Ellie Sokoloff is attending Ventana Ranch School in Big Sur, because she hopes that the wide-open setting will cure her claustrophobia and she was delighted to find Eliza Hart her childhood friend also in attendance; but Eliza has changed and for no apparent reason starts spreading rumors about Ellie, until one day she is found dead--now Ellie must find out what happened to her one-time best friend, and who killed her, not least because she herself is everybody's chief suspect.