Dr. Sam Owens is settling into her new role as a college professor after years heading up the Nashville morgue when a disturbing letter is delivered—a man she does not know asks her to perform an autopsy on him because he is about to be murdered. When she reaches out to locate him, she discovers he is dead from an apparent suicide.

Curious, she travels to the small Virginia town with her boyfriend (an ex-Army Ranger) and a detective friend. Stopping the cremation only minutes before it is done, she discovers the man has in fact been murdered. His son, the primary heir to the will, is spotted lurking around the funeral home but disappears when they attempt to interrogate him.

During the autopsy, Dr. Owens discovers something even more disturbing. The murderer left DNA on the victim, DNA that positively identifies the suspect as a little girl kidnapped years earlier and found dead. But how is that possible?

As they attempt to unravel the mystery, someone is killing off everyone associated with the case, including other heirs named in the will. But is the will real? The law firm that supposedly prepared it has no record of it or the victim ever being a client. The lawyer who prepared the will and contacted Dr. Owens could clear up the confusion, except he has also been murdered.

How does this tie into a mysterious cult and a series of missing girls over the years? The answers are revealed in one horrific discovery after another.