 Successful New Orleans businessman Michael Courtland s (Cliff Robertson) tenth wedding anniversary celebration ends tragically when his wife Elizabeth (Genevieve Bujoid) and their 9-year-old daughter, Amy, have been kidnapped. In an attempt to trap the criminals, counterfeit money is used to pay the ransom, but the plan backfires and his wife and child die in a car accident during a chase with the police. Ten years later while on a business trip in Italy with La Salle (John Lithgow), his partner, Michael meets Sandra, a young woman who is an exact double of his wife. He falls in love with her and brings her back to Louisiana to get married. Michael s friends and business associates try to discourage his wedding plans; they realize that Michael is infatuated with Sandra only because she reminds him of his dead wife Elizabeth. On the eve of their wedding, she vanishes and Michael finds a ransom note - a duplicate of the one found ten years earlier.