One night in New York City, a carjacker opens an automobile door and finds a dead body inside. In the morning, psychiatrist Sam Rice dismisses a patient and listens to a telephone message, informing him that his divorce has been finalized. A woman enters his office and introduces herself as Brooke Reynolds, the mistress of the murdered man and Sam’s former patient, George Bynum. Brooke presents Sam with George’s watch, asking him to discreetly return it to George’s widow. When Sam receives a visit from homicide detective Joseph Vitucci, Brooke becomes flustered, accidentally breaks Sam’s desktop figurine, and leaves through a back door. Vitucci questions Sam about George’s therapeutic treatment, searching for possible motives. That evening, Sam reads his notes from George’s patient file and recalls various sessions in which George describes meeting Brooke Reynolds, who worked as his secretary. Sam’s psychiatrist mother Grace arrives and chastises her son for forgetting to attend a family party. Sam apologizes, confessing that George’s death and the end of his eight-year marriage has shaken his confidence, as he is trying to avoid confronting his emotions. Later, while doing laundry, Sam rereads George’s file and remembers his patient speaking about a hypothetical killer. Sam hears a noise in the basement and creeps through the dark hallway to investigate, but finds Brooke standing in the elevator. She presents him with a replacement figurine and confesses that she never loved George despite what he may have said during therapy. After Brooke leaves, Sam recalls another session in which George suggested that the “uptight” Brooke would make a good romantic match for the doctor. In addition, he revealed that she lived in a neighboring apartment, and he looked out his window to see her have sex with another man. During additional sessions, George suspected Sam of becoming secretly fixated on Brooke, and described a recurring dream: Inside a darkened house, he encounters a young blonde girl holding a teddy bear with one bleeding eye. While trying to escape, he finds a green box in his pocket, and the back doors burst open to reveal the girl standing behind him. Back in the present, Sam meets detective Vitucci at the auction house where George worked. According to discrepancies in his calendar, George used his frequent therapy appointments as a cover to meet with multiple mistresses. The detective’s evidence suggests that George was murdered by a woman whom he suspects will kill again. On his way out, Sam bumps into Brooke, and recalls George detailing their first sexual encounter. Brooke later shows up at Sam’s apartment, worried that he revealed her affair with George to the police. She confesses that she attempted to end their relationship the night of the murder, and felt relieved to learn of his death the next morning. Sam consoles her, and they kiss, but are interrupted by his mother, Grace’s arrival. Later, mother and son dissect the meaning of George’s dream, hoping to find clues that will determine the killer’s identity. That night, Sam believes he sees Brooke walking through Central Park and follows her, but a mugger stops him and steals his coat. The next morning, the thief is found dead with wounds similar to George, and Vitucci assumes that the killer intended to kill Sam. Sam visits Brooke’s apartment while she is receiving a back massage, and she invites him to an important auction she is working at that evening. There, Sam finds Brooke in a back room tearing up a newspaper, then accompanies her to the main hall. When she drops her keys, Sam pockets them and sneaks upstairs once the auction begins. He finds the shredded newspaper, which contains an old headline, reporting a man’s tragic, accidental death. When the auction concludes, Brooke finds him upstairs and coldly dismisses him. On his way out, he runs into Vitucci, accompanied by a witness who hopes to identify a potential suspect. Instead of leaving, Sam watches the next auction and writes Brooke a note advising her to get out before the police recognize her. Afterward, Sam asks another auctioneer, Gail Phillips, where he can find Brooke, and she tells him the location of Brooke’s family seaside cottage. Once Sam leaves, Vitucci approaches Gail to question her about Brooke. At the cottage, Sam warns Brooke that the police consider her a strong suspect. She recounts her struggle with her parents’ separation, her mother’s death from alcoholism, and later finding a letter from her mother. The note revealed that Brooke’s father never loved her and only married her mother for money. After Brooke showed her father the letter, he became violent and she pushed him over the cottage’s cliffside balcony in self-defense. Because she was always close with her father, Brooke was never involved in an inquest. Brooke explains that George somehow knew of the circumstances surrounding her father’s death, and threatened to blackmail her if she ended their affair. Sam realizes that Brooke’s cabin is the house in George’s dream, and walks through the various rooms while visualizing the scenario George described to him. Brooke corrects Sam’s interpretation of the “green box,” claiming that George meant “greenbacks,” a nickname he had given to his colleague, Gail Phillips. Figuring that Gail and George had a previous affair, Sam insists that Gail jealously murdered him, then framed Brooke. He telephones Vitucci, but is unable to reach him because he is lying dead in Gail’s apartment. Upon remembering that Gail knows Brooke and Sam are at the cottage, the two turn off the lights and leave, but Brooke runs back inside to retrieve her keys. While Sam waits in the car, Gail stabs him in the shoulder and follows Brooke into the house. Brooke hides in a closet before sneaking to the upstairs balcony where her father died. Gail swings her knife, but loses her balance when Sam cries out from the doorway. Brooke grabs Gail’s sleeve to keep her from falling, but the fabric tears and the killer topples over the banister and onto the rocky cliffs below.