"Without a Trace" is a riveting procedural drama about the Missing Persons Squad of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The sole responsibility of the special task force is to find missing persons by applying advanced psychological profiling techniques to peel back the layers of the victims' lives and trace their whereabouts in an effort to discover whether they have been abducted, been murdered, committed suicide or simply runaway. The team reconstructs a "Day of Disappearance" timeline that details every minute of the 24 hours prior to the disappearance, following one simple rule: learn who the victim is in order to learn where the victim is. Senior agent Jack Malone (Anthony LaPaglia), a seasoned, astute and deeply emotional man, heads the dedicated team that knows too well that every second counts when someone vanishes. His squad includes Samantha Spade (Poppy Montogomery), an agent whose blonde good looks belie a tough, complex approach to her work; Vivian Johnson (Marianne Jean-Baptiste), a no-nonsense investigator with a special insight into victims' families; Danny Taylor (Enrique Murciano), whose sensitivity is often covered up by his street smarts, and Martin Fitzgerald (Eric Close), who earned his stripes last year as the newest member of the team who still has a lot to prove. As the team continues to work on varied and complicated cases, more details about their own lives begin to unfold.