After bagging his latest victim, a murderous sociopath (Kiefer Sutherland) decides to steal the dead man's identity and pose as the deputy of a remote coastal town, where the local sheriff (Beau Bridges) and his lover (Camelia Kath) are cooking up a few misdeeds of their own: namely, to kill the mistress's husband (Wayne Rogers) and pin the crime on the fledgling deputy. But in this town of half-truths, nobody's secret is safe.