While cleaning out a desk at the Grace Church furniture drive, Mary discovers a false bottom in one of the drawers. Hidden inside is a manila envelope with a manuscript. Hoping to be able to return the manuscript to its rightful owner, she takes it home and reads through it, looking for a clue to its origin. Instead, she discovers that the manuscript is the first part of a memoir that confesses to burning down the Ivy Bay clock tower fifty years ago.

Mary knows someone was convicted for starting the fire. Did the wrong person go to prison? The clock tower has become a key point in the mayoral race with the candidates engaging in a heated debate centered around the destroyed landmark. But why is it suddenly such a hot issue? The manuscript holds the key to what happened all those years ago—and someone doesn’t want Mary to figure it out.