Ranger Grace Watanabe discovers fellow Ranger Erik (Red) Petersen's dead body tangled in the barbed wire at the Manzanar National Historic Site entrance. The local sheriff's department quickly decides the death is related to a Mexican cartel who use the nearby highway to smuggle drugs. Park Service Investigators Doug and Jill Fletcher look for a more obscure motive by focusing on other groups who might be unhappy with the Manzanar site. Finding no obvious suspects or motives, they step back and realize the victim was targeted for an entirely different reason.