In 1918, James Brandon was sentenced to twenty years in prison for stealing valuable jewels from his employer, the wealthy industrialist Thomas Van Orden. Over a century later, James’s great-granddaughter, Lydia Cooper, comes to Magnolia Investigations to see if Meredith and Julia can help clear James’s name and give her mother some closure before Alzheimer’s takes what is left of her memories. As Meredith and Julia investigate the theft, they realize that certain things don’t add up—like the fact that the jewels vanished without a trace and the Brandon family never seemed to benefit from the supposed theft. So, did James actually take them? Could he have been framed? And when their investigation leads them to the history of Van Orden Industries, it soon becomes clear that someone else besides them is digging through the history of the company and the Van Orden family. But is this mystery person a whistleblower or a blackmailer?