Heidi is a waitress in a diner at a dingy truck stop in the Californian desert, while Jane works at the local casino, and harbours ambitions of being more. The town they live in lies sandwiched between the oppressive shadows of both a military base and a prison. In this in-between place, Heidi and Jane have only each other. Heidi is haunted by a recurring dream of her own violent death and deep down knows that although the desert is dangerous, it is the only place she can be. The girls’ friendship becomes fractured when Heidi meets love interest Lyle. Meanwhile Jane, dissatisfied with how her life is going, marries Taylor, a soldier. It’s not the marriage she imagined for herself and she begins to crumble under the mundanity of it all. Jane loses the Rodeo Queen Pageant, and her mood plummets. The morning after the Rodeo, Heidi finds Jane's crumpled consolation tiara in the dirt. Jane is missing. Heidi drives out to where Jane has set up home with Taylor. The Army wives did not like Jane, and are not ashamed to tell Heidi she didn’t fit in. Jane's own mother tells Heidi that Jane is not missing. Heidi, determined, searches for her friend. If Heidi herself went missing, who would go looking for her? Who would notice? The landscape is littered with posters of missing girls. Against the odds she finds Jane, but she did not want to be found. She is part of the desert now and refuses to leave. Heidi takes to the highway to visit her aunt in Los Angeles. Finally she has escaped the dismal existence of the desert. But the desert is not done with her, as her recurring dream becomes a dark reality.