Nothing every happened in Santa Louisa which was why Ellen McKenzie, divorce decree in one hand, new real estate license in the other, goes home. Peace is what she needs, and time to figure out if forty is too late to start a new life. But the town she remembers from childhood isn't quite the same. A huge discount store wants to build, and the town is sharply divided about its coming. Each side has drawn up battle plans.  If that isn't enough, Ellen makes an appointment to show her first house and finds the body of a man, beaten to death, in the closet. It's Hank Sawyer, the town's most prominent contractor and the new store's most ardent supporter. Could Hank's death have something to do with the new store? Or could it be more personal? It seems half the staff at Harper's Land Sales, where Ellen now works, has a reason to hate him. Why wonders Ellen. She finds out all too quickly as she stumbles on the real reason Hank was murdered and almost loses her own life.