A nineteen-year-old girl named Sunshine disappears one evening from the backcountry commune where she lives. She's found the next day about a mile away, dead by strangulation.
The other residents of the commune, an unusual collection of dropouts from society, are all potential suspects as Deputy Sheriff Manny Rivera tries to make sense of an odd collection of clues. In the end, the deputy's own life is endangered as he gets closer to understanding the motive for Sunshine's murder.