Even in a drunken stupor it is hard for airline captain Cape Thomas to ignore his recurring vision of a beautiful woman and the swaddled baby she holds. On a rare, sober day he begins a casual search through college yearbooks and yellowed courthouse records in hopes of finding the one who got away. Instead, an unrecorded codicil suggests their one union was fruitful and reveals a possible heir to an old-moneyed family—a family used to scams and scammers making claims against the estate. After run-ins with a cabal of bankers, lawyers, in-laws, outlaws, and even the FAA, Cape begins to put the pieces of the puzzle together.