Nala, a 13-year-old girl from the city, travels with her family to her grandmother's home in the countryside, to try to find a cure for her little sister's mysterious illness - But she'll soon find her granny is not exactly what she seems.
Living in the small farming community of Rickerby, twenty-four year old Kimberly Jantzen is a single mother working as a gas station pump jockey while she works her way through nursing school to eke out a better life for herself and her daughter, Lizi. In some circles, she is considered white trash. One moxia.cc night after a few drinks at the local pub, she gets into a physical altercation with Billy, her now ex-boyfriend, their fight and break-up because she caught him cheating on her. At the hospital emergency room to deal with a serious cut to her hand the result of the fight, she is treated by her family physician, Dr. Richard Darian, one of the wealthiest and most respected people in town. However, under heavy sedation which Dr. Darian warns her that she may have hallucinations and/or amnesia, Kimberly is certain that Dr. Darian raped her, she unable to fight him off in her drugged state. Believing she will get no justice going through Rickerby's police, she files charges against Dr. ...
Tom Barnaby joins the Causton Chamber of Commerce trip to Brighton as he is suspicious of dodgy mayor Hicks' plan to buy coastal land on which to buy chalets. Also opposed to the plan is Lady Matilda William,who has had threatening letters, as have the local vicar, oily property developer Hugh Dalgleish and hotelier Jenny Russell. Lady Matilda is descended from Richard of Guillaume,a ruthless contemporary of William the Conqueror,and believes that her son Richard,last of the line and brain-damaged for twenty years,was the victim of ancestral jealousy.In Brighton Dalgleish is murdered with the sword stolen from Guillaume's tomb and Hicks is arrested for fraud. Having learnt how Richard came by his accident Barnaby is convinced that Richard and not the property scam is the cause of yet another victim being claimed by the sword of Guillaume.