Malcolm Hill, a Black 18-year-old voting rights worker, is stopped by a white sheriff’s deputy on a dark country road in rural Georgia. His single mother, Allie, America’s leading voting rights advocate, restlessly awaits his return before police inform her that Malcolm has been arrested for murder. In Washington, D.C., the rising, young white congressman Chase Brevard of Massachusetts is watching the morning news with his girlfriend, only to find his life transformed in a single moment by the appearance of Malcolm’s photograph. Suddenly all three are enveloped in a media firestorm that threatens their lives --- especially Malcolm’s.

As the court inquest into Benjamin Blaine's death casts suspicions on those closest to him, his son Adam struggles to protect them from those who still suspect that his father was murdered by one of his kin. But the sternest test of all is Adam's proximity to Carla Pacelli, his late father's mistress and a woman who, despite being pivotal to his family's plight, Adam finds himself increasingly drawn to.

The time is June 1968, and America is in turmoil, engulfed in civil unrest in the midst of an unpopular war. As seen through the eyes of 21-year-old Whitney Dane, the summer with her family at Martha’s Vineyard should provide certainty and safety. By the end of that summer, the lives of Whitney and all those closest to her will change in dramatic ways.

Using his training as a CIA operative, Ben Blaine skillfully seeks to find the truth surrounding his father’s violent death --- even if it means exposing one of his own family members as the killer and unearthing hidden skeletons that were never meant to be found.