Thirty years ago. Colleen Winters is attacked by two boys high on drugs who admit they killed her boyfriend. She gets away, but she lies and tells the sheriff that she was raped. The town rallies around her, the boys are thrown in jail…and then the truth comes out.

In present day, when Natalie Merin’s grandmother dies, she discovers that her birth mother, Colleen Winters, disappeared from a small Oregon town twenty years earlier.

Natalie travels to Cascade Locks, Oregon, hoping to find out what happened to her mother. Instead, she finds people who won’t talk about Colleen, who act like she never existed, or if she did, their life was better without her.

Soon, Natalie uncovers her mother’s romance with a Mexican immigrant who was murdered thirty years earlier. Her mother’s lies after the murder caused the town to crucify her. The more Natalie finds out about her mother, the harder the town tries to stop her, until finally she comes up against a killer who will do anything to protect their secrets, including killing again.