In 1965, an Amherst College graduate, Terry Wagner, returns to the beaches of southern Long Island to resume his summer jobs as a lifeguard at Point Lookout Beach and a bouncer at a nightclub. His idyllic summer of love and work at the beach is overshadowed by the serial murder of two young girls in the community. Twelve-year-old Melissa Costello is the first to be discovered at Point Lookout Beach, followed by Sydney Finkelstein, a fourteen-year-old girl. Terry is shocked and spurred to unravel these crimes when a family he becomes friends with is involved. The perpetrators continue to evade capture, and the search for the murderers continues, even as first responders are tasked with ocean rescues. District Attorney Samantha Weathers brings Terry into direct conflict with one of the serial killers, culminating in a confrontation that forever changes the lives of all involved in the killers' path of destruction.