In the five years since her young husband's death, Celia Cassill has retreated from view. She has moved from one New York neighbourhood to another, but she has not moved on. Now the owner of a small apartment building, she has chosen tenants who will not intrude upon her grief. Everything changes when a new tenant moves in upstairs. Intoxicating and dangerous, Hope is on the run from a failed marriage and in thrall to a seductive, sinister man. As her noisy affair destroys the building's quiet, and another tenant disappears, Celia is forced back into contact with life through violence, sex...