Sally Justice, an obsessive teen ignores her father, Randy—an insurance investigator who’s out of town on his own case, and probes the shooting death of Wes, a schoolmate. As an actress, brought up in the family theater, she changes roles as often as most girls change outfits as she combs the adult world for clues to Wes’s death.
At Coast Watch, an environmental group Wes worked for, she meets Curt, an older boy who takes an immediate interest in her, and after discovering a connection between one of her father’s clients and a second death at a Johnson Lumber logging camp, she tracks Wes’s killer to the Oregon coast.
At the logging camp, she and her best friend, Melody, meet a crew of young men, including Curt, who’s working there under another name. Later, in a personal race for survival, alone, and pitted against the killer, she must use all her wits to stay alive.
The Portland police detective, Ferretti, tries to stop Sally’s interference in his investigation. When he finds she’s in Waldport, he puts her under guard at the Justice family beach house. But police protection, doesn’t always equal safety.
Although finding Wes’s murderer seems justification enough to Sally for her sleuthing, her father is not happy when he returns from his own case to find the trouble she’s gotten into.