In the summer of 1994, the quiet seaside town of Orphea reels from the discovery of four murders. Two young police officers, Jesse Rosenberg and Derek Scott crack the case and identify the killer. Then, twenty years later and just as he is on the point of taking early retirement, Rosenberg is approached by Stephanie Mailer, a journalist who believes he made a mistake back in 1994 and that the real murderer is still out there, perhaps ready to strike again.

But before she can give any more details, Stephanie Mailer disappears, and Rosenberg and Scott are forced to confront the possibility that their error two decades ago may have had deadly consquences. What happened to Stephanie Mailer? What did she know? And what really happened in Orphea all those years ago?