Karola Kampe, a young city councilor from Nuremberg, disappears without a trace after a committee meeting. Weeks later, the criminal case gains urgency due to a curious ransom demand - Commissioner Kastner and his team take over. Does the ransom demand really come from a kidnapper? Could Karola have written it herself? Her partner seems to care more about his own career than about his girlfriend, and there are intrigues and scheming in Karola's professional environment. As usual, Kastner persistently pieces together the life puzzle of the missing woman and stumbles upon an unsolved old case: Twenty years earlier, a city council member had already disappeared and was never seen again.