The birth of Edie Jackson's baby will at last make the population of tiny Dumford, Kansas a thousand people, a number they would have reached a month ago if the latest baby born hadn't disappeared from its crib a day after arriving home. Edie's brother, police officer Ben Portlock is beginning to realize someone in their secretive little town has a thing for killing pregnant animals and he's worried, not just because his sweet scatterbrained sister Edie is close to her due date, but because his old flame Lura Taylor has come home to Dumford after spending eight years in prison for killing her father. Ben knows which direction wagging fingers will begin to point once the people in town realize there is someone among them with a taste for grisly death. He has a problem with that, not because he feels guilty that Lura was jailed over his testimony, but because he realizes he still loves her and this time will do anything he can to protect her.
