Joseph DeWittier Brokaw III, the patriarch of a powerful, influential, and dysfunctional family, is lying in bed ill with mysterious symptoms when a stranger emerges from the shadows and covers his face with a pillow. Without warning, Joseph Brokaw's time on earth has come to a tragic end. Joseph Brokaw had everything money could buy, but had lost the very thing he wanted most his four children. When a reading of his will reveals his intentions to leave half of his estate to a charitable foundation and the other half to his devoted friend and physician, Dr. Walton Sinclair, the already-strained family relationships seem damaged beyond repair. As suspicions, accusations, and animosity envelop the family, Dr. Sinclair suddenly finds himself a suspect and then a victim in a sequence of apparently unrelated sinister events that involve everyone closely associated with Brokaw. When Thomas Hardy, a homicide detective, is called in to investigate, he soon uncovers a common thread that may just solve the crime. In this intriguing mystery of secrets and betrayals, the murder of Joseph Brokaw leads Detective Hardy on a path of deception that results in a surprising twist.