Soon after investigation, led by Joona Linna, it is discovered that the murdered man also had an older daughter, Evelyn Ek, who was not found at the crime scene.

Afraid the daughter may be alive but in danger of being tracked by the murderer, Joona is desperate to question Josef but the boy is in shock and in no condition to be interrogated.

Erik initially refuses to perform the hypnosis (he had promised to never hypnotize a person again) but eventually gives in at the possibility of saving the sister's life.

Benjamin's girlfriend is Aida, who is a tattooed older girl with a mother with health issues and a younger brother, Nicky, who is mentally challenged.

It is revealed that Josef had violent tendencies in the past and had repeatedly molested Evelyn, asking for sexual favors.

As Evelyn's birthday approached, she ran away to her aunt's cottage to avoid Josef's sexual advances.

Joona takes the case and urges Erik to think back on people from his past who may have a reason to want to hurt him or his family.

During a group hypnosis session, a patient, named Lydia, describes taking actions to hurt her child in a cage.

Joona, Bark and Simone finally find Benjamin hidden in a cottage in the middle of the mountains close to a lake in time to save him from the madwoman, Lydia, who is going to "discipline" him by cutting off the tip of his nose with scissors, probably causing wounds which would have killed him.

Benjamin, thanks to the distraction of Lydia by one of his other captors, has run away from the cottage and is hiding in one of the vehicles, a bus, on the land, wrapped in a blanket to ward off hypothermia.

Erik is saved by a rope attached to a life preserver wrapped around him, with Simone and Benjamin pulling him up to safety.

The novel ends with the Bark family eating a meal at McDonald's on Christmas Eve, glad to be together but knowing that it will be a rough road ahead as they recover from the trauma they have gone through.