It's January 2017 and a month has passed since Hawaiian PI Noelani Lee hit the big 4-0. As she looks forward to a weekend spent doing nothing, her plans take an unexpected turn when she reluctantly agrees to help Hilo's most prominent defense attorney clear the name of a man accused of stabbing his wife to death.

All he needs is sufficient reasonable doubt to save his client. But the accused killer's convoluted accounting of his actions on the night of the murder, including a scheduled appointment with a stranger who seemingly does not exist, is riddled with inconsistencies. Yet those same contradictions tease Noelani into wondering if he, in fact, could possibly have done it.

As the head-spinning investigation puts her on a collision course with a proud veteran police detective she both admires and respects, Noelani uncovers links connecting her case with the suicide of the attorney's wife and a murder from 1938. Peeling back the layers of time, Noelani wades into a deep gray sea of unknowns as she tries to square the past and the present with the truth.