"I'm only telling you in case the police contact you. Esme was arrested, but I'm handling everything, and she doesn't want to hear from you."

That email from her ex-husband is almost the only information Alice Wilson has had about her twenty-three-year-old daughter, Esme, in the six years since Esme abruptly ended all communication.

As Alice, an environmental activist, scrambles to learn why Esme was arrested and what might happen next, she inevitably also rethinks the past. Her obsessive search up and down the California coast antagonizes her friends and jeopardizes her job. But none of that matters to Alice as she uncovers hints of a daughter she'd never known-and of her then-husband's role in their estrangement, even while they were married.

Who is the Robert Corning who was arrested with Esme, and why did she pay his bail? Why did Esme become bulimic in college? Why is she continuing to push Alice away while still being chummy with her father? Most importantly, will Esme agree to meet with Alice? And if she does, will Alice say the wrong thing-whatever that wrong thing is?