The accident resulted in another employee found trampled to death, and Alice sustained a head injury.

Jenna's father and Alice's husband, Thomas Metcalf, develops manic depression and is taken to a mental institution.

After Jenna's 13th birthday, she sets out to find her mother and convinces two adults to help her: Virgil, a former detective, and Serenity, a psychic who had lost her ability to connect to the beyond.

This makes Virgil believe that Thomas acted out because there was suspicion that Alice had been having an affair with another worker at the elephant sanctuary, Gideon.

Serenity needs a strong presence to be able to communicate with the dead, so they go to spot in the elephant sanctuary that had a special meaning for Alice.

After thinking they were alive for the previous ten years, both of them are able to move onto the spirit realm, teaching Serenity that she hadn't lost her psychic gift.

Shortly after, Jenna's body is found near the scene of the accident, and the case is finally put to rest.

[15] The Boston Globe notes, "Picoult does her homework, and her main themes are thoroughly researched and engrossingly presented.