In the dusty farming community of LaCrosse, Washington, art teacher Samantha Williams manages to save her students when an SUV crashes into the school. Her car isn’t so lucky. Oddly, her purse—containing her driver’s license, credit cards, and other identification—is missing from the wreckage, forcing her to rely on the kindness of strangers. Never one to trust easily, Samantha is thrust into a world far different from her simple life of jigsaw puzzles, children’s books, and lectures at the library.

One of the strangers who befriends her is a reporter from Spokane who is in town investigating two sets of skeletal remains that were recently discovered. When authorities discover that the driver in the school accident was shot before the crash, Samantha quickly becomes enmeshed in strange events, which turn ominous with the discovery of blackmail, murder, an abandoned town, and a secret government project.

Samantha has long tried to forget the tragedy of her past, but the links here can't be ignored. Yet these are secrets that others are determined to keep buried, and they’ll use any means necessary to stop Samantha’s search for truth.