Following a life-shattering accident, conscience-stricken Will Archer seeks refuge in a small Ohio River town, where he plans to live out his life as a virtual hermit. But a chance encounter with Essence Warner entangles him in a quest to discover the truth behind the cold case of her parents’ mysterious deaths. Nineteen years ago, when Essence was an infant, her socialite mother jumped from a suspension bridge, an apparent suicide. Her death followed a failed relationship with a promising young jazz musician, supposed victim of a heroin overdose. The musician’s mother, however, believes her son was murdered and hires newcomer Will as curator of a small museum dedicated to his memory, hoping he will uncover the truth behind her son’s death. As Will deciphers clues, he becomes more and more romantically entwined with Essence, forming a relationship that draws him into a sordid underbelly of small-town existence that threatens his own life. At the same time, he discovers a dark secret suggesting that Essence’s mother didn’t jump from the bridge by choice and that her father may have been poisoned, revelations that have the chance of setting Essence free of her own path to self-destruction. As dark, mysterious forces catch up with them, putting roadblocks in their plan to form a life together, Will harbors the fear that he and Essence will be unable to prevent a similar tragic fate of their own.