In 1975, thirteen-year-old Ruby Mae Vickers disappears in Alvin, Alabama. Leah Teal, Alvin's only detective, is assigned to the case. After three months, Ruby Mae finally turns up dead beneath a willow. Twelve years later, another little girl goes missing. Then another. Leah, fearful for her own children, is sure these incidents are connected to the one she failed to solve. As Leah's son Abe tells of his mother's battle with small-town bureaucracy and old resentments, the search takes on a terrifying ugency. He traverses the shifting ground between innocence and hard-won understanding, eager to know, yet fearing what will be revealed.