Four years after the murder of a 14-year-old schoolgirl, the small town of Nordholm is shaken again by a stroke of fate: a family man is found dead on the beach, mother and daughter have disappeared without a trace. They did not leave any notes, but left the cat behind. Nobody knows where they are. But then suddenly the younger son of the family appears in the abandoned apartment. Simon Kessler from the Hamburg homicide squad and his colleague Hella Christensen take over the investigation. While for Kessler everything points to an extended suicide, Christensen does not want to believe in it. She knows the family and is convinced that the deceased would not have been capable of such an act.