A race for life as a girl's kidnapping reveals her family's tainted past and a disreputable ex-police negotiator becomes her only hope for survival. Anne Carson: fifteen, beautiful, wayward and abducted. Her rich family has closed ranks and summoned Frank Calder, ex-soldier and sacked police hostage negotiator. They want him to deliver the ransom money to the kidnappers. Frank wants them to call in the law, but the family refuses, since police bungling nearly cost the life of another Carson child kidnapped years before.