Nina Cassavant

A village schoolteacher, unaware that Eben, the village carpenter, is in love with her, marries a surveyor and has a son, David. Eben, distraught at losing her, goes away, and he returns years later to find that David, now an orphan, is running away from his cruel foster father, the squire. Eben befriends David, and when the town is destroyed by a storm the two escape harm. An epilog shows David 25 years later as a successful businessman, happily married, helping to rebuild the town.

Janet Dale feels that there is a danger looming over her home but cannot put her finger on what it is. Days later her father disappears at her 18th birthday party; dematerializing into thin air before her eyes. She sets out to find him and grapples wit mobsters, psychics, murder, and family secrets.