After years of pursuing psychotic killers in Los Angeles, an FBI agent Joel Campbell (James Spader) decides to start a new, less stressful, life in Chicago. Soon he finds out that David Allen Griffin (Keanu Reeves), a vicious killer from Los Angeles, has followed him to Chicago. For Griffin, the merciless killing of lonely young women is a pretext for a sadistic game of cat and mouse between himself and Campbell. Before each murder he sends the FBI agent a photograph of his intended victim and dares him to find her before he strikes again.