In 1991, a gang of thieves steals a rare $10-million gem, but, in the process, two of them double-cross their leader, Patrick Koster, and take off with the precious stone. Ten years later, on the day before
Thanksgiving, prominent Manhattan private practice child
psychiatrist, Dr. Nathan R. Conrad, is invited by his friend and former colleague, Dr. Louis Sachs, to examine a "disturbed" young lady named Elisabeth Burrows at the state
sanatorium. Having been released from prison two weeks earlier, Patrick and the remaining gang members break into an apartment which overlooks Nathan's apartment, where he lives with his wife Aggie and their 8-year-old daughter Jessie. Nathan is informed by Patrick that Elisabeth is only pretending to be insane to hide in the institution from this gang that is searching for the gem. That evening, Patrick kidnaps Jessie as a means of forcing Nathan to acquire a six-digit number from Elisabeth's memory. As Nathan visits Elisabeth, she is reluctant at first, but he gains her trust laterespecially when he reveals the situation with Jessie. Sachs admits to Nathan that the gang who kidnapped Jessie also kidnapped his girlfriend to force him to acquire the number from Elisabeth. He is then visited by Detective Sandra Cassidy, who reveals to him that his girlfriend has been found dead. Meanwhile, Aggie hears Jessie's voice and realizes the kidnappers are located in the nearby apartment. They send one of them to kill Aggie while the others escape with Jessie, but she sets an ambush and kills him. After Nathan takes Elisabeth out of the sanatorium, she remembers certain events regarding the gang. It is revealed that Elisabeth's father was the gang member who double crossed the others and kept the gem. However, other members of the gang later found him and ordered him to reveal where he had hidden it, subsequently pushing him in front of a subway train right in front of his daughter (Elisabeth) when she was a little girl. The gang members were arrested immediately, and Elisabeth escaped with her doll in which the gem was hidden. She also remembers that the required number, 815508, is her father's grave number at
Hart Island and that her doll is placed beside him in the coffin. She explains that she had stowed away on a boat that was taking her father's coffin for burial in
Potter's field on the island, where the gravediggers put the doll, named Mischka, inside. Nathan and Elisabeth steal a boat to reach Hart Island. The gang members track them down and demand that Nathan give them the number they want. Elisabeth reveals the number and Patrick orders his companion to exhume her father's coffin after releasing Jessie. He finds the doll and the gem hidden inside it. Before Patrick can kill Nathan and Elisabeth, Cassidy arrives. Patrick's companion is shot by the officer, but Patrick manages to wound her. Taking advantage of the confusion, Nathan takes the gem from him and throws it into an open mass grave. He kicks Patrick into it, and then triggers a collapse of its sides, filling the grave with dirt and burying him alive. Nathan reunites with Aggie and Jessie, thanks Cassidy, and invites Elisabeth to live with them. ==Cast==