In a matter of days, Peter McDowell loses everything he has worked so hard for – his wealth, his property, his livelihood as an investment banker. As the stress takes its toll, it causes a rift in his marriage that he cannot repair. Stripped of everything, he has only one place he can retreat: a lakeside cottage he inherited from his parents twenty years ago. A beloved small-town doctor, a devoted family man and a pillar of his community, Michael McDowell serves others selflessly. Only Peter knows how he manipulated their parents when the boys were young, driving Peter away. At first, Peter dreads seeing Michael again. But to his surpise their reunion is tender and real. Only later, as Peter mulls over his late mother's journals, does he begin to question what lies beneath Michael's perfect surface. In a race for time, Peter throws caution to the wind to find the truth. What he discovers will change their lives, the lives of their children and an entire town for ever.