In the summer of 1994, the quiet seaside town of Orphea reels from the discovery of a quadruple murder. Two young police officers, Jesse Rosenberg and Derek Scott, crack the case and identify the killer. But twenty years later, just as he is on the point of taking early retirement, Rosenberg is approached by Stephanie Mailer, a journalist who believes he made a mistake back in 1994: the real murderer is still out there, perhaps ready to strike again. Before she can give any more details, Stephanie Mailer mysteriously disappears, and Rosenberg and Scott are faced with the awful possibility that her suspicions might have been well founded. What happened to Stephanie Mailer? What did she know? And what really happened in Orphea all those years ago?