San Francisco homicide inspector Ben Raveneau, and his ambitious new partner, Elizabeth la Rosa, catch their first case together when a young woman is found strangled in an empty building in China Basin. The victim's identity is unknown, a false confession leads nowhere, and the case spins unresolved. Meanwhile, the death of cancer-ridden homicide inspector Ted Whiteacre raises questions about an old case Whiteacre solved years before when he arrested troubled software engineer Cody Stoltz following a love triangle murder. Raveneau pulls the files, re-interviews Stoltz, and see darks threads reaching from past to present. Then a second corpse is found with a gunshot wound to the head.