One brilliant spring morning, a woman named Carolyn Macgregor comes to Mike Ramsey's apartment with an astonishing announcement: she thinks she is his half-sister. Mike is skeptical at first, but eventually he comes to believe Carolyn's story-that his mother gave birth to her first child when she was only sixteen, and gave up her baby for adoption. When Carolyn begins searching for information about the father she never knew, she attracts the attention of some very dangerous people. She is beaten up and told to stop asking questions, and then she disappears. Mike feels obliged to find her. He soon realizes that his search for Carolyn is really a search for her father, a man who seems desperate to keep his identity secret. To save Carolyn, and himself, Mike must uncover that secret and learn the painful truth about what happened to his mother. While Mike struggles to cope with these events from the past, he faces a pressing problem in the present. His relationship with Marie Romaine has become tense and complicated. He knows he must do something about that before he loses the woman he loves.