The story opens with Will Klein attending the funeral of his mother with the support of his girlfriend. Will takes a walk through the neighborhood where he grew up and stops at the house where his childhood sweetheart, Julie Miller, was murdered. Will's brother Ken was the chief suspect and is still sought by police though many people believe that he is dead. Will certainly believes that his brother did not commit the murder. Aside from the death of his mother, he is happy with his life and deeply in love with his girlfriend whom he knows as Sheila Rogers. In actuality, she is not Sheila Rogers but is Nora Spring. Will believes that she has run away from an abusive home but discovers that Nora has actually been on the run from an abusive husband. Shortly after his mother's death, Nora leaves a note that says simply that she loves Will, then she disappears.

One night Will is attacked by a man named John Asselta, known as Ghost, who was a childhood friend of Ken's. John demands that Will reveal Ken's location but Will insists that he does not know it. Will learns that Sheila Rogers has been found murdered along a highway and believes it to be his girlfriend. At the funeral, he learns the truth—that his girlfriend has been lying about her real identity and that this woman is not the woman he loves.

He is then contacted by Katy Miller, Julie's little sister. Katy pleads with Will to help her track down what really happened to Julie. Will is warned by police to stay away from the case but persists in his search for the truth. He finds Nora and learns her real name as well as her real life story. It is through a collaboration between John and Katy that Will makes contact with Ken. They arrange a reunion and Ken explains away all the evidence against him, swearing to his innocence. Will believes him but then Katy shows up and reveals that she had been hiding in the basement on the night of Julie's murder and that she saw Ken kill her sister. Ken and Will fight and Ken has Will on the ground with a gun to his head when the childhood instinct to protect his little brother comes to the forefront. Ken does not run away, despite Will's urging that he do that, and says that he is sorry for the biggest betrayal of his life—that against Will.

Will does not know what Ken is talking about for some time but he then discovers that the child Ken had claimed was the daughter of Sheila and Ken was actually the daughter of Will and Julie.