When construction workers uncover preserved human remains at Kingfisher Station—a luxury resort development in rural Australia—Detective Maya Thorne is called back to the hometown she fled as a teenager. The discovery is eerily similar to a case she solved months earlier, but this time it's personal: the development borders her childhood home, which she abandoned.

The victim is identified as Elaine Mercer, an environmental consultant who disappeared eight years ago while investigating water rights during the region's worst drought in decades. Maya quickly discovers that Elaine had uncovered evidence of systematic water manipulation—a scheme that deliberately destroyed certain properties while allowing others to thrive.

As Maya follows Elaine's trail, she uncovers a conspiracy reaching into the highest levels of local government and beyond. Behind it all lies a generations-old feud between two powerful families willing to sacrifice anyone who threatens their control of the region's most precious resource: water.

With a drought-breaking storm approaching that promises to both reveal and destroy crucial evidence, Maya races against time and rising floodwaters. To solve the case, she must confront not only a calculating killer but also the painful connections to her past that she's spent years trying to escape.