On May 28, 1938, a toddler is kidnapped in the middle of the night from his bedroom in a rural South Florida town on the edge of The Everglades. The father shapes up a posse in a desperate effort to find the culprit and the child. Soon, all the locals join in the hunt – and are suspects. Local law enforcement and the Miami office of the FBI join the rescue effort; it produces three ransom notes and one failed attempt to rendezvous with the kidnapper – but no 5-year-old. With help from the government, Bailey Cash, the father, gathers up the considerable ransom money, makes a second trek to the agreed-upon drop, deposits a shoebox full of cash and waits anxiously for the return of his son.