Carolyn Bethell is looking forward to returning to Arbutus Point Lodge on Vancouver Island, where she and her husband, Dann, have spent many happy holidays relaxing and recharging.

This visit is meant to be especially welcome. Dann is flying in from Brazil for a rare week or two away from his overseas job, and Father O’Brien is joining Carolyn for a few days before Dann arrives. Carolyn hopes the peace of the lodge, the forest, and the ocean air will also help Father O’Brien, who has seemed unusually preoccupied.

But before Carolyn even settles in, she learns that the lodge’s longtime manager has retired, and the new manager is Robert Scott, the man she was engaged to before she met Dann. Robert was once involved in the drug trade and managed to talk his way out of jail time. Carolyn has never trusted that he truly changed. Worse, she has never told Dann about him. As far as Carolyn was concerned, Robert Scott belonged firmly in the past, along with the humiliation and betrayal he left behind.

Avoiding him would be ideal.

Unfortunately, Arbutus Point Lodge has other plans. On Carolyn and Father O’Brien’s first walk through the forest path that follows the shoreline, the day is crisp, beautiful, and golden with autumn light. Then they find a body partially covered with leaves.