Sitting in Kansas Café, Judy Vernon witnesses a man have a heart attack. With his final breath, Frank Farrington gives her the look of someone wanting her to do something, but knowing he has no right to ask.
His presence lingers in the café, sitting across the table from Judy, and his pleading eyes appear in her mind when she is away from the café. Judy, a freelance journalist, is driven by Frank to investigate his life as she attempts to answer two questions:
Who was he?
What does he want from me?
As she learns about Frank, she becomes entwined in his life, being adopted by his family, accepting responsibility for his alcoholic former partner Billy, and befriending Frank's morally dubious ex-wife, Miriam.
Her life is further complicated when bisexual loner Judy falls in love with both forensic accountant and businessman Myron Myerson and Frank's brother's wife, Alison Farrington.
Perhaps the most important question for Judy is whether doing what Frank wants her to do will enable her to return to her stable, carefully crafted routine life, or if her unlikely friendship with the deceased Frank has changed her life forever?