Oh, God! She was buried alive! She pounded her fists on the lid of the casket, but even inside, the thick satin muffled the sound. Finally she screamed. Screamed until she was hoarse, until she couldn't scream anymore. And still she was alone.'
At a Manhattan party, fashion photographer Maggie Holloway is reunited unexpectedly with her former stepmother, Nuala, and their friendship is resumed. But when Maggie arrives for dinner one evening at Nuala's home, she finds her dead. Stranger still, she learns that only days before her death Nuala had changed her will, leaving everything to Maggie...
The only condition is that Maggie occasionally visits an old friend, Greta Shipley. It is when she accompanies Greta to visit Nuala's grave that she discovers something is badly wrong. When Greta also dies suddenly, of supposedly natural causes, Maggie's suspicions are confirmed.
But what Maggie doesn't realize is that she, too, has become a target for the killer, and that each clue she uncovers brings her closer to a terrifying fate...