In New Orleans, the lawyer Emily Parker meets the handsome Billy Hytner by chance; they date and fall immediately in love for each other. One month later, Billy proposes her and gives an engagement ring he bought in an antiquary shop. From this moment on, Emily has visions of a weird woman and she decides to investigate about the previous owner of the antique ring. She discovers that the woman that is haunting her is Marie Salinger, who disappeared in 1969, and the police had found only her severed finger with the ring. Her fiancé Paul Hamlin was accused of the murder but considered not-guilty by the jury. Meanwhile, Emily meets Billy's parents and is not accepted by her future mother-in-law Beth Hytner. Emily continues to investigate the murder, disclosing the truth about Marie's death.

Lt. Dave Robicheaux, a detective in New Iberia, Louisiana, is trying to link the murder of a local hooker to New Orleans mobster Julie (Baby Feet) Balboni, who is co-producer of a Civil War film. At the same time, after Elrod Sykes, the star of the film, reports finding another corpse in the Atchafalaya Swamp near the movie set, Robicheaux starts another investigation, believing the corpse to be the remains of a black man who he saw being murdered 35 years before.