When beautiful Audra Campbell returned to the town she had lived in with her aunt, after having been gone for several years, the first bit of gossip she heard was that Martin Satterfield was recently widowed, following the untimely, and suspicious death of his late wife.

Audra had never cared for the hostile, dark, brooding man, and liked his late wife even less. In spite of her Aunt Celeste's staunch loyalty to him, Audra can't help but question whether the volatile, intimidating master of Hawthorn Manor had anything to do with Darlene Satterfield's sudden demise.

A relentless, but inadequate detective is bent on proving that Martin Satterfield is guilty, but finds himself in the crosshairs of a man who prefers being the predator, rather than the prey.

The lone descendant, and heir to the Satterfield fortune now roams the many hallways of the impressive, but silent, isolated Hawthorn Manor, surrounded by miles of fields, and meadows, and the graves of all those who had loved him, but left him.

Martin's secret dread is living out his remaining years by himself, and dying alone, yet he remains disturbingly forbidding and aloof, and Audra wonders if the master of Hawthorn Manor deserves his fate.