Most of the wealth in Dove Creek, West Virginia, is in the earth-in the coal seams that have provided generations with a way of life. Born and raised here, twenty-seven-year-old Cole Freeman has sidestepped work as a miner to become an aide in a nursing home. He's got a shock of bleached blond hair and a gentle touch well suited to the job. He's also a drug dealer, reselling the prescription drugs his older patients give him to a younger crowd

Spencer Arrowood was a young, untried deputy sheriff when his testimony helped convict a Tennessee youth for the brutal slaying of two hikers along the Appalachian Trail. Now, twenty years later, Spencer receives an invitation to an execution. After two decades on death row, a date has finally been set to strap Fate Harkryder into the chair and throw the switch. But time has eroded Spencer's moral certainty of guilt and raised the specter of another