Gentleman student Will Radford happily dates campus mate Jessica, even wins a welcome from her overprotective single mother Tessa, but the latter finds him dead from cardiac arrest on their doorstep.
Family friend doctor Christian's thorough test brings out the knave died from a hard to detect, fast-broken-down poison.
This adds to Tessa's paranoia no less then a masked man who actually lurked out on the fatal night- vandalizing her hairdressers parlor with a baseball bat, she just got away and has nightmares.
Jessica however is determined to start a new life, regardless of mother's objections to the new boyfriend twice her age, Eric, who promises to dump Jess off easily but keeps dark secrets and proves a match for family friend attorney Nancy who enables dirty tricks.