A card game is interrupted by gunfire, leaving a young man dead. Lt. Joe Kenda soon learns the seeds of his destruction were sewn earlier the same day. Then When Kenda responds to a double shooting, he and his team are soon taken down memory lane.

A budding teen romance ends when the young man is shot dead on their first date leaving a startled girl as the key to the case. Then: A man is dead, his young wife has fled, and Kenda must figure out if she was present for his suicide or his murder.