Three years after Frank Gunn's wife pulled his service pistol at the local carnival and set events in motion that stained everyone involved with an eight-year-old boy's blood, Frank's life has fallen apart around him—he is on voluntary leave from the police department, the media has made him look like a fool, and his marriage has gone to hell. Worst of all, the boy, Jeremy Chambers, lies in a coma and Frank is the only person who feels a responsibility to visit him.

Haunted by nightmares that increasingly bleed into his waking life, Frank finds himself once more on a collision course with the boy's murderous father, not to mention a phantom he feels he should somehow know. Whether this trail of blood and tears will redeem him, or end in his damnation, Frank cannot know until the last mile has been traveled.