Episodi - DC

An attractive man has lured two teenage girls to a secluded wood for a fatal picnic. A second man lurks in the trees, secretly watching the deadly seduction. Meanwhile, Police Detective Mike Sweeney is moving his family to the bedroom community of Durham County. Wanting to escape the violence of the big city after his partner is shot he and his family unknowingly move across the street from Ray Prager – a nemesis from Mike's teenage past and the second man in the woods. The dark tension between Mike and Ray indicates that they have unfinished business. But before Mike can come to terms with Ray and his past, his own family must deal with palpable tensions of their own. Mike's wife Audrey has just returned from the hospital after undergoing a mastectomy and Sadie, his teenager daughter, suffers from an extra heaping of teenage angst. She channels this into a morbid fascination with crime, and a bristling resentment of her mother. Their younger daughter, Maddie, becomes fascinated with Mr. Stephens, the man who committed suicide in her room, and is determined to rid the room of his presence. While Mike loves his family and struggles to make it all work he is unable to forget Natalie Lacroix, whom he fell in love with while his wife was deemed to die of cancer. Meanwhile, Ray tries to pump up his self esteem using new age panaceas but is resentful of the attention Traci, his wife, shows their son Ray Jr. When Ray is confronted by his son's teacher, Nathalie Lacroix, and asked by her to support his son for a scholarship, Ray lashes out at her. The result is murder. With his family safely in bed, Mike goes to Natalie's apartment to talk to her one last time. What he doesn't realize is that it's too late.

Anger bubbles up from under the domestic and superficial calm of Durham County as murder and betrayal shatter the foundations of trust and family. Mike discovers that Nathalie Lacroix, the woman he fell in love with when his wife almost died, has been murdered. Blindsided by guilt and grief, he sets out to investigate Nathalie's murder, at the same time trying to cover any traces of them ever being together. Meanwhile, Mike's daughter, Sadie, struggles to deal with the duplicity of a popular boy at school that she thought liked her, after a run in with a gang of his friends at an abandoned farmhouse outside of town.

As Mike tries to put the pieces of Nathalie's murder together, Ray Prager's dark side grows. His wife, Traci, is pushed to her limits over Ray's refusal to pay the small amount of money needed for Ray Jr to take advantage of a writing scholarship. Locked out of the house by Ray, and triggered by the shock of Nathalie's death and her husband's increasing hostility, she leaves him. Ray retaliates by cancelling all her credit cards, leaving her penniless. He then turns his attention and charm on Audrey, Mike's wife, giving her a ride to a job interview. Flattering and supportive, Ray completely fools Audrey into thinking he's caring and sympathetic. Later, at the strip bar where the cops and Ray hang out, Ray starts to prod Mike about Nathalie's murder, saying he heard she had a boyfriend. Ray knows the boyfriend is Mike from the notebook he found in Nathalie's purse after he killed her. Pushing Ray away, and conflicted and torn, Mike returns to Natalie's apartment to retrieve his mother's ring he gave her. He gives the ring back to Audrey, who is overwhelmed by its return. In this one sweet moment, Mike tries to bury his betrayal.

Haunted by Nathalie's death, Mike Sweeney secretly grieves and is more committed than ever to tracking down her killer. Yet he's still trying to cover-up his past relationship with her. When it's discovered during Nathalie's autopsy that she was still a virgin, there's more interest than ever from the other detectives in finding her boyfriend. Ray, meanwhile, wallows in self-pity after Traci leaves him. Exacting revenge, he harasses Traci publicly until she loses her new job as a chambermaid and is forced to take a bookkeeping job at a massage parlour, which she must hide from her son, Ray Jr. Ray soon takes refuge in his local strip bar and crosses paths with the tall, dapper, and deadly stranger that he'd witnessed kill the teenage girls. He sees the stranger pick up local real estate agent Sally Morgan and tails the stranger and Sally to his old abandoned family farmland that Sally now has up for sale. When the stranger abandons Sally, who proves to be a less than willing victim, Ray offers her help and consolation before killing her himself.

Mike, trying to put the pieces together around Nathalie's murder, can't stop seeing and feeling her presence. With the discovery of the bodies of the Travis girls, Mike begins to suspect a connection between their deaths and Nathalie's murder. Circumstantial evidence starts to mount that links Ray with Nathalie and her murder. Not wanting to be taken off the case, Mike finally confesses to his partner Tom, that he knew Nathalie and that they were good friends. Only good friends.

As Mike returns to Nathalie's apartment to try and come to terms with her death, Audrey and the family are having dinner with Ray. While Sadie and Ray Jr. eat outside and cement their friendship, inside Audrey dines by candlelight, alone with Ray. He purposely lets slip Mike was the one who ran him down and ended his professional hockey career when they were teenagers. He says Mike was enraged because the woman he loved, Claire, couldn't resist Ray's charms. This news, and the idea that Mike would hide such a thing from her, only further manages to push Audrey away from Mike.

Real estate agent Sally Morgan who was last seen with Ray is discovered dead. Like the other women, her hair's been cut and, inside her bra, Mike finds Ray's business card. Mike's almost certain there is a connection with Ray but he has no real proof. He and his partner, Tom, decide to go to Ray's and question him.

At home, Audrey discovers their new house was a bargain because the previous owner had committed suicide in the room where her youngest daughter, Maddie, now sleeps;one more thing that Mike has hidden from her. On a ‘chance' encounter with Ray that he totally orchestrated, Ray draws Audrey into his confidence and gives her a set of expensive purple silk lingerie on the pretext that Traci wouldn't accept it as a gift. As Ray's leaving Mike's house, Mike and Tom pull up. Mike, set on establishing a connection between Ray, Nathalie and Sally Morgan, starts questioning Ray. Ray's son covers for him when Mike and Tom ask Ray where he was on the night of Nathalie's murder. To throw them off, Ray says he saw Sally Morgan chatting to a big, well-dressed man at the local strip bar. When Mike brings Ray in for further questioning, Ray turns the tables on Mike and the whole precinct learns that it was Mike who ran Ray down and ended his pro-hockey career. Mike's told by his supervisor to back down on Ray.

Not wanting to give up on Ray as a suspect, Mike visits his teenage sweetheart Claire, now in her late 30s, who was at the heart of the drama between Ray and himself. He wants to know if she thinks Ray is capable of violence. Her silence says it all. His suspicions are further confirmed when Sadie tells her father that she knows that Ray Prager wasn't home on the night that Nathalie was murdered because she witnessed him returning home at 2 am in wet clothes. Later on, at a hockey game with the guys, Ray makes Mike the butt of a joke in the locker room when he insinuates that he was with Mike's wife – and she was wearing purple lingerie. Ray and Mike have it out on the ice. After the game, Ray finds out that his friend, Joel, one of the police detectives, has to drive into the city with DNA evidence that could establish Nathalie's murderer. Having no alternative, Ray murders Jake, and destroys the evidence that proves he murdered Nathalie. Trying to put it all together and not wanting to let Nathalie go, and perpetually haunted by her ghost, Mike once again revisits Nathalie's apartment and startles her sister, Simone, who is staying there. Returning home, he confronts Ray and tells Ray that no matter what, he's going to get him.

Mike and Tom investigate Jake's death and discover that the evidence that could have determined Nathalie's killer has been incinerated with Jake. Back at the precinct, Claire unexpectedly arrives to talk to Mike about Ray. Claire tells Mike that Ray raped her when they were teenagers. Mike feels guilty forever believing that Claire had had an affair with Ray. She discloses to Mike and Tom that the manslaughter charges brought against Mike for running down Ray were only dropped in exchange for her dropping the rape charges. Tom questions whether Mike should even be working on the investigation because of his relationship with Nathalie. At home, the family throws a birthday party for Maddie. Later, Maddie and her friend burn incense in her room to try to remove the ghost of Mr Stephens.

Sadie confronts Ray Jr about his father coming home late on the night of Nathalie's murder. Ray Jr. denies this and continues to defend his father but Sadie's comments throw him off and he begins to wonder if his father is capable of murder. After Nathalie's burial, Nathalie's sister, Ray and Ray Jr perform a private ritual for Nathalie by the lakeshore. During the ceremony Ray tries to draw his son closer to him and says ‘like father like son' but Ray Jr. refuses to believe this and pushes him away. Realizing he's losing his grip on his family, Ray decides to incriminate Mike in Nathalie's murder. While installing new toilets at Mike's house, at Audrey's request, Ray plants Natalie's bloody scarf in Mike's jacket. When Mike finds out Ray was in his house he's furious and confronts Audrey. She defends Ray at the same time asking Mike what else he's hiding.

Ray, with murder on his mind, waits outside the massage parlour where Traci now works as a bookkeeper. To his surprise, he sees the serial killer going into the massage parlour. The killer tries to attack Traci but is interrupted by Ray's insistent ringing of the front doorbell. Ray approaches the serial killer as he leaves, letting him know that he knows who he is, and what he's done. The serial killer viciously threatens Ray who backs off. Sadie and Ray Jr make love then she grills him about his father and Nathalie's murder. Mike confronts Ray about Nathalie's homicide, but Ray Has already prepared for Mike to take the fall.

Mike wakes up from a nightmare to realise that he's in police custody charged with murder. At the precinct, Audrey confronts him about his affair with Nathalie and bursts into an angry rage when he admits to his relationship with Nathalie. When she leaves, Mike starts to figure out that there were two killers and tries to convince Tom of his innocence. Meanwhile, Sadie confronts Ray Jr and forces him to face the fact that his father murdered Nathalie because he was jealous that Nathalie supported and believed in him. Refusing to believe her, Ray Jr. checks out his father's alibi and realizes his father was lying and Sadie is right.

Ray walks a tightrope between violent rage and tight control. He turns his rage on Traci when he confronts her at work and she refuses to come back to him. When he finally leaves her, Traci calls the police to report the assault. While Ray's away, Sadie sneaks into the Prager's house to look for evidence. Ray returns and catches Sadie then kidnaps her and takes her up to the old farm. Ray tells Sadie about watching the serial killer murder the teenage girls.

At the precinct, Ray Jr. tells the police about his father's false alibi and Mike is released. Mike returns home from jail and realises that Ray has abducted Sadie and taken her to the old farm. At the farm, Sadie convinces Ray to undo the plastic ties on her wrists and she manages to get hold of the gun. Refusing to kill him, Ray taunts her then heads for the barn to find Mike. Catching Mike unawares, Ray cuts Mike with a knife and the two men struggle until Sadie, now with Audrey, intervene. In the ensuing emotional meltdown, Sadie shoots Ray. As the police take Ray away in an ambulance, Mike, Audrey and Sadie must now re-connect as a family.