Winters Macklin, a widower whose wife died under questionable circumstances, is appointed to a church in Canaville, Tennessee. While there he learns about a teacher - Miss Holly - who was murdered about 25 years earlier at the local school, which is now abandoned. Her killer was never found. Locals claim her ghost haunts the school. After a youth group meeting at the church, one of the teen girls is murdered on her way home near the old school. The killing is very similar to the murder of Miss Holly. Naturally people wonder if it is the same killer returned or if it is the ghost of Miss Holly killing anyone who comes near the school. Curious about it all while dealing with the death and helping the church cope with the loss, Winters looks into the facts about the Miss Holly case and the newest murder. Soon, a second teenage girl is killed in the same brutal way. As all the speculation persists, Winters becomes suspect in both recent killings. As Winters continues investigating the local stories about Miss Holly's ghost and the recent murders, he meets and falls in love with Sydney Sharp, a young woman with an absent father, and who is a bit of an outcast because of her mother's eccentric behavior and because they are a lower income family. Together Winters and Sydney enter the old school and find indications that the ghost in the school is real. Meanwhile, a local police officer is moving forward to try to arrest Winters as a murder suspect. Soon a third teen girl is attacked but survives and claims she was attacked by the ghost. When Sydney is targeted as the next victim she is able to identify the assailant, Leigh Tumbrell, a woman from the church who is jealous of the girls. Winters is cleared of suspicion and is able to determine that another teacher was the man who killed Miss Holly all those years before.