Hayden Knight is not an ordinary detective. He sees things in slightly different ways; a little sharper, a little closer to the truth. He trusts his gut instincts implicitly, and he has never been wrong. His personal life is full of tragedy, yet he manages to get through it with integrity, grace, a bottle of bourbon and a few packs of cigarrettes a day. After a messy homicide case that nearly got him and his partner killed, Hayden resigned from the police force and opened up his own business. It's been three pretty quiet years, with the exception of his nightmares. But one stormy morning changes that. Forever.
Hayden wakes up in his office one morning to discover that his best friend has been murdered. He's convinced Taren Chase's death is related to a series of bizarre murders Taren was investigating. The offical ruling on Taren's death is that it was an accident. Hayden knows better. With the help of a thief and an investigative reporter, Hayden sets out to discover the truth and ends up with something much bigger.
The police don't want to believe Father Bailey Nicholson when he tells them that two alter boys are missing and might be in garbage bags in the basement of St. Peter of the Rock. But Father Bailey knows what he saw. Hayden and Conrad agree to look into the situation while Hayden continues to deal with the deaths of Taren and Sky, his wife and the bottle of bourbon he can't get rid of and Conrad slides further down the slope that makes him truly the Angry One.
It's not that Hayden doesn't like Halloween. He's just not having a good day. It could be worse. He could be Conrad. Conrad's really having a bad day. It might be just a harmless Halloween prank, but when a kid with green skin asks Hayden to help him find his sister, it turns into something a little more sinister.
When a young woman is found brutally murdered outside of The Kitchen, the club's owner believes that the lead singer and guitarist of a band that has been playing there has something to do with it. The police conclude the woman was mauled by an animal, so the club owner goes to Hayden for help. Hayden suspects as the police do, but he's sure the singer, who calls himself Cain, knows something. The problem is Hayden can't get to Cain to talk to him. When Cain starts showing up in Hayden's dreams, he starts to uncover a past of two heartbreaking tales, a vengeful spirit and an eager killer.
When Conrad's father dies under mysterious circumstance, Conrad stops at nothing to prove that the death was murder and to point the finger at the responsible party. Hayden has to stay a few steps ahead of Conrad to keep Conrad from making the wrong moves. What they find will be too big for either of them to handle on their own and may even end up killing one of them.
After four months spent in seclusion, Conrad returns to San Desperado with a plan for revenge. Nothing, not even Hayden, can keep Conrad from destroying his father's murderer. When Conrad kidnaps Tyrone McGannon and Julian, Hayden has to resort to drastic measures to save their lives.
Something is killing children as they sleep. They are being found in their beds, half eaten, with no evidence of forced entry to the homes. One boy survives, rescued by a mysterious woman with peacock feathers on her face. Hayden doesn't think that whatever is killing the kids is human or animal. But things are happening in a place he can't go, so he enlists the help of the dead and the unbalanced.
