapes from prison he sets into motion two seemingly unrelated events: the reopening of an unsolved murder case and the unheralded arrival of a drifter with the key to solving it.
A drifter working as a ranch hand in East Texas must protect a widow and her young son from the ruthless criminal who is determined to destroy them.

Carl Herbold is a cold-blooded psychopath who has just escaped the penitentiary where he was serving a life sentence. Bent on revenge, he's going back to where he began: Blewer County, Texas.

Born deaf and recently widowed, Anna Corbett fights to keep the ranch that is her son's birthright, unaware that she is at the center of Herbold's horrific scheme -- and that her world of self-imposed isolation is about to explode . . .

When drifter Jack Sawyer arrives at Anna's ranch asking for work, he makes it his mission to protect the innocent woman and her son from Herbold's rage. But Sawyer can't outrun the secrets that stalk him -- or the day of reckoning awaiting them all.