Crime begins in the mind. Through seven successive bestsellers, child psychologist Jonathan Kellerman has used his intimate knowledge of human nature to create some of the most brilliantly deceptive, emotionally gripping storylines in suspense fiction today. Now his psychologist-detective Dr. Alex Delaware become caught up in a case as chilling and harrowing as any he has ever faced. Twenty-one-month-old Cassie Jones is bright, energetic, and as perfect to look at as a porcelain doll. But her pediatrician, Dr. Stephanie Eves, is baffled and disturbed at the ordeal that has dominated her young patient's life. Over the past eighteen months, Cassie has been rushed to the emergency room at Western Pediatrics Hospital with alarming frequency, suffering from a variety of medical symptoms. Each time Cassie is admitted, Dr. Eves struggles to come up with a diagnosis. Each time she fails. In the wake of yet another crisis, she calls in her old friend and colleague, Dr. Alex Delaware. Although there is no concrete evidence, Alex's instinct tells him someone is deliberately attempting to make Cassie ill. To his horror, heading up the list of suspects are Cassie's parents, Chip and Cindy Jones. But when he meets the pair, he finds an attractive, caring couple - loving parents, helpless and frightened, reaching out for the answer to their daughter's tribulations. And the more time Alex spends at Western Pediatrics, the more convinced he becomes that something very disturbing is going on in the hospital itself. Years ago Alex had begun his career at Western Peds, but the place to which he returns makes him feel like a stranger: security is being enforced by a squadron of stony-faced centurions. Doctors and nurses are demoralized and are leaving in droves. A dark wariness pervades a once upbeat place, perhaps brought on by the hospital's crushing financial problems