It's 1983. Molly Martindale, a young and somewhat insecure community newspaper reporter with her own "bitter secret," cannot turn loose of a 40-year-old mystery she discovers in her small south Central Florida town. She accidentally hears about the existence of the Parker family in Oxbow from the 1920s-'40s. She is told they left-packed up and moved to Georgia to take over the family farm in 1943, never to return to Oxbow. But if that's so, why is everyone so reluctant to talk about them? Why does a 13-year-old girl's diary from 1943 hold such sway over her? And why do ghostly faces torment her so? Who are they? What is it they want?
Unable to loosen the hold these horrific yet hypnotic faces have on her, Molly takes the only path she can. She determines to find out everything she can about the family. That quest takes her to Georgia to find the Parker family farm.
There, Viet Nam veteran Glenn Morrison, himself digging out of an icy hell, would offer support for Molly in her lonely pursuit. A feisty old fundamentalist lady with a long memory and a reformed alcoholic also help her along in their own way. At home in Oxbow, old friend Franklin Brown and Dutch, her chocolate Labrador retriever, steady her nerves as she tries to stay on track to find the answers that elude her.