In 1999, Macey Lee Baker is a real estate saleswoman in Capwater, Florida; happy in her Christian faith and in her marriage to her husband, Kyle. She's many miles and a lifetime away from her impoverished, rural upbringing in the farming community of Mountain Rose, Ohio. But when Macey Lee's sister Betsy suggests they go back to Ohio to visit siblings, a terrible memory surfaces…the death of their 10-year-old brother Jeremy back in 1954. And with that memory comes another long-buried thought…that their brother's death was no accident. 

In 1954, Macey Lee's missing brother was found in a neighbor's cattle pond, naked and lifeless, his clothes tidily folded up in a pile nearby. And though the authorities deemed it an accidental drowning, Macey Lee's devastated mother knew in her heart that her shy little boy, who couldn't swim, would never have stripped naked to go into the pond and that he certainly wouldn't have folded up his clothes so nicely. Even as she'd gone to her grave, years later, she'd been convinced that there was more to the story. And now that Macey Lee is back in Ohio, she becomes determined to solve the mystery at last. 

As Ohio's balmy, beautiful summer turns into the icy blizzards of winter, Macey Lee takes time away from her career and her marriage to get to the bottom of the mystery that has always nagged at the back of her mind. She and Betsy begin questioning townspeople about their memories of that terrible day in 1954. 

With every step into their investigation, Macey Lee and Betsy bump up against dead ends; lost police records, witnesses changing stories, and missing evidence.