A detective is the only one who can see a mysterious apparition believed responsible for several local murders.

Michael Harris is a junior detective still wet behind the ears. He works with his partner, Roger Danton, boring but dedicated to the job. When a well-known local defense attorney is murdered, the detectives investigate. While inside the apartment, Michael sees a cloaked figure dart across the hall to a bedroom. Thinking this must be the killer, he races to the room, only there’s no one there and the window is closed. Michael runs outside, followed by Roger, but there is no cloaked figure.

A prostitute is murdered next, followed by an adulterer. During the investigations, Michael meets Sierra in a bar and begins a relationship. The cloaked figure confronts Michael after being chased to a subway station, where Michael is knocked unconscious. His stories about a cloaked figure no one else sees come across as unbelievable to Roger, no matter how much Michael insists that he exists. Roger thinks the head injury has something to do with it.

While interviewing the adulterer’s boyfriend, Roger steps outside to get something from their car. In his absence, the cloaked figure kills the witness and assaults Michael. Roger doesn’t know what to think any longer, not until forensics ties blood and a hair under a victim’s fingernail to Michael. Roger is given the order to bring his partner in. Michael goes on the run, where he meets Linda while hiding in her yard. Thinking Michael is homeless and nudged by her young daughter Ashley to help him, Linda gives Michael a meal and lets him sleep on the couch. The figure kills Linda and Ashley during the night and tells Michael the evidence will point to him as their murderer.

Michael goes to Sierra so he can ask for help. After he falls asleep, Sierra calls Roger. Michael overhears the conversation and realizes Roger is coming to arrest him. He flees with no place to go. On the top of a tower where a nice restaurant with panoramic views rests, the figure throws Michael over the railing. He barely prevents a fatal fall. 

Roger finds Michael and is forced to chase after him again, only this time, two fellow detectives stop the escapee and put him in handcuffs. They razz their prisoner on their way back to the station. Upon arrival, the figure snatches a gun and kills both detectives. He tells Michael he needs to run after placing the handcuffs key into his hand. Left with no choice, Michael takes off.

Roger receives a desperate call from Sierra to come to an address and don’t alert anyone or he will kill her. When Roger arrives at the abandoned factory, he finds Sierra bound to a chair. Someone knocks out Roger. He awakes to being restrained to a chair. Michael appears. He pretends to have a struggle with the hooded figure in the next room, but the prisoners quickly realize Michael IS the figure. He used the cloaked man as a scapegoat to avoid the blame and guilt for murders he committed. Roger and Sierra get free and take on their captor. Working together, they take Michael down but struggle to get past his betrayal.