Rita Collins, a reporter and writer for a local Washington, DC television station, faces apparently unexplained rejection by her husband, who has suffered amputation of both legs during the Iraq War. He refuses both her affection and any attempts at rehabilitation. At the same time, Rita is investigating a radical political cell on an elite college campus. With the help of her husband's psychiatrist, she discovers that her marriage was doomed from the start because of its intricate ties to the career of her politically corrupt father-in-law, a Pennsylvania state senator, and his manipulative political advisor. Once her initial grief gives way to anger, Rita uses her contacts within the news media to exact revenge on her father-in-law. On the same night she successfully covers a major campus riot, the revenge she fashions proves more destructive than she could have imagined.