On prom night, a group of kids wander deep into the woods and come back changed forever.

A desperate young woman, on the run from the law, takes a job at a remote desert motel. She quickly discovers the motel's patrons are rendezvousing after a large robbery. With nothing to lose, and all to gain, she hatches a plan to steal their loot.

Deputy Sheriff Lou Ford is a pillar of the community in his small west Texas town, patient and apparently thoughtful. Some people think he is a little slow and maybe boring, but that is the worst they say about him. But then nobody knows about what Lou calls his "sickness": He is a brilliant, but disturbed sociopathic sadist.