Julie Collins is stuck in a dead-end secretarial job with the Bear Butte County Sheriff's office, and still grieving over the unsolved murder of her Lakota half-brother. Lack of public interest in finding his murderer, or the killer of several other transient Native American men, has left Julie with a bone-deep cynicism she counters with tequila, cigarettes, and dangerous men. The one bright spot in her mundane life is the time she spends working

Surveillance on an insurance fraud case in Bear Butte County unfolds tragically for PI Julie Collins when the reappearance of a mysterious hole—the cause of a fatal accident—brings about the landowner's unsettling confession. Bones were recently uncovered on the remote ridge but, fearing repercussions from their illegal off-season hunting, the hunters reburied the remains and kept quiet. Now the hole is back, but the bones have vanished.