Holly Gibney of the Finders Keepers detective agency sees footage of a horrific school bombing on TV. She suspects that there is something odd about the reporter Ondowsky who was first on the scene and that he may be a supernatural 'outsider'. Holly makes contact with an elderly former policeman who believes that the reporter feeds on the fear of traumatic emotions, and Holly realises that Ondowsky must be stopped. She, Barbara, and Jerome must all work together to take down Ondowsky.

Gibney is one of King's recurring characters, having appeared in his Bill Hodges trilogy (Mr. Mercedes, Finders Keepers and End of Watch), and in The Outsider.