David Bellson went missing from St Louis in 1989 and his father hires a local Dayton, Ohio P.I. Jake Mason to make one last attempt to find him because David's mother is dying from cancer and this is her last reqest. Jake takes the search from St Louis to New Orleans along with David's ex-girlfriend.
In New York, Stephen Cole, retired industrialist and philanthropist, dies leaving his attractive wife Samantha facing a media barrage. Samantha closely resembles Grace Kelly and is a favourite of the gossip columns.
Charlotte Wright, an investigative journalist currently between stories, agrees to write the Samantha story but as she gets deeper into the story secrets start emerging and Samantha's lawyer and friend, Jason French, finds there is information floating around that could give him serious problems.
French elects to solve the problems with murder, leaving New York detectives Leroy Henderson and Mike Chambers the task of finding the killers and the person who hired them.