A serial killer is torturing and murdering women, then setting them on fire in public places. To date, the police investigation has been lax; until the daughter of a well-known entrepreneur, Peter Bondurant, goes missing, followed by the discovery of a headless burnt corpse in the middle of a park with Jillian's ID nearby. There was a witness to the crime; a young girl Angie DiMarco, who refuses to give her real identity and is reluctant to cooperate with the police and the witness advocate that is assigned to her, Kate Conlan.

FBI criminal profiles specialist, John Quinn, with whom Kate has previously had an affair is brought in to help with the investigation. Sam Kovac and his sidekick, Liska are police officers leading the investigation. Despite Bondurant's insistence that the murderer of his daughter is found as soon as possible, there are few clues to go on and the investigation looks doomed to failure.

Then Angie goes missing from the safehouse she has been assigned to, despite being guarded by a police officer. The fear is that she has been kidnapped by the perpetrator of the crimes so that she cannot give away any information. Then another body is found, also burnt. However, it is not that of Angie, it is the body of another of Kate's witnesses, Melanie Hessler. It seems clear that the murders are turning into a personal attack on Kate, particularly as information the perpetrator has received on the witness' whereabouts can only be the result of an internal leak of information.

The story continues at an amazing pace until literally the last few pages when we finally find out who the totally unexpected killer is.