The note simply read, Charlie did it... he had to... and now she's gone forever. It was housed in a sturdy metal box with a newspaper, a porcelain doll and a bloody knife buried eight feet below the ground, only reintroduced into the world when Nicole Willis and her family begin digging the basement for their new home, thrusting them head-long into a seventy-two year old mystery. Now, Nicole must delve deeply into the fractured mind of stroke victim in order to unravel the clandestine motives of what her husband's family covered up all those years ago. But the reality of how small town lives intertwine, like a writhing mass of snakes, slipping and gliding seamlessly over one another until you can't tell one from the next, continuously shields her from seeking out the one person with all the answers. Instead, she peels back layer after layer of veiled lies and cryptic half-truths in a race against time, convinced now that when they opened that box they let something or someone out.