Three members of the same family and a family friend all disappear without trace. Their home is found to be laden with pools of blood. For three days, police and the local community search for them. Then a Walmart bag left in the house leads police to the home of 30-year-old tree surgeon Matthew Hoffman, where they discover one of the most bizarre and horrifying crime scenes in recent American history.

Throughout Apple Valley, Ohio, the hunt is on for two women and two schoolchildren missing, with a grizzly crime scene left behind at their home. There is blood everywhere. And it is a race against time. Are they already dead? Police have a suspect, Matthew Hoffman, in custody and are trying to get him to talk. Where are they? What has he done to them? They have every reason to be worried: in a fetid, dark basement 13-year-old Sarah Maynard has been found: her hands tightly bound and taped. He has not killed her, but what about the others? Expert teams use every trick in the book to get Hoffman to talk. He is the only who knows what has happened. As the hours tick by, interrogators know that they will be dead for sure unless Hoffman talks.