Laura's life with her handsome and successful husband seems perfect to those looking at it from the outside. But behind closed doors, Laura resides in a personal hell. Her husband is a psychotic, controlling perfectionist, and his escalating emotional and physical abuse eventually leads the desperate Laura to plot her escape. One stormy night she leaps from the bow of her husband's sailboat and swims for shore. Her husband initially believes that she drowned; meanwhile, Laura "resurfaces" in a college town in Iowa. Attempting to rebuild her shattered life, Laura changes her name, takes a new job in the campus library, and makes friends with a sensitive and sweet drama teacher. But this happiness proves to be ephemeral when her crazed husband gets wise to the deception and turns up in the Midwest determined to bring his wife back home -- whatever it takes.