For the past twelve years that private investigator Bill Smith has owned his cabin in the woods in a small upstate New York town, he has used it as an escape, a place of refuge, never letting city life or his work intrude. All that changes, however, when Eva Colgate, a local farmer, summons Bill to meet with her. She wants him to quietly recover some recently stolen possessions - items that, if known to be hers, would expose her past as well as a secret she has kept hidden for thirty years.