Hallie Fields is a successful freelance magazine writer whose work and personal life are beginning to dangerously blur. First Hallie finds herself - against her better judgment - getting involved with the subject of her most recent profile, the charming, seductive Dexter St. John. Then there is Emma Weill, a successful young adult author and childhood acquaintance of Hallie's, who is being proposed by Hallie's editor as the perfect subject of her next magazine piece. Emma Weill, with a husband, children, and a rewarding career, appears to have it all. But when Hallie agrees to stay with the Weills at their summer house, she begins to notice cracks in the fairy tale. The seemingly perfect husband can't keep his eyes off Hallie, an indiscretion that doesn't go unnoticed by Emma. The reasons for her violent jealousy, which Hallie had thought were just the reactions of an insecure woman, become more and more apparent. Then, as Hallie is awakened in the middle of the night to the piercing sound of Emma's scream, she begins to realize that digging into other people's lives - even in the name of a good story - can be deadly.