Just as Monongahela County Coroner Zoe Chambers-Adams decides to fire her abrasive chief deputy, Dr. Charles Davis, and put an end to his constant undermining of her position, a suspicious car crash severely injures the county's only other forensic pathologist. To keep the office operational, Zoe has little choice but to keep Davis on staff.

When Zoe and her husband-Vance Township Police Chief Pete Adams-respond to a brutal homicide, they quickly learn the victim had come to town for the sole purpose of sharing vital information with Zoe. And the decedent's ex-husband is none other than Zoe's deputy coroner.

As Zoe and Pete dig deeper into the victim's past, more questions arise along with a tangle of connections between multiple cases, including a very cold one that leads Zoe and those she cares about directly into the crosshairs of a crazed killer.