When her husband is killed in a hit-and-run bicycling accident, it takes all of Michele Lopez Hanson's strength not to burrow into their bed for the rest of her life. But their kids need her, and she promised herself she'd do the Kona Ironman Triathlon in Adrian's honor, and someone seems to be stalking her family, so she slogs through the pain to keep herself on track.

Michele retreats to the country while her teens are away for the summer, to write the memoirs of her elderly neighbor, Gidget - a reclusive former Houston art gallery owner - and learn how to be alone in the wake of her husband’s death. But when Gidget dies unexpectedly, she leaves everything to Michele except a bequest to a daughter no one knew existed. Suddenly, Michele's country quiet is shattered, and half of Texas shows up: some to help, some to contest the will, and others to make sure the mystery daughter is never found alive.

After lonely months spent writing her true crime novel, Michele Lopez Hanson reconnects with her community by offering pro bono legal counsel. When an open-and-closed drug case takes an unexpected turn, she’s determined to shake off the rust and hit the books. But after a mysterious sickness sends her infant grandson to the hospital, she worries she may have bitten off more than she can chew. Searching for the source of his sickness, she discovers strange parallels between her legal case and the baby’s suspected poisoning.