In 1959 New Orleans, Louisiana, Mike and Elizabeth Courtland host a party to celebrate their ten-year wedding anniversary. After proposing a toast to the couple, Mike’s business partner, Bob La Salle, announces their latest real estate venture, Pontchartrain Estates. Later that night, as the couple prepares for bed, their young daughter, Amy, calls Elizabeth to her room, where the child is surrounded by three armed men. Moments later, Mike enters Amy’s room and finds a note taped to a bedpost demanding $500,000 in exchange for the lives of his wife and daughter. A second note arrives the next day, with instructions for Mike to place the money in a briefcase, take the eleven o’clock Cotton Blossom riverboat, and deliver the briefcase on Old Bermuda Wharf. Mike contacts Police Inspector Brie, who advises to fill the briefcase with blank paper and a radio transmitter instead of money. Though Mike is willing to pay the ransom, Brie assures that the fake ransom plan will result in the safe return of Elizabeth and Amy and the apprehension of the kidnappers. The next day, after Mike delivers the briefcase, he and the police track the kidnappers to their hideout. However, the criminals react to Mike’s betrayal by trying to escape with their hostages. The police pursue the getaway car onto the Huey Long Bridge, where it collides with an oil truck, resulting in a fiery wreck. Mike watches helplessly as the burning car sinks into the Mississippi River. Although the bodies are never recovered, Mike builds a tomb for Elizabeth and Amy on the land intended for Pontchartrain Estates. The tomb resembles the façade of the San Miniato al Monte basilica in Florence, Italy, where Mike and Elizabeth met in 1948. In 1975, Mike and Bob embark on a business trip to Florence to meet with an investor named D’Annunzio. The day after the meeting, Mike visits the basilica and sees a young woman, who is almost identical to Elizabeth, restoring one of the church’s paintings. Mike becomes obsessed with the woman and is compelled to spend more time in Florence, while Bob returns to New Orleans alone. Visiting to the basilica again, Mike introduces himself to the young woman, whose name is Sandra Portinari, and after a brief conversation, she accepts his invitations to both lunch and dinner. On their next date, Sandra gives Mike a tour of the basilica, when she learns that Mike has never recovered from his wife’s death, for which he blames himself. Sometime later, Mike accompanies Sandra to the hospital where her mother, Maria, is terminally ill. Maria’s dying wish is for Sandra and Mike to marry, and the new lovers become engaged. Following the couple’s arrival in New Orleans, Bob happily informs Mike of an upcoming project involving D’Annunzio, which Mike wants to postpone until after the wedding. Bob questions his partner’s judgement, but Mike refuses to discuss the matter. Meanwhile, Sandra explores the Courtland home and enters the master bedroom, which has been locked since Elizabeth’s death. She reads Elizabeth’s diary and learns that Mike was a neglectful husband who seemed to care more about his business than his family. Sandra then finds a page from a newspaper and tears away a portion of it. Sometime later, Mike is visited in his office by his psychiatrist, Dr. Ellman, who is there at Bob’s behest. Ellman believes Mike’s romance with Sandra is built upon a “sense of guilt or morbid preoccupation” with his late wife. Mike appeases Ellman, saying they will continue the discussion after lunch, but instead leaves the office and arranges to have his share of the company converted to a trust fund. Mike then decides to cancel the church wedding he planned and marry Sandra at home the following day. Early the next morning, Mike discovers that Sandra is missing from her room, and a newspaper clipping, depicting the kidnappers’ two ransom notes, hangs from a bedpost. Mike takes Bob to the bank, where they collateralize several properties to raise the $500,000 ransom, which is packed into a briefcase. The same as sixteen years earlier, Mike takes the Cotton Blossom riverboat and deposits the briefcase on Old Bermuda Wharf. Within minutes, Sandra appears and opens the briefcase to find it filled with blank paper. She is joined by Bob, who declares that her father has let her down again. Sandra, whose real name is Amy Courtland, recalls being detained by one of the kidnappers while her mother was taken away by the other two. She also relives the painful memory of Bob paying her ransom and sending her to live with Maria in Italy, explaining that Mike no longer wanted her. Later that day, Mike returns to the wharf, and upon seeing the briefcase full of blank paper, screams in anguish, believing Sandra is dead. On a plane bound for Italy, Sandra writes a letter of apology to her father, then enters a restroom, where she cuts her wrists with a small pair of scissors. When Mike confronts his partner about the missing ransom money, Bob reveals his plan to seize Mike’s assets, for which he paid Sandra $50,000. A fight ensues, and Mike kills Bob in self-defense, with a pair of scissors. Taking the pistol from Bob’s desk and the briefcase full of ransom money, Mike goes to the airport with the intention of pursuing Sandra to Italy. However, when he learns that her plane has returned to the airport, he heads for the terminal, gun in hand. Sandra is in a wheelchair, accompanied by two flight attendants, as Mike approaches her. When the briefcase pops open, causing the money to spill out, she runs toward Mike and embraces him, saying, “Daddy, you came for me!” Mike registers confusion, then joy at having his daughter back.