When Kayla Dunn, photographer for the Dulany Paranormal Team, discovers a murdered girl in Carroll Creek, no one believes that there is any connection between the victim and the team's challenging assignment from the Frederick County Landmarks Foundation. As paranormal activities continue to increase in Frederick's heritage homes and buildings, it becomes apparent that the spirits have a message, which arrives in the form of a trompe l'oeil, a three-dimensional painting meaning "to deceive the eye." Nick Nucci, the detective assigned to the murder case begins to work with the team after Kayla's photos reveal a live person lurking among the shadows belonging to the spirits. He is able to uncover a web of transgressions that point to secret business dealings reflecting misdeeds of long past. Because of the mixed history of slavery and abolition and the strategic location of Frederick, Maryland, during the Civil War, many residents fought and perished, carrying both guilt and passion into the afterlife. Now spirits of the past have returned to haunt the present, revealing a shocking secret worth killing for and to summon a reckoning in Frederick.