Only the grieving can relate to the massive hole left in your heart by the death of a loved one. Professor McManus attempts to leave a painful past behind her. She closes the door on all that is familiar and moves to Rivertown, Florida.

While taking her students on a field trip, Maggie finds the flamboyant director of sales and marketing, Hannah Johnson, lying on the floor in the hotel boardroom draped in a tablecloth with one shiny red high heel boot exposed— blood seeping from under the tablecloth a sure sign she's dead.

Recently appointed hotel manager, Trip Evans, is already enmeshed in a marketing challenge to overcome the unsavory past reputation of the newly renovated hotel; adding a dead body to the mix is sure to scare off customers.

The lackadaisical detectives assigned to the case seem to be making no headway, leaving Maggie and Trip no choice but to find the killer themselves.