As a young child, Allison Tate had discovered the bodies of her parents, apparently killed by an intruder. Shortly after her twenty-first birthday, she found the body of Marsha Gold, killed in a similar matter. When this thrust her back into the Linder Sanitarium in which she'd spent most of her life since her parents murdered, Bob Ranier (her father's former business partner, like an uncle to her) hires Matlock to prove that Allison is innocent of her murder. Matlock has an unlikely ally in Warren Kreitzer, an insurance attorney who is supposed to be on vacation, but will do whatever he can to protect Allison.