Bill Danner, an executive with an Orlando, Florida software firm, flies to Pittsburgh a few days before Christmas for a conference. After checking in to his hotel, Danner, a Pittsburgh native, drives to a familiar haunt from his past and has a drink at a local bar. As he leaves, he is mugged, knocked unconscious and dragged into an alley.

When he comes to, he realizes what has happened and knows he must somehow escape before he is murdered. Just then, he suddenly hears a strange voice guiding him away from the street gang responsible for assaulting him. Once he is safe, he collapses from exhaustion, waking up the next day in a hospital.

As his mind clears, he tries to remember exactly what happened and wonders if the voice he'd heard had been a product of his imagination, possibly brought on by the head injury he'd sustained the night before. But later on, when he experiences the vision of a little girl from his distant past, he begins to doubt his own sanity.

On Christmas Eve, the vision suddenly reappears, this time sweeping him out of the present and back to his childhood. He soon learns things he never knew before and discovers that an unknown love has survived the ages to repay a debt he wasn't even aware existed.