A pianist (Tom Neal) hitchhiking from New York to Los Angeles to meet his singer girlfriend (Claudia Drake). When the man he is getting a lift from dies in the car, he takes over his identity to avoid the police thinking he had killed him. Things go from bad to worse when he picks up a woman hitchhiker (Ann Savage) who suspects that he did kill the other man, but has her own dubious motives for using him for her own ends.