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Rita Todacheene, a Diné (Navajo) forensic photographer for the Albuquerque Police Department, is called to document a gruesome scene on Interstate 40: the scattered remains of a woman struck by vehicles across the highway. On the overpass above, she finds two sets of handprints on the railing, one from the victim gripping in desperation, the other from someone wearing rubber gloves, proving the woman did not jump willingly. The victim is identified as Erma Singleton. After the scene, a heavy yellow light appears in Rita's car: Erma's ghost, making first contact.

Rita's ability to see ghosts stretches back to infancy. Born on the Navajo reservation to a young mother named Anne who soon leaves her behind, Rita is raised by her grandmother, a fiercely self-reliant woman who built her own home. Grandma takes her to Mr. Bitsilly, a traditional Navajo medicine man, who sings for her, but no ceremony eliminates the ability. Rita learns to mute the ghosts' voices by focusing on ordinary sounds, though the gift remains permanently part of her.

Flashbacks trace how this gift shapes Rita's life. At five, Grandma teaches her to build a pinhole camera, and while posing for a photo, Rita sees her grandfather's ghost for the first time. Grandpa warns her that some spirits have bad intentions: "If you let them get too close to you, then they can grab you" (34). Her cousin Gloria, 16, arrives at Grandma's house after her own mother abandons her and becomes Rita's fierce protector. But Gloria falls in with older kids. On Rita's sixth birthday, Gloria locks her inside an abandoned government house on the Chuska mesa and drives away. Grandma finds Rita five hours later. On the drive home, they pass the wreck of the red truck: Gloria is dead. At the funeral, Rita hears Gloria's ghost. Later, Gloria visits Rita in Grandma's closet. Rita tells her she must leave so Grandma will not always grieve. Gloria agrees and vanishes, taking every ghost with her. From that point forward, Grandma's house is the one place where spirits are forbidden.

After Rita's mother dies during her senior year of high school, Rita returns to the reservation. Grandma reveals her own history of being taken as a child to an Indian boarding school and forced to photograph Native children stripped of their identities. One night, Rita drives to the abandoned house where Gloria locked her, douses it with gasoline, and burns it down, photographing the fire as a symbolic purging of childhood trauma.

In the present, Erma's ghost grows increasingly aggressive, appearing at the APD crime lab, at Rita's apartment, and in her dreams. When Rita insists she is only a photographer, Erma threatens to make her life unbearable. One night, Rita's elderly neighbor Mrs. Santillanes gives her a dark remedy to drink, and Rita falls into a vivid dream: She watches a giant man throw Erma off the bridge while three men sit in a sedan below. Rita wakes with a nosebleed.

Rita's caseload intensifies. Her supervisor, Sergeant Angie Seivers, a motherly senior field agent who mentors her in reading crime scenes, urges her to quit. At a drive-by shooting at the Imperial Motel, Rita discovers cocaine residue in a briefcase and notices Detective Martin Garcia, a corrupt 30-year veteran, watching her closely when she flags the evidence. Lieutenant Declan from Internal Affairs approaches Rita outside, asking about the shooting victim. At a separate rollover fatality, a dead woman's ghost screams that the officer at the scene ran her off the road, and Rita's photographs confirm it.

The case that breaks Rita open is the murder of Judge Harrison Winters and his entire family. Garcia declares it a murder-suicide, but the judge's young son's ghost tugs Rita's coat and points toward Garcia: "That's the one who was here" (93). Judge Winters's furious ghost attacks Rita, and she collapses. At the hospital, Erma tells the assembled ghosts that Rita can see them. Dozens of spirits swarm her, grabbing her physically for the first time. Angie rushes Rita out. In the van, Rita confesses she can see ghosts. Angie does not believe her.

Samuels, Rita's chief investigator, and Angie suspend her for three months. Erma's case is officially ruled a suicide. Rita begins investigating on her own. Declan reveals he is probing Garcia's connection to the Sinaloa Cartel and shows her mugshots of Ignacio Marcos, a cartel enforcer with a scar from ear to ear. Rita recognizes Marcos's silhouette from her dream of Erma's murder. She tracks down Garcia's retired partner, Detective Armenta, at a remote cabin. Armenta reveals that Garcia took a $100,000 bribe from Marcos and became the cartel's informant inside the department. When Erma's common-law husband, Matias Romero, was sentenced to 20 years for drug trafficking, Garcia retaliated by framing Judge Winters. When that proved insufficient, the cartel murdered the Winters family. Erma was killed because she knew too much. The medical examiner, Dr. Blaser, confirms his report listed Erma's death as "undetermined," not suicide, and that Erma was pregnant.

Events accelerate when Rita's friend Philip, an interior designer in her building, hires her to photograph a wealthy client's party. On the balcony, Rita photographs Garcia shooting Marcos in the back of the head. Her camera flash alerts the men. Rita flees, calling her childhood friend Shanice for a ride, and uploads the incriminating photographs, emailing them to Declan, Angie, and Samuels. Garcia ransacks Rita's apartment, destroying her cameras and stealing her digital archives, though backup drives and the party photo cards survive in a hidden compartment. Erma also sends Rita a dream-vision of the Apothecary bar where Erma once worked, revealing that Matias hid a blue duffel bag of drugs behind the liquor shelves.

Garcia and his partner Vargas capture Rita at gunpoint during Erma's wake and force her to the Apothecary, where Garcia finds the duffel bag. Rita escapes when a bystander intervenes. Desperate, she rides a bus to Pino's Upholstery to warn Cedric Romero, the last surviving local cartel figure, that Garcia is eliminating everyone to seize the operation for himself. She shows Cedric photographs of Garcia killing Cedric's uncle. Garcia and Vargas burst in. Garcia shoots Rita twice.

Lying on the floor, Rita drifts toward death. Across the city, Grandma, Mr. Bitsilly, Mrs. Santillanes, Shanice, and Philip pray for her. Mr. Bitsilly sings with such intensity that his nose bleeds, pushing his prayers across the distance until Rita feels his breath reach her body. Garcia's ghost lunges at Rita, trying to drag her with him. Erma intervenes, ripping Garcia's soul away and flooding the room with blinding light. A wave of souls passes through Erma into the white. EMTs revive Rita with defibrillators.

Rita wakes four days later. Angie confirms Garcia is dead and the department has reinstated her. Grandma and Mr. Bitsilly arrive at her bedside, and Rita tells them Erma has moved on and she no longer sees ghosts. It is a lie. In the hospital, she quietly observes three spirits: a man reading a book on an endless loop, a janitor mopping floors, a woman who jumps from the window each night. Rita lies to protect the people she loves. At home, she dreams of Gloria, who grabs her hand and leads her toward Grandma's house. "I'm not going anywhere," Gloria says. "You're going to need me" (295). The novel closes with a truth Rita carries from her grandmother: You help people not because you expect something in return, but because they need you, because if you do not, no one else will.