A Navy Chief Warrant Officer is smashed by a party bus, and the circumstances come up suspicious when they find signs of a struggle on the man's body. The team learns that he had been working as a reporter for the Houston Globe, with the same team as Brody's deceased sister Emily.

Brody immediately starts searching for a connection between the two deaths, despite her team's warning not to fall down the rabbit hole of obsession.

The victim, Babich, had just completed a major expose of a corrupt businessman, Jerod Zorn, but had been acting strangely since then. Emily's former fiancee, Daniel Nolan, whose family owns the newspaper, warns Brody to stop investigating.

The team learns Babich broke into Zorn's home and stole his laptop shortly before he died. Searching Babich's family home, they locate the laptop. An unknown hacker promptly tries to break into the laptop. The team tracks the hacker to Baton Rouge, and discover that he is Edward Lamb, the man who pleaded guilty to killing Emily in a drunk driving accident.

Lamb claims that he is actually innocent of the crime and was set up. Loretta and Sebastian discover new evidence that Babich and Lamb had both been drugged. Searching for similar MOs, they locate the hitman, who reveals that Daniel Nolan's father Robert hired him. Robert Nolan had desperately needed a big story to save his newspaper and used illegal bugging to get the information. Unfortunately, Emily (and later Babich) realized what he'd done, so they had to go.

Robert Nolan is arrested, much to the shock and horror of his son.