The life of 10-year-old Sylvia is limited to living on the beach of Santa Cruz, California, sleeping under cardboard boxes at night and surviving each day by begging and stealing from unsuspecting tourists and selling miniature sand dollars to vendors on the boardwalk that she finds on the beach. When she is traumatized after witnessing her drunken father strangle her prostitute mother on the beach one night, a young couple from Oregon take pity on the little girl and take her home with them to raise her as their own. Fifteen years later they receive a disturbing telephone call form a...

The life of 10-year-old Sylvia is limited to living on the beach of Santa Cruz, California, sleeping under cardboard boxes at night and surviving each day by begging and stealing from unsuspecting tourists and selling miniature sand dollars to vendors on the boardwalk that she finds on the beach.When she is traumatized after witnessing her drunken father strangle her prostitute mother on the beach one night, a young couple from Oregon take pity on the little girl and take her home with them to raise her as their own.Fifteen years later they receive a disturbing telephone call form a stranger,...

Kyle Byrdie is a rebellious young man, breaking into the local grocery store at night to steal liquor, maliciously shooting and killing a neighbor's dog, harassing an elderly couple by throwing feral cats into their bedroom at night, but he crosses the line when he rapes his younger sister. When his father learns of this vile act, short of putting him in jail, he seeks the only available remedy - sending him to a book camp for unmanageable youths. Two strange men come to his home in the middle of the night, and while he is a drunken stupor, sleeping, they wrap him up in blankets and then haul...