The Taken Ones

The novel opens in July 1980 in Leech Lake, Minnesota, where eight-year-old Rue Larsen walks toward a swimming hole with her five-year-old sister, Lily, and her friend Amber Kind. As the three girls reach the forest's edge, they sense something foreboding pushing them back, but Lily breaks the spell by grabbing their hands and pulling them inside. On the narrow path, Amber and Lily freeze, staring at something Rue cannot see. When Rue peers around a large tree, she is so terrified she wets herself. Amber groans a distorted line from "Skip to My Lou" in a voice that is not her own. That is the last thing Rue remembers about that day.

In the present, Evangeline "Van" Reed, an agent in the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) Cold Case Unit, is called to a homicide scene in the North Loop area of Minneapolis. Van, who volunteers at the Minneapolis Animal Haven shelter walking a large dog named MacGuffin, receives the call from her mentee, Agent Kyle Kaminski. A homeless veteran discovered a woman buried alive in an empty lot, but the victim died before he could free her. The woman lies in a four-foot-deep grave, bound with duct tape, her fingers worn to the bone from clawing at the earth. A shelf carved above her body once held boards designed to give her just enough air to suffocate slowly. The responding detective, Dave Comstock, is Van's former nemesis at the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD), who bullied her after the death of her partner, Detective Bart Lively. Comstock shows Van a half-heart charm necklace with the initials "AK" engraved on the back, matching Amber Kind.

Van carries heavy secrets. She grew up on Frank's Farm, a commune run by a charismatic patriarch named Frank Roth who abused the women and children living there. Van's closest friend on the Farm, a girl named Veronica, wrote about the abuse in a school essay. As punishment, Frank held Veronica underwater until she stopped moving, a process he called "baptism." Veronica sustained brain damage, and Van's guilt over watching without intervening still haunts her. Since childhood, Van has experienced lucid dreams: visions of real crimes that function as psychic intuition. Her partnership with Bart succeeded because he accepted her "hunches" and built cases from them. After Bart's death, Van used her visions to identify three active pedophiles and forced them to drink poison at gunpoint. She is the Sweet Tea Killer, named after the media's label for the unsolved murders, and keeps locks of hair from each victim as reminders.

Forensic scientist Harry Steinbeck arrives at the crime scene and takes charge of evidence collection. He and Van previously worked together in Costa Rica on the Sweet Tea Killer case, which was closed as a series of suicides. Harry notes circular indentations near the grave that Van recognizes as chair-leg marks: The killer forced the victim to watch him dig her grave. Van petitions Deputy Superintendent Ed Chandler to lead the reactivated cold case and receives the assignment.

The autopsy confirms the victim died of asphyxiation and that her dental records match Amber Kind's. Amber had been alive for over four decades, subjected to malnourishment and periodic physical abuse. Van and Harry interview Rue Larsen, who lives in a heavily fortified home, its sealed doors and motion sensors revealing a trauma survivor's constant vigilance. When Van acknowledges the "monster" who stole Rue's childhood, Rue relaxes enough to recall that the abductor mentioned "buried alive" and that she sensed the perpetrator was male. Rue also turns over her half-heart necklace, secretly kept from the evidence box as a child, and Harry joins the two halves, confirming a match.

The investigation fans out across the Leech Lake area. Amber's mother, Theresa Kind, reveals that Amber was "pliable" and would have followed anyone who asked. Rita Larsen, mother of Rue and Lily, recognizes a 1980 photo of Comstock as "Mr. Black," a man she saw visiting the Kind house just before the girls disappeared. Erin Mason, a BCA employee who grew up nearby, tells Van that local police barely investigated and seemed to cover something up. Meanwhile, interludes from the killer's perspective reveal he watched the crime scene from a six-inch crevice between two buildings, placed GPS trackers on Van's vehicles, and began fixating on her resemblance to "Lottie," a blonde childhood obsession who once fled from him in fear.

Van's recurring nightmares intensify throughout the investigation. She sees a woman in a crimson pantsuit descending into a basement where children weep behind locked doors, and a baby swaddled in a flowered blanket hidden beneath floorboards. These visions collide with reality when Van encounters State Senator Marie Rodin at the BCA and recognizes her as the woman from her nightmares. Van also realizes that Rodin's two adopted children are the same frightened kids she noticed at the animal shelter, where MacGuffin growled at them. After Van confides in Harry, he calls in the tip, and police discover Rodin's husband and both children in the basement, covered in bruises and burn marks.

A break in the cold case comes when Van discovers that Amber's father, Dr. Charles Kind, was not in surgery the day the girls disappeared; it was his own father, Dr. Quincy Kind. Van obtains a search warrant, but Comstock steps forward and arrests Kind, forcing Van's hand. The arrest proves premature: Kyle discovers Kind was at a hotel with his mistress that day. Chandler gives Van a twenty-four-hour ultimatum. Theresa Kind then confesses that Comstock was her secret lover. Amber walked in on them the morning of the abduction, and Theresa sent her daughter out, directly precipitating the trip to the woods. Comstock has concealed this connection for over 40 years.

Rue agrees to hypnotherapy and, under hypnosis, describes a figure pouring out of a hole in a tree "like water," a man she calls the Bendy Man. Harry identifies Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a genetic condition that in extreme cases allows a person to reshape their body by dislocating joints, as a possible explanation. This accounts for how the killer could hide inside a narrow tree hollow, a six-inch crevice, or an apartment vent. Van's theory about "invisible workers," service people who observe without being observed, pays off when her team cross-references building permits. One company, Koehler Construction, performed telephone pole installation in Leech Lake in 1980 and recent construction near the North Loop burial site. A single employee worked both jobs: Garrick McCormick, who changed his name to Jack Davis and moved to a rural farmhouse near Leech Lake.

Chandler removes Van from the case, but she defies the order and drives to McCormick's farmhouse. In a garden shed, McCormick hides inside a potbellied stove, exploiting his condition to compress his body. He reassembles himself and strikes Van with a hammer, gashing her head. Van fights back, sweeps his legs, and knocks him unconscious. She considers killing him but stops herself. Outside, Kyle, Comstock, and a uniformed officer arrive with shovels and pull Lily from a shallow grave, unconscious but breathing. Van and Harry then pry up floorboards in the farmhouse and find baby Daisy, Amber's infant, alive.

In the hospital, Lily explains that McCormick abducted her and Amber as children, kept them in his basement for years, and controlled them through threats of being buried alive. When Amber gave birth three months earlier, both women became defiant, prompting McCormick to murder Amber. Lily will live with Rue upon discharge, and the Kinds agree to let her keep baby Daisy temporarily. Harry reveals that his own sister, Caroline, disappeared in 1998 and was never found. Van and Harry then interview a delivery driver who claims to have seen a woman leaving Lester Dunne's house—Dunne being one of the three pedophiles Van had poisoned. The witness describes an "old, old lady," a description that does not match Van. Relieved, Van arranges for the witness to adopt MacGuffin from the shelter. In a brief epilogue, Harry watches Van sleep in his car, withholding something important that he fears could change her perception of him.