Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of bullying, sexual content, cursing, illness, graphic violence, disordered eating, and death.

April Masterson is in her kitchen recording a video for her YouTube channel, April’s Sweet Secrets. She posts videos of herself baking different desserts, with “secrets” for her thousands of viewers on how to make them better.

When April finishes, she checks her phone. She has a message from an unknown number asking her, “Want to know a secret?” and then telling her that her “son isn’t where [she] think[s] he is” (8-9). She goes into the backyard, but her seven-year-old son, Bobby, isn’t there. Her husband, Elliot, who is preparing to go to work, joins her. They search for Bobby but cannot find him anywhere in the backyard.

Panicked, April texts the number back, demanding to know who it is. However, she gets no response.

April goes to her friend Julie Bressler’s house. Bobby and Julie’s son, Leo, are best friends, and their house is only a few doors away. However, when she gets there, their house is empty.

Seeing the new neighbor’s mailbox with the name “Cooper” on it, April realizes that she has never even met them.