In the small town of Branfield, Georgia, the residents are shocked by a heinous, unspeakable crime against a mute, bedridden patient at the local medical center. The only person who might hold the key to the identity of her assailant has Alzheimer's, and her life is a tangled web of secrets and mystery. It becomes the job of the "outsider" and new sheriff, Al Thompkins, a man haunted his own memories of personal guilt and tragedy, to unravel the terrible knowledge of the past buried deep inside the lives of two generations of families. Along the way he discovers the price paid for that knowledge, and the dangerous lengths the enemy will pursue to keep him from learning the truth about the crimes.