A woman burns to death in her car near the Regensburg service area. Inspector Lucas and Judith Marlow, who has returned to the team, quickly find out that it wasn't an accident. The car was set on fire while the victim was still alive. The first hot lead leads the investigators to the renowned plastic surgeon Dr. Alexander Krayenberg, with whom the dead woman regularly had aesthetic procedures carried out. Holger Franz, the husband of the dead man, sinks into deep sorrow and is not really of any help to the investigators. Or is he just faking his sadness? The images from a surveillance camera lead the inspector to the Proell family. Lucas sets his sights on the innkeeper and pension owner Marc, since the victim Carla Franz had taken up residence with the Proell family and they lost track of them from there.
Together with his wife Katrin, Marc takes heartbreaking care of his brother and whirlwind Theo, who was born with trisomy 21. Lucas is depressed when the evidence points more and more to Theo, who is already on record. The victim's mobile phone, which is in his possession, weighs heavily on him. How did Carla Franz get from the pension to the site? And who put her there? With this question, Inspector Lucas moves between two completely unequal worlds: the world of the Proell family, who is struggling to survive on the poverty line, and that of the glamorous plastic surgeon Krayenberg. The doctor's smooth facade cracks when Tom reveals that Krayenberg has hired cheap guest surgeons to work for him.
In order to fully reconstruct the mysterious course of events, the commissioner must first understand that everyone involved has probably contributed their own personal part to the death of the former beauty.