Jessica travels to Moscow to attend the International Artists and Writers Conference. No sooner has she arrived that someone steals her purse--and when the police catch up with the thief, they find a role of microfilm amongst Jessica's belongings. Immediately, the KGB accuses our heroine of being a spy--which doesn't anger her quite as much as the subsequent murder accusation leveled at an old friend.

Travelling to Hollywood in the company of elderly writer Walter Murray, with whom she is slated to collaborate on a movie script, Jessica makes a brief stop at a seedy motel-diner. Later that evening, Walter is found dead in his motel room, leaving behind a tape recording detailing the events leading up to his demise. In a series of stunningly photographed black-and-white flashbacks, Jessica learns that on the previous evening, Walter had been reunited with a woman whom he hadn't seen in 19 years--not since he killed her abusive husband!