After serving ten years in prison for dealing cocaine, a crime she swears she didn't commit, Casey Cavendish returns to the small college town of Oberlin, Ohio determined to clear her name, finish her interrupted college degree, and build a new life. Her arrival coincides with an upsurge in drugs on campus. When her erstwhile best friend Jules, who married Casey's old love while she was in prison, is found dead from an overdose of cocaine and alcohol in the cellar of the Drinking Gourd, an antebellum inn on the outskirts of town, Casey graduates from pariah to the prime suspect for murder. She must discover who betrayed her before she's railroaded a second time, this time for life.

Much of the action takes place in the Drinking Gourd, an inn named after a song that helped guide fugitive slaves on their journey north to freedom during Abolition. The Gourd, once a safe house on the Underground Railroad, now serves as a restaurant and local watering hole, and is far from safe.