A teenage girl disappears, taken in broad daylight. Her small, central New England town reels, unsure whether she has been kidnapped or murdered. Without clues, the aging police chief is stymied, while her killer returns to his daily routine, satisfied the body he hid deep in the forest will never be discovered. He could not know that months later, two young high school girls would choose that very site for a science project on vernal pools, where each spring salamanders return to mate in the annual ritual known as the Salamander Crossing. Nor could he have imagined that the older sister of one is perhaps the most beautiful girl he has ever seen, a girl so perfect that he begins stalking her just as he stalked his last victim. Her rejection of him and his enraged response occur the following spring, and on the night of the salamander crossing, all hell breaks loose for everyone involved.