It is the sixties when Rosemary Beckett's mother is stricken with cancer and Rosemary leaves college to nurse her. Impoverished, twenty year old Rosemary is determined never to be poor again. She moves to Washington, D.C. and obtains a job on Capitol Hill. She falls in love with Rob Whaitley who has just received his PhD from Georgetown and will be teaching in a small Michigan college. Rob has no money and many school loans to pay off. He proposes to Rosemary. Filled with memories of her past poverty she turns him down. Depressed and sadened, she focuses on her work and moves up the congressional ladder to become speech writer for her congressman. Later, she marries Cal Cryant, a legislative assistant to a senator. In love and financially secure, she realizes that everything has worked for her. She is not married long before she encounters strange happenings with Cal and his family. Rosemary Beckett is not one to run from problems and unhappiness: she is a solver and she is determined to save her marriage, but in doing so she discovers only grief and horror and a secret Cal will kill for.