It's 1964 and Violet Richards is in more trouble than she's ever been in her life. It was an act of self-defense against her white rapist, Huxley Broadus. But with the color of Violet's skin, there is no way she can escape Jim Crow justice, not in Jackson, Mississippi. Before anyone can find Huxley's body or finger Violet as the killer, she decides to run. With the help of her white beau, Dewey Leonard, a lovesick boy intent on marrying her up North, they make it to Birmingham before she sneaks away and catches a Greyhound bus bound for Washington, D.C. But desperation has her winding up in the small rural town of Chillicothe, Georgia. Back in Jackson, Marigold, Violet's older sister, has dreams of attending law school. But she is in a different kind of trouble: she's pregnant and unmarried. Working for the Mississippi Summer Project, Marigold has been trying to use her smarts to further the cause of the Black vote. But after the Project's lawyer, and her baby's father, abandons her and news of Huxley's murder brings the police to her door, Marigold sees no choice but to marry another man and leave Jackson behind. After a quick marriage, they move to Ohio seeking the promise of a better life and no more segregation. Two sisters on the run, one from the law, the other from social shame. What they don't realize is that there's a man hot on their trail. This man has his own brand of dark secrets and a disturbing motive for finding the sisters that is unknown to everyone but him.