Tai Randolph doesn't want to hear about homicide. She's had enough of the dark and the dangerous, and decides some time out of Atlanta is exactly what she needs to put the recent spate of corpses behind her. It's an idyllic vision—selling her wares at the Savannah Civil War Expo, attending a few battle re-enactments, perhaps a little romantic rendezvousing with Trey, who has agreed to put aside the corporate security agent routine and join her for a long weekend in her hometown.

But in the South, the past is never past. It tends to rise again.

In Tai's case, it shows up as her tattooed heartbreaker of an ex-boyfriend, desperate for her help. He spins a tale of betrayal, deceit, and a stolen Civil War artifact that Tai agrees to help him recover. Suddenly Trey's on the case too, representing a competing—and well-moneyed—client with eyes on the same mythical prize. As the lovers square off against each other, Tai discovers that her complicated boyfriend makes an even more intriguing adversary, revealing a ferociously competitive streak under his cool Armani exterior.

But where there's money, there's usually murder, this time involving the KKK and Tai's unapologetically unreconstructed kinfolk. As she unravels the clues to a 150-year-old mystery, she digs up secrets from her own past—and Trey's—forcing a confrontation with a ruthless killer, and with her own willingness to do whatever it takes to save everything that matters.