Someone is stalking feisty Baltimore P.I. Tess Monaghan. Tess is working for the foundation of moneyed college chum Whitney (who just got Tess involved in an escapade that has her in court-ordered therapy), investigating five seemingly unrelated open murder cases throughout Maryland to see whether there is a domestic homicide angle. Off the job, despite being happy with her younger boyfriend, Crow, Tess is having nightmares about seeing a former lover killed in front of her two years earlier. A Toll Authority cop who is obsessed with one of the murders (after finding the victim's decapitated head) becomes Tess's sidekick, and they follow a trail that eventually ties up all threads of the plot and leaves Tess with new nightmares.