They say you can't go back, but as soon as Cassandra Sharell learns of the death of her beloved great aunt, she knows she must do just that. After three years away from her family home, Montsharell, the time has come to face her oldest brother, Rex, and perhaps resolve their differences. And it's time to lay to rest her guilt at 'abandoning' her younger sister, Vinnie, by leaving her under the same brotherly control Cass herself had been so determined to escape.
At least she could take some comfort from the fact that their other brother, Augie, would be there as well, always understanding and ready to lend moral support.
But when she and Augie arrive at the Redmont Airport, he bails out immediately to keep an 'appointment' somewhere, leaving Cass to deal with their luggage and the reunion with Rex on her own. And this, she soon realizes, is just the beginning of the eye-opening realities waiting for her at Montsharell. Augie's mysterious and frequent errands 'to town', Vinnie's unpredictable behavior, and the housekeeper's dark predictions are unsettling to say the least.
A high tech experiment on nearby Council Lake, a break-in at a lab on the Redmont University campus, the opening of a new Art Museum and the handsome stranger who comes to her aid at the airport, then keeps popping up when she lest expects it, have absolutely no connection with Cass and her family. Or have they?
Slowly drawn into a web of deception, villainy and danger, Cass finds herself moving toward a disaster she could never have imagined when she fled three years earlier to take control of her own life.