Hired by Christina Larson, as a deathbed promise to clear her grandfather's name of a pedophilia accusation from thirty years ago, Verity Mackellar and her mother, Patience, aka Patience Smith, Investigations, take the case. The Mackellars are initially reluctant: Patience believes it will reopen old wounds. Verity sees success as unlikely and onetime friend Chris as disagreeable. Then Verity reads the old man's bitter suicide note, "They've left me nothing ... I damn them to hell, whoever they are."