A series of murders of rich young women throughout the area of Globe, Arizona, bear the distinctive signature of a serial killer. Clues lead Detective Charles Mendoza to Paul White, a sound expert installing hi-fi systems in wealthy people's homes. His special talent is to make a noise which echoes through the air cavities in his head and shows him where the sound of the speakers should come from and echo in the room. He is married to Joan, whom, ten years earlier, he had seduced away from Mike DeSantos, who was her then-boyfriend. Paul and Joan have a daughter, Danielle.
Paul, installing equipment at Dr. Sutter's home, proximal to the most-recent murder, is approached by Mendoza—they have a cordial conversation about sound equipment, but it turns abruptly when Mendoza asks Paul if he still hunts. Mendoza questions Paul about whether he knew the victim, and then asks him about the tires on his van—a tread pattern that has been located at the scene of the murder. At the police station, Mendoza's partner Phil has uncovered Paul's criminal record—they speculate on what kind of person he might be based on that information. Mendoza, working from photos of the crime scene, begins to identify some aspects of the killer's modus operandi.
Various flashbacks show Joan's previous relationship to Mike, traveling across the country from New York City in Mike's van, heading for Malibu. The couple met Paul, whom Mike befriended. At Mike's suggestion, the two men go on a deer hunting trip together. Paul shoots a deer and then brutally mutilates it, winding up with blood all over his face, revealing a frightening and incongruous aspect to his personality. Mike later catches Joan and Paul having sex. He puts a gun to the back of Paul's head but relents and leaves.
In the present-day, Joan, on her way to Stope's Creek, stops in a gas station asking for directions. As she walks around the building to the restroom, she hears a voice singing a familiar song—Mike. As they sit and catch up, Mike mentions that he's been in prison and that he received a serious head injury which seems to have given him the ability to see the past and the future. He emphatically asks Joan to promise not to tell Paul that she has seen him.
Joan suspects that Paul is having an affair with Ann Mason, a local married socialite, when she finds his truck parked behind her house. She stabs his tires flat, which winds up providing him with an alibi for the most-recent murder which happened down the road at the same time. The killer enters the bathroom and quickly grabs the victim and piledrives her into the floor knocking her out, a first in movies. He then ties her up in a blanket with twine before drowning her in the bathtub. Distraught, Joan runs to her home bathroom to vomit and notices some twine poking out from underneath the raised bathtub. She pries the inlaid soap-dish loose and looks underneath, and sees something strange: plastic bags with body parts inside. Joan confronts Paul, who explains he has been "chosen" to put women "out of their misery," but he loves Joan.