Cody Marsh's domineering, embittered mother is the only family she has ever known until her grandfather arrives on her doorstep. He brings with him the acceptance and kindness previously missing in Cody's life, and his death a short time after they meet leaves her empty and yearning.

Defying her mother for the first time in her life, Cody sets out for the boyhood home of her grandfather — Wallace, Idaho — to find connections to him, to find her place in her family, to find peace within herself.

Instead, her search lands her at the scene of a double homicide and Cody's discoveries of her grandfather's past become entwined in a history very much alive. The bordellos, politics, and silver mines of the past reach into the present, driving at least one of her new acquaintances to acts of desperation. Cody must find the strength to face not only private failures and the ghosts of old memories, but betrayal that will strike at her newfound courage.