Jackson Daniels, investigative detective with the Knoxville Police Department, is called to the scene of a murder at a ritzy hotel, where a man lies on the bed, above whose mutilated body the words “Wayne’s Dead” have been written.

Jackson and his team of detectives ascertain fairly quickly that they are faced with a brutal serial killer who has been on the loose in the Southeast for the past twelve years, choosing married, middle-aged attorneys as prey, seducing, then murdering them, mutilating the body after-ward, always leaving the same message at each killing, written in the victim‘s blood with a severed body part.

Frustrated over the lack of evidence found at each scene, Jackson and his team frantically search for their killer, never suspecting that the person they are trying to find has been with them from the start.