When an unidentified female body is discovered laid out on a slab in an abandoned butcher's shop, the cause of death is unclear. Her body bears no marks, except for the fact that her lips have been stitched shut.

It is only when the full autopsy gets underway at the Los Angeles County morgue that the pathologist reveals the true horror of the situation - a discovery so devastating that Detective Robert Hunter of the Los Angeles Homicide Squad Section has to be pulled off a different case to take over the investigation.

But when his inquiry collides with a missing persons' case being investigated by the razor-sharp Whitney Myers, Hunter suspects the killer might be keeping several women bondage. Soon Robert finds himself on the hunt for a murderer with a warped obsession, a stalker for whom love has become hate.