In New Orleans, Louisiana, Melanie Silber leaves a party late at night and is followed by a man wearing sneakers. She is relieved when she encounters a policeman who offers to keep an eye on her as she enters her apartment. However, the officer is wearing the same sort of shoes as the stalker. Detective and divorced father, Wes Block, is unable to say “no” to his two young daughters, Amanda and Penny, and allows them to bring home another stray dog. Later, the devoted father must cancel an outing with them when he is summoned to the crime scene where Melanie Silber was raped and strangled. The evidence is similar to the recent murder of another woman, Yvonne Larkin. Beryl Thibodeaux, who runs the Rape Prevention Center, is aware that the two murders might be connected, and meets with Wes Block, but he refuses to discuss the investigation. At home, Wes says goodbye to his daughters as they reluctantly leave to spend time with their mother, who has visitation rights. That night, Wes questions a prostitute who reportedly worked with Melanie Silber performing group sex acts. She removes Wes’s necktie and entices him to have sex. The killer watches as the detective leaves the brothel. When Wes arrives at the crime scene of a third victim, Jamie Cory, he recognizes her as another sex worker with whom he had a one-night stand. Outside the police station, Wes tells the media that the murders appear to be linked by unusual sexual activity on the part of the victims. After Beryl Thibodeaux complains to the mayor about the police investigation, Wes visits her at the Rape Prevention Center and shares a few details of the case. While questioning women at a sex club, one of them, Judy Harper, seduces Wes. The killer watches the encounter through a grating above the room. Later, Wes recognizes Harper when her body is discovered on a river embankment. Giving the impression he wants to discuss the case, Wes invites Beryl Thibodeaux to dinner, but as they sit down, he admits an interest in her. Although Beryl finds Wes’s approach somewhat crude, she remains intrigued with him. At the police station, Wes receives a homemade doll from the killer with a note attached, “Another one will soon be dead. You could stop it if you knew what was ahead,” and the name of a sex club called Sam’s. There, a dominatrix gives Wes further instructions to go to a “gay bar” called Praline’s, with a ribbon attached to his lapel. At the bar, a young man wearing the same sort of ribbon tells Wes he has been hired by an anonymous individual to have sex with him and collect his money afterward at the warehouse across the street. Declining the offer, Wes tells the man to go ahead and collect his payment. Shortly afterward, Wes searches the warehouse and finds the gay man from Praline’s murdered. Later, Becky Jacklin, another prostitute who had a one-night stand with Wes, is murdered, and her body is left in a city fountain. The killer also drapes Wes’s necktie, which he left behind at the brothel, around one of the fountain’s marble statues. Beryl Thibodeaux joins Wes and his children for a Mardi Gras celebration, while the killer, dressed in a costume, observes them. Wes confesses to Beryl that his habit of spending time with prostitutes and other sex workers began after his wife left him. A money trail leads Wes and his partner, Detective Molinari, to the Dixie Brewery, which might explain the glass fragments and barley residue found at the crime scenes and on the doll. Wearing a welding mask, the killer spots Wes walking through the facility. Wes tells the manager he wants to search brewery medical files to identify workers with the same blood type as the killer. Later that night, Wes arrives home to find his older daughter Amanda bound and gagged on the bed, and the babysitter, Mrs. Holstein, murdered. The killer confronts Wes and tries to strangle him, until one of the dogs attacks, giving Wes a chance to grab his gun. The detective shoots, but the killer escapes. Amanda is taken to the hospital, while Penny stays with Beryl. After attending to his daughters, Wes returns to his empty house and ransacks his bedroom in a rage. A newspaper clipping reminds Wes of former policeman Leander Rolfe, whom Wes arrested for raping two teenage girls. When Molinari confirms that Rolfe was recently released from prison and works for the brewery, Wes stakes out the killer’s apartment with his partner. Meanwhile, Rolfe goes to Beryl’s home, murders the policemen watching her house, and cuts the telephone line. As soon as Wes realizes the killer’s next move, he speeds to Beryl’s. He arrives in time to save her and chases the killer through a cemetery and a railway yard. The two wrestle next to a moving freight train as Wes rips off Rolfe’s mask. They roll into the path of an oncoming train and Wes dodges the locomotive, while Rolfe is crushed to death. Beryl arrives on the scene and leads Wes away in an embrace.