A series of brutal murders darkens the Wrightsburg, Virginia countryside. The killer, replicating notorious murders of the past, seeks to improve them, while taunting the police by leaving watches on the victims set to the hour corresponding with their position on his hit list. The tension is further increased by a second killer who is copying the crimes of the first.

First lady Jane Cox insists on hiring private detectives Sean King and Michelle Maxwell to help when her twelve-year-old niece is abducted and the child's mother killed following a birthday party at Camp David, and while the investigators have no trouble identifying the assailant, they cannot figure out the motive for his obsession with the first family.