After one of his fellow teachers is killed on the schoolyard during a fight between two students, a veteran former teacher kidnaps four troublesome students and holds them in an abandoned private school, where he chains them while he forces them to read history lessons.

An old neighborhood has suddenly seen a huge upsurge in violent crime committed against its homeowners, including murder. Keller and Stone find that it may be tied to the fact that all the people in the neighborhood had been approached by a real estate agent making substantially high offers to buy their properties, and that the agent is working for a major corporation.