After going down what turns out to be a blind alley, the suspicion falls on a man who was close to Maja's family in his youth. The police strike, but he escapes and disappears.
Despite all the warnings about dragging her private trauma into the case, Maja decides to try one last time to talk to her demented mother.
Maja is reduced to the sidelines and is close to giving up. But information about Maja's own family sheds new light on the murder. Could the killer have been a part of Maja's inner circle.
Maja and the other investigators are looking for connections between several murders and missing person cases. They discover that the pattern much more extensive than first thought.
Maja's theory of a possible serial killer is finally heard by the police, who permit her to join the investigation despite their doubts. She begins to dig into old cases in the archives, searching for a pattern.