Geoffrey rides his bike from Roanoke to Charleston to visit his one-time mentor and good friend Savion Gage at Riverrun, Gage's plantation on the South Carolina coast. When Ellen joins him a week later, travelling by car, things are already getting complicated. The girl that Geoff kidnapped a dozen years before is getting married in a few days, he has unexpected personal history to discover, and people are losing their heads in a city where history slumbers fitfully but cannot sleep.