As she is leaving, a man grabs her arm. He tells her that she is under arrest and that he is an FBI agent. He tells her that he can keep her from going to jail but she will have to go with him to Atlantic City to talk to a judge. Sally doesn't know what to do but agrees to tell her mother that a friend asked her to spend a week there with her family. The man calls Sally's mother and charms her, telling her to meet him with Sally at the bus station.
But of course, the man isn't an FBI agent and Sally's mother has just handed her daughter over to a pedophile who has kidnapped a girl before. When the man finds that Sally has managed to send her mother information, he moves with her to Baltimore. There Sally is locked in an attic room during the long summer days and subjected to heinous attentions at night. Once Baltimore gets too dangerous, he moves them to Texas then eventually to California.
Sally never knows who she can trust and he tells her that he will kill her family if she tells anyone. Along the way, she occasionally tries to find someone who can help, but it never works out. There is a nun in Baltimore, a circus lady and a neighbor in the Texas trailer park but somehow Frank, her captor, always knows when help is near. Eventually, after two years, Sally is rescued when she finds the courage to trust someone.
This novel is based on a true case and Sally Horner is a real person as was her victimizer. The other characters are mostly made up but the fear and longing that Sally experiences is real. This case is one of the inspirations behind the infamous novel Lolita. Sally is stripped of her home, her name and her innocence. This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction.
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