A dismembered floater is the last thing Northville Detective Dan Gold wants to find on a dreary autumn day. Kelly, a young runaway, discovered the gruesome corpse in the midst of her own suicide attempt. Dan suspects she has further information. Fortunately, Kelly is taken to Jenny's Shelter, a shelter for homeless children run by Dan's old acquaintance Jennifer Collier. Jenny built the shelter with her husband's money and is admired by everyone in the community. Dan finds himself drawn to Jenny in romantic ways. Despite Jenny's marriage and the protests of Gold's partner, Xander Nicholson, the relationship grows deeper. But as the relationship grows, it leads Dan to more bodies, more crimes, and some very unpleasant possibilities about Jenny's real work. Aided only by Xander and the children at the shelter, Dan works through layers of secrets, deceptions, and half-truths to discover why his town is full of corpses.