When Travis Boyette, a convicted felon, walks into a church in small-town Missouri, he carries with him a terrible secret. Nearly a decade earlier Nicole Yarber, a high school senior with her whole life ahead of her, vanished. For two weeks, her home town stood still as thousands of volunteers combed the alleys and fields and ditches and abandoned buildings. But the search was futile. Nicole's body was never found.

Now Donte Drumm, the young black athlete arrested for Nicole's murder, sits on death row. His execution date is set for less than a week's time - and Robbie Flak, the lawyer who's been fighting to prove Donte's innocence for nine years, has spent every penny he ever had trying to get justice for his client. But now he's out of options - unless Travis Boyette's confession can put things right in time. The clock is ticking ...

An innocent man is days from execution. Only a guilty man can save him. Travis Boyette is a murderer. In 1998, in the small East Texas city of Sloan, he abducted, raped, and strangled a popular high-school cheerleader. He buried her body so that it would never be found, then watched and waited as police and prosecutors arrested Donte Drumm, a local football star with no connection to the crime. Tried, convicted and sentenced, Drumm was sentto death row: his fate had been decided. Nine years later, Donte Drumm is four days from execution. Over 400 miles away in Kansas, Travis faces a fate of his own: an inoperable brain tumour will soon deliver the end. Reflecting on his miserable life, he decides to do what's right. After years of silence he is ready to confess. But how can a guilty man convince lawyers, judges and politicians that they're about to execute an innocent man?