When Max Savage opens his practice in a remote, seductively beautiful bayou town, he hopes it's the start of a new life. He's got his reputation as a skilled surgeon, his two brothers by his side and a fresh chance here in the sultry heat of Toussaint. But soon Max discovers he can't escape a past riddled with accusations of murder...or the faces of two dead women. Especially since another woman is missing, and he was the last to see her alive.

Annie Duhon knows all about nightmares that shatter life's dreams and the need to escape the past. But her fascination with Max grows, even when disturbing rumors start to surface and her darkest visions seem to play out in living color. Can she trust Max with her secrets and her deepest desires? Or is he the specter she sees when she sleeps--a killer stalking women with his cleansing fi re? Is she about to become his next victim?

The object of obsessive hatred, Max is a marked man who has unwittingly attracted danger to anyone he's cared about. Now he loves Annie, and knows with chilling certainty that he faces one last chance to unmask a killer before there's nothing left to fi ght for.