Ethan Hall is a physician who works in the emergency room in Madison, Wisconsin. He was an investigator for the Wisconsin State Police, specializing in crimes related to children. However, after 10 years, he realized that he could no longer handle the trauma of these crimes.

Ethan meets with a patient named Christian Malone. He has kidney stones, so he was given morphine. He insists that the pain is gone, and he is ready to leave, but Ethan will not let him drive. Instead, he offers to buy Christian a cup of coffee and then drive him home.

After going through the drive-thru for coffee, Christian directs Ethan to his home, a massive house on Lake Okoboji. Christian invites Ethan inside to finish his coffee.

Christian explains that he recently moved there from California. He wrote the code for a tech company in college and recently sold it for billions of dollars. He became unhappy with his life in Silicon Valley, which revolved around money.

When Ethan leaves, Christian invites him back to visit anytime.

Pete Kramer works for the Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) and was formerly Ethan’s partner. He enters the hospital and asks at the nurse’s station to speak with Ethan, showing them his badge. The nurse hesitates, and Pete explains to her that they are “old friends.” She tells him that Ethan is on vacation until next Wednesday, May 28.

Ethan flies his private plane north to Lake Morikawa with his girlfriend, Maddie Jacobson. They plan to spend the next five days there together.

Lake Morikawa is owned by the Ojibwe tribe. Ethan’s great-grandfather built their cottage in the 1920s, when the US government owned the land. He did not sell the property back to the tribe when they bought most of the land in that area. As a result, Ethan’s cabin is one of only eight on Lake Morikawa. In exchange for allowing him to fish and use the land that they own around his cabin, Ethan offers free healthcare to Ojibwe people three times each year.

When they land on the lake, Ethan’s friend, Kai Benjamin, is waiting for them. Kai returns a fishing spear that he repaired for Ethan. He gave it to Ethan shortly after Ethan’s first visit. Ethan returns it to the hooks in his living room. He and Kai go fishing together.

As they fish, Ethan forgets about work and relaxes. He had been anxious about a parole hearing that is happening soon. It is for the man who murdered his father and severely injured Maddie.

On his first overnight shift back at the hospital after his break, Ethan looks through patient files on his computer. Pete, his old partner at the DCI, comes up and greets him. Although they were close when they worked together, they have drifted apart over the 10 years since Ethan left.

After the two joke with each other, Ethan asks why Pete is there. He then notices that Pete has a severe limp and looks “ashen.” Pete reveals that he is dying and needs Ethan’s help.

Pete tells Ethan that he has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Because it has begun to impact his breathing, the specialists that he has seen estimate that he has less than a year to live.

Pete asks Ethan if he remembers the case of Callie Jones, a 17-year-old girl who went missing 10 years earlier, just as Ethan was leaving the DCI. Her father was a state senator, and she was a high school volleyball player entering her senior year. Pete spent years looking into her case, even after he was taken off it. In the last few months, he has been having dreams about Callie. He views it as a sign to solve the case before he dies. He asks Ethan to help him by reviewing the files.

The next morning, after his shift, Ethan goes to the Edgewater Hotel to meet with Pete. He admits to himself that he is only doing so because of Pete’s illness and because of the “guilt” he feels for their failing friendship.

Pete meets him in the lobby and insults Ethan for wearing his scrubs. When Ethan gets angry about Pete criticizing him for leaving the DCI, Pete laughs in response. He assures Ethan that he needs to see this sort of “attitude” from him for the meeting they are about to have.

Ethan and Pete go to the third floor of the hotel. They knock on a room and are greeted by a member the agency in charge of protecting the governor. To Ethan’s surprise, the recently elected governor, Mark Jones, is inside, along with the district attorney (DA). Ethan realizes that Mark must be Callie’s father.

Mark explains that, despite his connection to the case, he decided to reopen the investigation because of Pete’s request. After discussing it, they agreed that Ethan was their best bet for solving it. While at the DCI, he had a 100% solve rate. The DA has appointed Ethan to the case, giving him the authority to investigate while also allowing the police department to pay him. Ethan tells them that he will consider the idea.

An unnamed woman colors her hair in the bathroom. She changes it from blonde to “jet-black” and puts colored contact lenses in her eyes to change them to brown.

Francis Bernard is in prison in Wisconsin. He is in solitary confinement. He trades sex for information from Andre Monroe, the guard in charge. To Francis’s relief, he reads in the newspaper that Callie Jones’s case has been reopened and is being investigated by Ethan.

Eugenia Morgan excitedly reads a letter from prison. For years, she wrote to Francis, but she never received an answer until now. In his letter, Francis explains how he always wanted to write back but was never allowed to respond. He invites her to visit him in prison. After reading the letter, she showers, combing her “jet-black” hair, and heads into the basement.

Eugenia’s basement is a shrine dedicated to Francis. She has photos from all stages of his life, including childhood, as well as videos of him on trial for killing Henry Hall, Ethan’s dad. She also has images of his victims from the “Lake Michigan Massacres” (43). As she thinks of visiting him for the first time, she plays a video of him and masturbates.

A few hours later, Eugenia is cleaning her house. She tried to sleep but is unable to do so because of her excitement. The doorbell rings. When Eugenia opens it, a woman who looks exactly like her is standing there. She smiles and tells Eugenia that “Francis sent” her.

The woman now claiming to be Eugenia enters the prison. As she picks up the phone to speak with Francis, she is intoxicated by his presence. He insists that she must do “everything [he] ask[s],” and she assures him that she will do “anything” for him (47).

An unnamed woman is being held in a basement. She has a couch to sleep on, a refrigerator with water, and a television. She turns up the volume as the news discusses the reopening of Callie’s case. When she hears a car door outside, she goes to the slot in the door. She watches the basement stairs as a woman with a mask comes and drops off food for her.

Eugenia drives to an abandoned stockyard, out of use for years. She goes to the warehouse that Francis instructed her to, number nine. Inside, she climbs into the loft and finds an old footlocker. The combination that Francis gave her works on the lock, and inside, there are cassette tapes and photographs of the victims of the 1993 Lake Michigan murders. They were all found “with their throats slashed and a black heart tattooed onto their breasts” (52).

After Ethan finishes his shift, Chip Carter, the hospital CEO, comes to speak with him. He shows him a newspaper that announces Ethan as leading the investigation in Callie’s reopened case. To Ethan’s annoyance, he has not yet agreed to take the case, nor has he reviewed the case file; he assumes that the DCI leaked the article to persuade him.

Eugenia goes to Lakeside Storage. She rents a unit to store the things she retrieved from the footlocker. Then, she goes to the post office in Boscobel. She mails a letter to Maddie Jacobson while wearing latex gloves.

Ethan goes to the courthouse in Madison for Franics’s parole hearing. It is the second time that Francis has been up for parole; the other time was two years ago, after Francis completed 30 years of his 60-year sentence.

When Ethan speaks, he tells the parole board about losing his father at 13 years old. He explains that Henry was shot after going to Francis’s home to investigate the Lake Michigan murders. After killing Ethan’s father, Francis burned down his home by starting a fire in the basement. Despite Francis’s attorney insisting that Francis was never charged in the murders, Ethan points out that the killing stopped after Francis went to prison.

Francis’s parole is denied.

At work at the Milwaukee Police Department, Maddie tries not to think about the parole hearing. When she went to the one two years ago, it was the first time she met Ethan. Since then, the two had become “soulmates,” linked by the pain of what Francis had done to her and to Ethan’s father.

Maddie was 16 when Francis abducted her. He managed to tattoo the black heart on her chest before she escaped, using a makeshift knife she created from a picture frame. Although they were never able to prove that Francis was guilty, she is certain that he is. She has received a letter from him once a year, every year, since the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) won all prisoners the right to send mail 10 years ago.

Ethan and Maddie check over the latest letter from Francis. In it, he promises another “visit” to Lake Michigan, where he’ll “be the only one who leaves the shore alive” (68). As always, Maddie is sure that there will be no forensic evidence linking the letter to Francis. It is signed with a black heart.

Ethan expresses his frustration at Francis’s ability to send the letters; the prison had promised to watch his outgoing mail. However, Maddie points out that the prison warden won’t want to anger the ACLU.

Both Ethan and Maddie know that even if Francis’s parole continues to be denied, they only have eight years left before he is free. After serving two-thirds of his sentence, the law dictates that he will get mandatory parole.

Ethan visits Francis in prison, something he does every six months. He dislikes doing it but feels it is “necessary” both for himself and his father.

When Ethan sits down with Francis, he tells him that he is going to continue to attend his parole hearings. However, Francis does not seem bothered by it, insisting that it won’t matter in eight years when he is released. He then starts goading Ethan, telling him that he knows Ethan is being tortured by the “hatred” he has. To Ethan’s surprise, Francis then comments on the fact that Ethan is no longer an investigator and that he has been asked to take on the reopening of Callie’s case. Because he is constantly in solitary confinement, Francis should not have access to this information.

Angry, Ethan forces himself to ignore Francis. He smiles and gets up to leave. However, he can see that Francis is continuing to talk into the phone. Ethan picks his end up again. Francis tells him that he will be seeing him sooner than six months, as he has information about Callie that Ethan will want.

Lindsay Larkin is a psychologist who founded and runs The Anonymous Client, a company that allows clients to receive therapy virtually and do so anonymously if they want. She walks into her offices in Milwaukee and is told by her receptionist, Beth, that she has an interview with Gayle Kirk of the New York Times.

Gayle asks Lindsay about her company. Lindsay explains that her goal was to revolutionize therapy. Through the encryption that she helped develop herself, her therapy clients remain entirely anonymous, destigmatizing the idea of seeking help for mental health. Initially, Lindsay wanted to become a computer programmer. However, when her best friend, Callie Jones, went missing, Lindsay realized that she wanted to help people deal with their emotions. Now, her company operates throughout the United States and is constantly growing.

At the end of the day, Lindsay prepares to leave when Beth comes into her office. Ethan is there to interview her about Callie’s disappearance.

Lindsay tells Ethan about her childhood with Callie. They were best friends from kindergarten through high school. As freshmen, they both made the varsity volleyball team. They helped them to the state championship that year, then won the title the next two years. They made girls’ volleyball an important part of Cherryview.

However, the summer after their junior year, Callie became distant. Her parents got divorced. She struggled with her stepdad, whom she described as “creepy.” Lindsay also noticed that Callie became less willing to open up about what was going on in her life. She expresses her regret at not having tried harder to help Callie the summer she disappeared.

Callie leads the summer practice for her volleyball team. She intentionally pushes her teammates harder and makes the practice run long, wanting to impress the team’s new coach, Blake Cordis. Afterward, when Blake praises her work, he places his hand on the bare skin of her lower back. Callie knows she should feel uncomfortable; however, she reasons that Blake just graduated from college and is only slightly older than her. His touch makes her feel “excitement.”

At home, Callie gets a letter from the University of Cincinnati. She has been accepted to both college and medical school there, an eight-year program. She celebrates with her mother, who calls her stepfather, Damien, into the room. Callie is uncomfortable with Damien’s presence. She locks her door at night and does not allow him into her room when she is alone. When Callie tells her that she is excited to call her father about the news, her mother seems annoyed and leaves the room.

Alone with Callie, Damien scolds Callie for bringing up her father and ruining the moment. He insists that her mother did nothing wrong, despite the rumors that she cheated on her father. He mentions that Callie should just live with her father but then says he does not care about her anymore, as he is too busy running for governor. Callie kicks Damien out of her room.

A few hours later, Callie sits alone on her bed. Despite how much it bothered her, she realized that Damien is right about her father. She considers calling Lindsay to tell her the exciting news but calls Blake instead. She asks him to pick her up from the park down the street, and he agrees.

As Callie tries to leave the house, she is stopped by her younger sister, Jaycee. They have a small rivalry because of Jaycee’s volleyball abilities; she is starting on the team soon. However, Jaycee agrees to keep the fact that Callie is going out a secret.

Blake picks up Callie, and they drive around. She tells him about getting into the medical school program. He is excited for her but can see that she is hesitant. She explains that she feels like this is all her mother’s idea. Everything that she does is dictated by what her mother wants or how it will look for her father’s political career.

In response, Blake assures her that she has to do what she wants. He then faces her directly. When Callie leans into him, the two kiss each other. After a few moments, Blake pulls away, insisting that she is not 18 and he is her coach. Callie assures him that she turns 18 in a few weeks. He is only a few years older than her. Blake initially resists, then agrees, and the two kiss again.

A few days later, Blake and Callie hang out again. Blake drives to a gas station and tells Callie that she needs to go inside and get a disposable phone so that he can contact her without using his normal phone. Callie expresses her discomfort and annoyance at keeping everything a secret. However, Blake assures her that once she is older and has graduated, they won’t need to do it anymore.