Anne Sluti is a typical American teenager growing up in Kearney, Nebraska. Close friends, close family, hardworking and driven, Anne pushes herself for excellence in everything that she does, from her athletics to her honor-roll academics. The state championship in track & field is coming up, and Anne is about to learn that she has earned an academic scholarship that will allow her to attend the college of her dreams. But Anne’s life changes in a flash, when she is brutally assaulted and kidnapped from the local Hill Top Shopping Mall on April 6, 2001.

Local Detective and top hostage negotiator, Mike Timbrook, has the painful job of notifying the Sluti family that their beloved Anne is missing. Timbrook has known parents Don and Elaine Sluti, and son, Tom, on leave from military training, since before Anne was born. Timbrook is dedicated to protecting his own, but he has very little to go on. Witnesses saw Anne being beaten and driven off in an old Suburban, but nobody can say if Anne is dead or alive, least of all where she has been taken.