In the late 1930s in New York, Marielle Patterson shares her life with her husband Malcolm and their little boy Teddy. But their lives are filled with secrets. Haunted by a past she has kept hidden even from her husband, Marielle secretly lights a candle each year for a child who died in a tragic accident when he was scarcely more than a baby. Then Marielle runs into her first love, American expatriate Charles Delauney. And when little Teddy is kidnapped Charles is first blamed, then arrested, as the Pattersons, the New York Police and the FBI turn the country upside down, looking for Teddy...