The dark, cold waters of Puget Sound can hide its secrets for a long time until mysteries and old grudges arise like ghosts from a history long-forgotten. Alone on a pier in the predawn rain, Martha Whitaker waits in vain for her long-time friend and mentor, Hewitt Wilcox. Martha must navigate secrets new and old to clear her name and discover what’s happened to her missing friend. Before anyone else is killed. Resourceful, strong, and steeled by inner wounds, she's joined by a crusading journalist, who believes Hewitt's disappearance may reveal ugly secrets about a chapter of American history. Together they're drawn into a sinister world of forgery, murder, and betrayal, and Martha is forced to confront her own dark past, where violence provided primal justice.