A man, Norman, gets ready for a party. His wife, Vanessa, tells him to change his tie then leaves without him. Norman takes a present and signs the card. He looks over his collection of die cast cars then takes a moment to clean them. He loads his gift into his SUV then drives off to the party. While he is driving, a woman cuts in front of him. Norman pulls up beside her at the stoplight and asks her to roll down her window. She looks at him, rolls down her window, continues to talk on her cell phone, rolls the window back up then drives away after the light turns green. Norman looks at his present then speeds up and catches up with the woman. Norman takes out the present from the box, which is a shotgun, then shoots her. The woman crashes into the exit ramp barrier then flips. Norman smiles then goes to the party. At the party Vanessa sees that Norman is unusually social and happy. After the party, the couple goes home and gets into bed. Later, Norman goes to the basement and saws off the barrel of the shotgun. He remembers the feeling that he got when he shot the woman.

The team flies to Orange County, California. Jordan says that there has been a recent string of shootings on the highway. She says that the first victim was a real estate agent who survived the attack. The team looks at the spread pattern of the shotgun blasts and see that it changed after the first attack. David says that he thinks that the man sawed off his shotgun.

The team meets with Salinas, the officer in charge of the investigation. Salinas says that she has set up a hotline to receive any information regarding the shootings. She says that there are officers watching out for the freeway killer all day.

The team sees that the second victim was killed at night and that the first one was attacked during the daytime. They wonder why the first victim was attacked and why the man had a gun in his car in the first place.

Hotch goes to the hospital and meets with Judy, the first victim. Emily talks to Judy's son and tells him that his mother has a good chance of recovering. The son blames himself for his mother being hurt. Hotch asks Judy if she remembers what happened the day that she got hurt. Judy says that she was impatient and cut off a man while she was driving. She remembers insulting him after she cut him off. Emily asks Hotch what happened and he says that the woman made the killer's attack personal.

Spencer tells Salinas that the killer might be targeting people who remind him of his wife. Spencer looks at a map and is told that the killer strikes around areas where there are alternate merges. Spencer tells the team and Hotch figures that the killer is targeting people that cut him off while driving.

Hotch says that the killer received a high after the first attack. He says that the killer looks to achieve the same high, but will never get the same feeling again. Hotch says that the killer will believe that he is not getting the high and is doing something wrong. The killer will hone his skills and weapon in an attempt to get that same high that he got the first time. Hotch says that the killer will never accept that the first high will never happen again and will never stop killing.