How would you feel if your wife has disappeared and you hear nothing from her for two years until, arriving home from work one day, you find her in the kitchen cooking your meal and behaving as if nothing has happened? The events surrounding the Piper Archer case baffle Private Investigator Richie Stevens and his PA Sandy Smith. Why would a woman leave a happy marriage to a wealthy, intelligent, man without a word of explanation and why is Beresford Archer so insistent that his wife has returned to Elm Tree house, when he appears to be the only one who has seen her? This story is told from multiple perspectives as each character gives their own version of events. The garrulous Serena is puzzled why Piper, her sister, hasn't contacted her to let her know she's alive and concludes she must be dead. The police believe Beresford Archer's wife has run off with someone she met on the Internet. But Piper's husband thinks this is unlikely and as his friendship with Isobel Myers grows stronger, he becomes certain Serena's version of events is plausible and he has to move on with his life and forget the past. However, he has no premonition when, on a perfectly ordinary day, he returns from work to find his wife cooking a meal for him in the kitchen and behaving as if the past two years have never occurred. In a daze, he does as she suggests, whilst she pours him a drink, then returns to the kitchen to find an empty house and a meal cooking in the oven. As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that all it not what it seems; there are threads of a back-story to pick up and versions of the truth to establish before culminating in a satisfactory conclusion.