In the darkness of a misty Georgia night, Lorie Manning aids a badly wounded Confederate reenactor, a blue-eyed career soldier and spy calling himself Major Jefferson Preston. The name is an intriguing footnote to the genealogists in Lorie's family, who know Major Preston only as a dashing Union spy who disappeared in the service of his country 150 years before. His fate has remained a mystery. In this century, the extended family is grieving the recent loss of Jon Randolph Third, beloved centenarian patriarch of Randolph City, the small town which has taken his name. Randolph has been extraordinarily generous to the town. His legacy is crucial to its well-being. His will, however, can nowhere be found. As his family frantically searches, hoping to track down the document before Jon Third's adopted son, Rolf Maratti, long estranged, files papers to acquire everything of value including the old mansion and its many secrets, Jeff volunteers his service to the cause. He and Lorie embark upon an adventure that unmasks a multi-century conspiracy of kidnapping, murder, slavery and the Underground Railroad, tying Randolph's legacy to an ancient document that binds the signers' descendants to unending servitude. In so doing, they discover a way not only to save Randolph's legacy-but to free his embattled family and friends from their hidden foes.