Retired army officer and former military policeman, "Max" Maxwell, lives and works in a suburb of Seattle, Washington, where he settled down to open a private investigation business. When a SCUBA diving buddy, who is also a teacher and counselor at the local high school, dies in a diving mishap, Max does not accept the verdict of an accidental drowning and digs into the death. What he finds is that his friend led a secret life—one that, if revealed, will shake the very foundations of the school and the community. As Max gets closer to the truth, he discovers that he knows too much about some parts of his new hometown and much too little about others...