Vega Stern, of art historian and mother, tries to live her dream as a writer in the countryside of France. After finding the body of a young woman at the spring of the medieval monastery of Saint Odile in the Alsace, Vega becomes entangled in the murder case and gets more and more deeply drawn into the dark and mysterious past of the victim, who is identified as Sarah Parker. Vega is fascinated by her tragic life, which was marred by disturbing childhood memories, paranoia, restlessness, art theft during the Nazi era, and drug abuse. A second murder of the victim’s landlady in Strasbourg provides the clue that the solution to the mystery can only be found through art.