Omschrijving

FBI Special Agent Terry McCaleb, a veteran criminal profiler, leads a joint FBI-LAPD task force to capture the "Code Killer", a serial murderer who leaves taunting messages for McCaleb. While addressing reporters at the latest crime scene, McCaleb sees what he believes to be the killer in the crowd and pursues him only to suffer a near-fatal heart attack.

Two years later, the now retired McCaleb lives out of his fishing boat, Following Sea, on the Long Beach bay, having received a heart transplant. He is approached by waitress Graciella Rivers; her sister, Gloria, was murdered during a robbery and she asks him to solve the case. He discovers that the heart transplanted into him was Gloria's. Struggling with survivor's guilt, McCaleb agrees to help her.

Against the advice of his physician, McCaleb conducts an illegal investigation into Gloria's death, aided by his alcoholic neighbor Jasper "Buddy" Noone and a former colleague, LASD Detective Jaye Winston. He discovers that the killer committed a previous murder and identifies two potential suspects, both of whom wind up dead. Eventually, he realizes that the Code Killer is responsible, and pieces together that he and Noone are one and the same. Buddy confesses that he killed Gloria to ensure that McCaleb would be saved.

Declaring his intention to "resume the game" between them, Buddy reveals that he has kidnapped Graciella and her nephew, Gloria's son Raymond. McCaleb forces him to reveal that they are trapped on a wrecked Coast Guard cutter in the bay. He rescues them and shoots Buddy before Graciella holds his head underwater to get revenge for her sister. With his past behind him, McCaleb starts a relationship with Graciella and takes her and Raymond out on his boat.