When Louise Braniff discreetly hands Barbara Holloway a large retainer and asks for a complete anonymity, the Oregon attorney is both intrigued and suspicious. The woman, a respected music professor, is a member of a group that sponsors worthy causes involving women. And they want Barbara to defend Carol Fredericks, a gifted young pianist who stands accused of murdering the manager of a piano bar.

Not long ago Barbara heard Carol play, and that is enough to convince her to take the case. But now the questions are coming faster than the answers. Carol's straightforward version of what happened the night Joe Wenzel; was murdered clashes with the incriminating evidence against her. And how can Barbara explain the oddly incomplete picture she gets of the young woman herself?

Carol can't remember a huge part of her past - only the new life that began when she woke up in a hospital at the age of eight to learn that her parents were dead. She has no memory of learning to play the piano, and is having haunting nightmares about a woman named Carolyn Frye.

Soon Barbara is convinced that her client is not only innocent, but that she is being framed by ruthless foes who will stop at nothing to keep the past buried. However, proving the case and keeping her client safe will require every drop of Barbara's notoriously fierce determination to get at the truth. And as she unravels the stunning trail of deception, hatred and remarkably deep abiding love that holds the key to the mystery of Carol Fredericks, Barbara discovers that the unbidden truth may just damn them both.