Dave Kominek of the Marion County Sheriff's Department in Salem, Oregon is the lead investigator in the case of two cleaning women, Shari Hull and Beth Williams, who, at an office complex job site one evening, were raped and shot by an intruder. While Shari died from her injuries, Beth miraculously survived two gunshot wounds to her head. The perpetrator was wearing a hoodie, black gloves and had tape, like a bandage, across the bridge of his nose.
In questioning a shaken Beth, Dave, taking one seemingly minor statement she makes, believes that this case may be tied to a series of robberies/sexual assaults/murders of females along Interstate-5 (I-5) - the primary highway running north-south along the United States west coast - each incident taking place within a few blocks of a highway off-ramp. In pulling together investigators from each of those cases, Dave does believe they have a serial killer on the loose. Further information tying the cases together is the not often used .32-caliber gun as the murder weapon.
While more combined robberies/sexual assaults/murders of women occur along I-5, Dave ends up leading an investigative task force to hunt down the killer, working on this case which takes a toll on his marriage and family life with his two sons. In addition, Beth, who has not been able to cope with life following the murder attempt - that non-coping which includes not wanting to tell even the closest people in her life, such as her out-of-town boyfriend Eddie, what happened - has transferred all of her attention on Dave, who she sees as her possible savior and the only person who she believes truly knows everything about what she has gone through.
Meanwhile, the killer may provide clues to what he has been doing to those closest to him, if they pay close enough attention to notice.