When small town detective, Tony Petrocelli, and his daughter find a decapitated woman's body floating in the lake at the town's park he knows it's going to be a long hard case. Who wanted her dead, and why? With only two tattoos to identify the victim, and no report of a missing person, it takes months to identify Victoria Ruiz-Jones. As they investigate Victoria's life and co-workers, someone begins to watch the detective and his daughter. With the discovery of a cache of personal items in an attic Tony and his partner, Michelle Baxter, locate Victoria's daughter attending a boarding school operated by Catholic nuns over a thousand miles away. A letter Victoria wrote to the school shortly before her death leads the detectives' investigation in a new direction and uncovers a morass of greed, fraud, and maybe murder.