Scully receives a phone call from her mother, Margaret, relaying the tragic news that her father died of a massive coronary. Only moments earlier Scully had seen an ethereal image of her father sitting in a chair.
     Scully returns to work anxious for a new case-anything to keep her mind off her father's death. Her curiosity is piqued by a report of a young couple's kidnapping near Jackson University. A similar abduction occurred at another university exactly one year earlier. The bodies of that couple were later found. Authorities believed they had been tortured.
     The only lead in the case is a man named Luther Lee Boggs, who is scheduled for execution in North Carolina's gas chamber in one week. Boggs asserts that he knows who the serial killer is, and backs up that claim by describing a charm bracelet worn by one of the victims. He alleges that his knowledge is obtained from psychic transmissions. He makes a proposition: that his information be traded for a reprieve from death row.
     Before traveling to North Carolina, Scully attends memorial services for her father. Captain William Scully's ashes are scattered at sea as the song "Beyond the Sea" is played.
     The agents meet with Boggs at the North Carolina prison where he is interred. Mulder hands Boggs a small piece of cloth and tells him it was cut from the clothing worn by one of the serial killer's victims. Boggs falls into a trance and describes landmarks near the kidnapper's hideout. Mulder then reveals that the cloth was cut from one of his own T-shirts and has nothing to do with the victims. Convinced Boggs is a fraud, Mulder exits, leaving Scully alone with Boggs. He begins singing "Beyond the Sea," sending a chill down Scully's spine.
     While driving along a roadway, Scully becomes intrigued by imagery described by Boggs during his trance. She enters an abandoned warehouse nearby and discovers evidence that the kidnapped couple had been interred there.
     Police are notified about the warehouse's location. But Scully cannot bring herself to tell Mulder about her father's ghost, or about Boggs' knowledge of the burial. Mulder concludes that Boggs is in contact with someone involved with the kidnapping-not with the spirit world. But when the agents meet with Boggs a second time he tells them that the victims are being held at a boathouse on a lake. Agents raid the boathouse and rescue one of the victims, Liz Hawley. Mulder is shot at close range by the kidnapper, Lucas Henry, who proceeds to escape on a motorboat with the remaining victim, Jim Summers.
     With Mulder recuperating in the hospital, Scully concentrates on locating Lucas Henry. She again interviews Boggs, who relives his near-death experience in the gas chamber when he was saved by a last minute reprieve. It was during this brief out-of-body experience that Boggs first came in contact with the spirit world. He refuses to reveal more details of Jim Summer's whereabouts until he is guaranteed that his execution sentence has been dropped.
     Scully approaches the Warden for a stay of execution, but the request is denied. Left with no other choice, Scully lies to Boggs, telling him his sentence has been reduced to life in prison. Boggs channels with the spirit world and describes a condemned brewery as Henry's new hideout. He then tells Scully he knew she lied to him about the pardon.
     Scully and other agents converge on the brewery, rescuing Jim Summers. Henry refuses to give himself up and is killed. Later, Scully witnesses Bogg's execution.