When the fire alarm at a battered women's shelter goes off, counselor Kaye Berreano rushes to evacuate the residents, but she's too late. Her patient Mary Ellen is dead. Farrell, the skeptical arson investigator, believes Kaye knows who set the fire.

Farrell's main theory is that Mary Ellen, in a moment of suicidal crisis, set the fire herself. Kaye knows Mary Ellen was not suicidal.

Kaye launches her own investigation while dealing with Farrell, attending to her divorce and caring for two teenagers. From a roommate who fought with Mary Ellen, to another patient at the shelter who's in the safe house mistakenly by court order, to a fanatical minister from Mary Ellen's church who doesn't believe in divorce for any reason, Kaye discovers suspects and motives aplenty...while the truth remains just out of reach.