In the hazy summer of 2023, Charleston Detective Cassandra Wake's recent transfer divides a struggling police department. Her presence threatens to expose the department's history, namely the unsolved disappearance of a beloved officer five years prior. The discovery of a pregnant woman's body at Drayton Hall Plantation portends a tense, distrustful summer for them all. Cassandra's additional discovery of a child at the scene, mockingly named after the missing officer, does nothing but complicate her already disastrous flight from a frigid Romanian childhood.

Doctoral candidate Giovanni Singer has lost his interest in life following the disappearance of his sister. When a serial killer known as the Stillborn Killer gains notoriety, Giovanni realizes there may be more to his loss than initially thought, and more to the detective on his sister's case, as well. With Detective Wake's entrance into his life, the past refuses to die. To prevent further homicides, both strangers must look beyond themselves and the world they have come to fear. They must learn what it truly takes to save one's soul, and what it truly means to come back from the dead.