Danny Coughlin, a high school custodian in Kansas, has a vivid nightmare in which he walks to an abandoned Hilltop Texaco station on County Road F and sees a stray dog digging up a woman's hand wearing a charm bracelet. The dream lingers, and online research confirms the gas station is real, in the town of Gunnel. Driven by curiosity and concern that the dog will further desecrate the body, Danny drives there on Saturday and finds everything exactly as dreamed, including the body. He covers the exposed remains with a trash barrel, buys a Tracfone burner at a Dollar General, and anonymously reports the location to the Kansas Highway Patrol.

Police trace the call quickly via the cell tower and security footage. KBI Inspectors Frank Jalbert and Ella Davis arrive at Wilder High and question Danny. Jalbert is fixated on Danny's guilt; Davis plays the more sympathetic role. Danny tells them about the dream, and willingly gives a DNA swab, which seems to disappoint Jalbert (suggesting the killer used a condom). They search his truck and trailer, taking his gun and a knife, and Danny hires Edgar Ball, a local real estate lawyer, for representation.

The victim is identified as Yvonne Wicker, a twenty-four-year-old from Oklahoma City. At a Saturday interrogation, Danny holds firm to his dream story, eventually surrendering his phone. Forensics finds nothing in his truck. Jalbert privately performs obsessive counting rituals and prays, convinced Danny wants to confess.

The following week brings disaster: Danny fires lazy Pat Grady; the freebie paper Plains Truth publishes Danny's name in connection with the murder, almost certainly leaked by Jalbert; and Danny is fired from his job under the pretext of budget cuts. Jalbert publicly ambushes Danny at the IGA wearing a KBI windbreaker, humiliating him in front of neighbors. Danny calls Davis at her daughter's birthday party to protest Jalbert's tactics and asks if Jalbert has been spouting random numbers. Davis, increasingly troubled by Jalbert's fixation, his weight loss, and Danny's apparent sincerity, begins to entertain doubt about her partner's certainty for the first time.