In 2002, a young cop, Jonathan White, is a rookie officer under Captain Marion Mathers in a Queens neighborhood in New York City, where he grew up. To provide for his wife Kerry and ailing young daughter, he works hard to keep his life on track, but this life is threatened when a dark secret bubbles to the surface. An anonymous source reveals new information about two unsolved murders from 1986, in the same neighborhood. In 1986, 14-year-old Jonathan killed two men in self-defense. His friends Vinnie and Vicky helped him dispose of the bodies and keep their involvement a secret from the authorities. The detective on the case, Stanford, knew Jonathan was involved, but disposed of the evidence out of loyalty to Jonathan’s late father, who had been his partner. The boyfriend of Vinnie’s mother forced Vinnie to have sex with him. Vinnie and Jonathan decided to rob the man and escape, but their plan failed.
In the present, Jonathan meets with Vinnie, who has descended into mental illness, for the first time in years. He has been getting anonymous phone calls and letters threatening to expose what he did 16 years before. He contacts Loren Bridges, the reporter who is trying to create a newspaper story out of the source material that has been leaked. He tries to convince her not to publish the story, but she refuses and leaves. Once she leaves the restaurant, she is followed and murdered by an unseen assailant. When Kerry demands to know what is going on, Jonathan admits to her that he was responsible for the killings.
