It is the first spring of the new millennium. Susanna Marcasi prowls Washington, D.C., looking for lost love. Thoughts of her brutal New Orleans youth haunt her. She suffers physical and mental anguish stemming from a so-called "accident" of which she has no memory and believes something more occurred.

The banished Marine Corps officer receives a surprise 3 a.m. call. She meets estranged Lori O'Reilly. Susanna senses an opportunity for redemption and truth and agrees to unravel the apparent suicide of Lori's lover, Joe Earhardt

While stringing at a...