Someone is killing young women along Interstate 40, and all the FBI has is a tenuous profile—a religious zealot bent on ritualistic sacrifice.
To FBI senior agent, JOE MAC ADAMS, the Atonement Killer is a psychopath who scrawls the word across his victim’s torsos in blood, but to rookie cop, JOLENE DYKES, he is a hooker/john sting gone terribly wrong.
Polygamist trucker NARVEL LAFFERTY'S mission is to save fifty souls. However, when his marks refuse to convert voluntarily—either by baptism or marriage into his communal family, Narvel turns to “blood atonement,” an obscure cult doctrine whereby the souls of grievous sinners may only be saved by spilling their blood and then baptizing their corpses.
Held prisoner, beaten, and raped in Narvel’s sleeping cab, Jolene finally escapes by trickery and her police skills. Put on medical leave, Jolene becomes the FBI's first eyewitness in the Atonement Killer case. Soon, however, her behavior becomes increasingly irrational and aggressive.
Frustrated by the FBI's plodding pace in the Atonement Killer case, Jolene obsessively pursues him across Interstate 40, weaving together the clues to his identity with the aid of her alcoholic cop/boyfriend.
Together, they trap Narvel at the famous Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, Texas, and there Jolene battles for both her life and her soul.