NOBODY KNOWS

Even when they’re outside danger-prone New York, the fearless correspondents of the KEY News Network (Close to You, 2001, etc.) are still threatened by PG-rated psychos.

The psycho du jour, an overcompensating serial rapist who makes up like a clown to assault his victims, is dubbed “Emmett Doe” (a nice touch) by Pamela Lynch, the FBI director who adds his name to the Most Wanted List after he attacks her daughter. Unfortunately, Maggie Lynch takes a header out her apartment window after KEY Justice Correspondent Cassie Sheridan, responding to pressure from her sweeps-obsessed bosses, makes her name public, and the bosses quickly banish her to the Miami bureau and plot to promote an ambitious colleague to her old job even as Cassie’s husband, stung by years of her workaholic absences, files for divorce. Nothing can save Cassie—unless, of course, Emmett Doe improbably strikes again on her home turf. The victim this time, unravished porn queen Merilee Quiñones, has been killed only because she surprised her companion for the evening in clown makeup. But she’s made enemies of so many associates, from a rising star happy to take her place in front of the cameras to a local eye doctor nervous that his relationship with her will be discovered, that Cassie would have more than enough complications to juggle even if (1) young Vincent Bayler hadn’t discovered on Merilee’s severed hand a readily identifiable ruby ring that will endanger his whole family, and (2) Tropical Storm Giselle wasn’t bearing down on Sarasota County with winds strong enough to force mass evacuations and ruin the best-laid plans of heroes and villains alike.

Despite her failure to identify the perp, an abused romantic who’s only looking for love, Cassie ends up restored to her KEY eminence and deciding to cut back on her job to make her marriage work—in the season’s most heartwarming search for a rapist.