Murder, secrets, and three abandoned children. When Emma promised to see her friend Hilda safely up the Murray and onto the train for Melbourne, she certainly wasn't expecting to find her body at the family's woodpile. And despite discovering that even the dead have secrets, she isn't about to let that deter her from taking care of what her friend left behind.

But the children prove to have secrets of their own and aren't above a little sabotage. Eventually, it's her care for them that brings Emma face to face with the killer, where she discovers that revealing some secrets can be downright deadly. And Daniel isn't about to let her forget why she's on the Mary B.