Jill's car is found abandoned at a back road gas station/convenience store outside Dry Falls, Arizona, a few hours from the Mexican border. The store owner was found shot inside, he who eventually died. Before he died, he was able to identify Sam Mason, an escaped convict who was in prison for murdering his wife, as the person who shot him, Sam who Charlie suspects has Jill hostage as being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Sam's two adult sons, Clint Mason and Harley Mason, are suspected to have helped their father escape. While Clint has an arm's length long rap sheet of relatively minor offenses, Harley is mentally slow and has had no run-ins with the law. The authorities' belief is that the Masons will have to stay to the main roads to head to Mexico as the mountain passes are impenetrable by vehicle. The Masons, however, have a plan contrary to what the police believe they will do. Confiding solely to Bosley and Kelly, Charlie doesn't think there is much hope for Jill to make it out of this situation alive, and wants Kelly to look out for Kris who may be tainted in her thinking solely because it's Jill that is in trouble. Beyond her friends and the authorities looking for her, Jill will have to exploit the situation between the Masons if she does have any hope of surviving, Harley, in his mental state, truly believing his father is innocent solely by what he's been told by Clint who knows better.
—Huggo