After Missy is abducted during a vacation and evidence of her murder shows up at a shack in the forests of Oregon, Mackenzie Philips, her father, receives a strange note inviting him to return to the scene of the tragedy where he wrestles with nightmarish religious questions.

What initially appears to be a low-level mob hit takes on new meaning when a high-ranking crime figure is found dead on Paradise Beach. Jesse Stone and private investigator Sunny Randall team up to solve two cases involving the gunshot murder of Petrov Ognowski and a religious cult holding an 18-year-old girl against her will.