The Kingsway detectives are called in when an eleven-year-old girl is abducted from outside her school and held for ransom. The family's recent lottery win would appear to explain why their daughter was targeted but the detectives' suspicions also fall on the mother. The father's argumentative behaviour doesn't help matters and threatens to derail the detectives' hopes for an uncomplicated exchange of money for the girl's safe return. Joe takes the case personally and takes it upon himself to find the culprit, but his deep involvement begins to affect both his family and his relationship with Nicole who is still uncertain of where she stands.

The body of Zoe Creek, a young waitress, is uncovered on the beach a short distance from where she worked. The woman's devoted fiancé tells detectives he suspected she was seeing someone else. His suspicions appear to be confirmed when it is discovered he is not the biological father of his fiancé's baby. With this revelation, attentions shift to real father, a married man who reluctantly reveals he had been approached by Zoe for financial assistance and met with her the night she was killed. Two troublesome young men enter into the mix as well. Joe is sure they're guilty of something but his heavy-handed approach results in little apart from a formal complaint being filed against Harriet. Theo presses Sophie for information about Eliot's father.

A body is washed ashore on a crowded beach. The detectives are quick to identify the dead man, an heir to a waste disposal fortune, as someone reported missing after reportedly falling off a yacht. The small number of people on board the yacht at the time of the accident means a limited number of suspects but leads the detectives into the investigation of the power struggles inside a divided family and the effects of violence. The investigation reminds Joe of his own troubled childhood and has him questioning his own parenting skills. Sophie and Theo compete for a spot in an undercover training course. Nicole, back at work part time, receives some good news.

A beach party goes terribly wrong when a teenage girl is found dead on the beach the following morning. Joe's life is once again thrown into turmoil when his father, absent from his life for the last twenty years, shows up on his doorstep wanting to reconnect with his family.

The annual bowling match between Kingsway and Monterey detectives is interrupted by the week's eighth drug overdose. It appears a lethal batch of heroin has hit the streets causing the fatal overdoses. Surveillance of a suspect reveals a familiar face — Joe's former partner, Jack McCabe. Now working as a private investigator after leaving the police service prior to being forced out, Jack reveals he is working on a kidnapping case involving the wife of a local businessman. Jack doesn't care much for Harriet who is suspicious of Jack and the whole case. Seeing the kidnapped woman's husband with a girlfriend only heightens her suspicions and calls everyone's motives into question.

Over the years, Detective Sergeant Joe Hill has had the highly dubious Nick Karados in his sights many times. But Nick has always managed to stay just out of Joe's reach. Could that be about to change? Nick, who now appears to be involved in a stolen luxury-car racket, is about to meet Joe's colleague, Detective Senior Constable Harriet Walker. Working undercover, Harriet pretends to be in the market for a top-end vehicle. Will Nick fall for her charms or will her dangerous game soon be up?

Three elderly women are brutally murdered in their homes forcing the Kingsway detectives to determine if the crimes are the work of a serial killer or merely coincidence. Nicole calls on Sophie's estranged mother to help care for Eliot. Theo's test results come back.