Construction workers uncover a skeleton buried beneath the Chase family's old servants' quarters in Tulsa.

Will and Clete confront Clarence Banks at the Two-Knock speakeasy, and Will breaks his wrist in the fight.

Rowan and James investigate the skeleton and discover a rusted pistol and a leather wallet buried with it.

Addie confronts Will at school, slaps him, and tells him Clarence was beaten so badly he might die.

James notices the newest coin in the skeleton's wallet is dated 1921, linking the skeleton to the Tulsa race riot.

Joseph Goodhope boldly haggles with Stanley Tillman and negotiates a payment plan to buy a Victrola on installment.

Rowan finds a receipt from Victory Victrola Shop made out to J. Goodhope inside the skeleton's leather wallet.

Ruby Goodhope begins visiting Will at the Victrola shop every Tuesday, and the two develop an unlikely friendship.

Vernon Fish shows Will a KKK robe and presses his pistol, Maybelle, directly against Will's chest.

Jerry Randall shoves Arvin Brightwater into oncoming traffic after calling him a racial slur, and Arvin is killed.

Will and Joseph Goodhope escape Vernon Fish and Clete in Stan's truck during the riot to search for Ruby.

Will finds Ruby safe inside a church; she runs at him and they embrace, neither willing to let go.

Rowan and James travel to Pawhuska and meet Joe Tillman, William's son, who confirms the body has been found.

Will arrives at the construction site to find Vernon has shot Joseph and is threatening Ruby at gunpoint.

Will kills Vernon with a brick to save Ruby, and he and Joseph bury Vernon's body beneath the floorboards.

This pool follows the most critical plot events driving both storylines from beginning to end. In the present day, Rowan Chase discovers a mysterious skeleton beneath her family's property, launching an investigation that links the buried man to the 1921 Tulsa race riot. A century earlier, Will Tillman's drunken confrontation at a speakeasy unleashes racial violence he is powerless to stop and later compelled to make right. The two timelines converge through a receipt for a Victrola and a murdered man buried under floorboards. The riot forces Will to choose sides when a mob threatens Ruby and Joseph Goodhope, culminating in a deadly confrontation he never anticipated. Together, these events show how the same histories of racial violence echo across generations.

The headline events of two intertwined stories across a century.

Isis Chase arrives at the crime scene and takes charge; a police officer's demeanor only warms when Tim Chase appears.

Stanley Tillman punishes Will for his broken wrist by forcing him to work full-time at the Victrola shop.

Stan takes Will on a delivery into Greenwood, where Will is astonished to discover a thriving, wealthy Black community.

Vernon Fish visits the Victrola shop and pressures Stanley Tillman to join the Ku Klux Klan.

Rowan drives through Greenwood on her way to a new job at the Jackson Clinic in North Tulsa.

Rowan meets Arvin, a kind older Black man, while he sings in an exam room at the Jackson Clinic.

Will secretly writes Ruby a handwritten receipt documenting Joseph's Victrola payments as a private gesture of trust.

Will visits Addie at her home and she confirms that Clarence Banks has died from his injuries.

Geneva Roop examines the skeleton and determines the man was Black, about six feet tall, with a healed wrist fracture.

Isis tells Rowan about A.C. Jackson, the surgeon the clinic is named for, who was murdered during the 1921 riot.

Will uses his white appearance to bluff through an armed blockade and protect Joseph Goodhope and the Tylers.

Stanley Tillman joins the Ku Klux Klan during the riot to protect his Victrola shop from attack.

Stanley beats Kathryn and removes Angelina's family from the house while Will is away helping Joseph during the riot.

A dying Clete warns Will that Vernon Fish knows exactly where Ruby and Joseph are hiding.

Rowan walks into the District Attorney's office with her parents to give a formal statement about Arvin's death.

This pool captures the secondary events that build the world and deepen the stakes of both narratives. Will's father draws him into the Victrola business, exposing Will to Greenwood's thriving Black community and to the KKK's growing influence in Tulsa. Rowan takes an unexpected job at the Jackson Clinic in North Tulsa, where she meets Arvin and begins to understand the inequalities she has long ignored. Both teens are shaped by encounters with injustice they cannot fully grasp — Will watching his father's double standards, Rowan learning about the murder of A.C. Jackson. The riot then strips away any remaining illusions, as Stan joins the Klan, beats his wife, and exposes the complicity at the heart of Will's family. Rowan ultimately finds the courage to walk into the DA's office and demand accountability for Arvin's death.

Supporting moments that shaped two teens across a century.

Rowan confesses to James at a Christmas party that she is sometimes ashamed of her own blackness.

Outside the speakeasy, Clete tells a police officer that Clarence attacked Will for touching a white woman.

Will discovers he genuinely enjoys playing music to attract customers during his first days at the Victrola shop.

James confronts Rowan about ongoing racial violence and accuses her of living in a rich-girl bubble; she storms out crying.

Rowan sees Arvin waving from the sidewalk, drives past him without stopping, and later feels deep shame about it.

Joseph refuses Will's handwritten receipt outside the shop, telling Will that the rules are simply not the same for him.

Isis reveals the details of the 1921 riot to Rowan and discloses that their great-great-uncle vanished that night.

Will realizes Ruby has known about racial violence her whole life when she calmly names what the mob plans to do to Dick Rowland.

Kathryn Tillman secretly moves Angelina's family into the servants' quarters before Stan returns home, defying him to protect them.

Rowan discovers Stanley Tillman's obituary online and finds that his son William was listed as missing at the time of Stanley's death.

Geneva reveals that the pistol buried with the skeleton was issued to a Black soldier named Raymond Fisher who went AWOL.

The District Attorney announces he will not charge Jerry Randall, ruling that Arvin's death was self-defense.

Rowan attends Arvin's funeral and realizes at Mama Ray's house that she genuinely belongs in the Black community.

Will stands beside Joseph rather than stopping him when Joseph holds a gun to an injured white rioter's head.

Opal Johnson gives Rowan a Dictaphone containing a recorded confession about what truly happened the night Vernon Fish was killed.

This pool traces the turning points and discoveries that force Rowan and Will to confront themselves and their world. Both teens begin with blind spots rooted in privilege — Rowan admits shame about her own blackness, while Will watches Clete weaponize racial animus against Clarence without grasping the full consequences. Slowly, encounters with James, Joseph, and Ruby force each of them to see racial violence not as abstract history but as a constant, living threat. Key revelations — the origin of the pistol, William's disappearance from the historical record, and the secrets passed down through Ruby's family — piece together what really happened during the riot. Will's choice to stand beside Joseph at a moment of righteous rage marks his transformation from bystander to ally. By the novel's end, Rowan holds the full truth in her hands and must decide what to do with it.