The Seventh Victim

Mary Gibson, a student at a private girls' school, was raised by her older sister, Jacqueline Gibson, her only living relative. Mary leaves school and heads to New York when she discovers, when her tuition has not been paid by Jacqueline for six months, that Jacqueline has gone missing. Infrequently hearing from Jacqueline anyway, Mary discovers how little she knew Jacqueline in following leads in locating her: she sold her thriving cosmetics/beauty business La Sagesse to an associate named Esther Redi eight months ago, had been seriously dating a lawyer named Gregory Ward, who has also been looking for her, and had talked about killing herself, a manifestation being a noose she has hanging in an unused room she apparently rents. Besides Gregory, others that Mary meets help her in any way they can, they including: a private detective named Irving August, the Italian owners of Dante's, Giacomo and Bella Romari, Dante's where Jacqueline was known to frequent, and a poet named Jason Hoag, another of Dante's regulars. One of the discovered paths leads to a psychiatrist named Dr. Louis Judd, who admits that he has been treating Jacqueline. However, they are certain that Dr. Judd is not telling them the entire story about Jacqueline, Dr. Judd who Jason believes has ties to Miss Redi. Ultimately, this group is drawn into a world of the occult, specifically a group of devil worshippers, Jacqueline who may be among their ranks.