It is the dead of winter. In Omaha, Nebraska's north downtown, homeless men are disappearing. Alex Capstain sees it when no one else does because he lives among them. For nearly two years he has called a doghouse home. After losing everything to a failing economy, he's working his way off the street one recycled can and odd job at a time. Days away from taking the first big steps toward his dream of indoor living and a reunion with a daughter lost in divorce many years before, he's beaten, robbed and left for dead. The driver of a church van comes to his rescue. Alex has no way of knowing the ride will put him on a collision course with a monster and the decades-old web of murder, corruption and greed that set him loose on the world.