Struggling to cope with her fiancé's murder, Ellen Parsons (Rose Byrne) sets her sights on those she holds responsible – Arthur Frobisher (Ted Danson) and Patty Hewes (Glenn Close). Looking to ensure that Frobisher pays the ultimate price, Ellen cooperates with an FBI investigation of Patty. But when expert witness Daniel Purcell (William Hurt) looks to Patty for help in exposing a large energy company's dumping of toxic waste, and then calls on her again to defend him when he's suspected of murdering his wife, the secrets of their longtime association unravel, leaving a complex conspiracy where nothing is as it seems. As the various players work every angle to shield their own misdeeds while undermining friends and foes alike, Ellen is drawn deeper into a series of traps in which loyalty and trust are sacrificed and Patty pulls all the strings as she seeks justice for her clients.