Dr. Rhea Lynch left a suffocating life in Charleston to practice medicine in the ER of a small South Carolina Hospital. Now, Dawkins County is her home, a place that holds the only real family she's ever known. But when she returns from vacation, Rhea is shocked to discover that her best friend, Marisa, is near death and unable to communicate. The official diagnosis: a paralyzing stroke. Despite the family's attempts to keep her away, Rhea is determined to make her own diagnosis. In a surreptitious examination, a hideous truth is revealed. Then a man is brought into her ER with similar symptoms. And then another. Each one of her patients has been willfully, brutally, silenced in a most inhuman way. Desperate to find answers, Rhea must determine who she can trust, as a powerful conspiracy threatens the people she loves-and perhaps the entire community. (Book 1 of the Rhea Lynch, M.D. Series)