Awakened in the middle of the night, North Carolina Sheriff Winston Barnes finds an airplane has crash-landed and is now sitting sideways on the runway, and there are no signs of a pilot or cargo. When the body of a local man is discovered—shot dead near the crash site—everyone in this coastal North Carolina town is a suspect, and the case brings old grievances to the surface. Up for re-election against a corrupt and well-connected challenger, Barnes has trouble enough, but now his daughter Colleen has come home grieving a loss she cannot fully articulate.