Northern Ontario realtor Belle Palmer is showing the lakefront mansion of a prominent businesswoman when she discovers the lady strangled in her bathtub. Could this third break-and-enter death reveal a serial killer at large in the Nickel Capital? The woman's only child, a precocious twelve-year-old, comes to stay with Belle's neighbours and wins her heart and theirs. Then after an argument, the boy disappears, riding off into the cold September night on his bicycle. Racing against time as fall temperatures plummet, Belle hooks up with a bumbling PI and joins the search. Belle must flee into the bush, where she has every chance of becoming lost and disoriented, chased by murderers who will stop at nothing to protect a multi-million-dollar criminal empire.