Seventeen-year-old Christa Makins has been preparing for this day for a long time. As her alcoholic mother raises a hand to hit her yet again, Christa runs away and doesn't look back. A resourceful young woman, she assumes a unique new persona in Thunder Bay, Ontario. Neither her classmates at Lakehead College nor her employer at the Voo-Doo Lounge suspect her true identity. She plans to keep it that way. But someone is looking for her. A maternal aunt, who is unknown to Christa, has been alerted to her disappearance. Rebecca Reese, a successful Chicago businesswoman, hires a private investigator who searches Echo Bay and Sault Ste. Marie seeking for clues to Christa's whereabouts. He interrogates the few people who knew the girl, only to discover a series of dead-ends. Although it's a struggle to maintain a low profile and make a better life for herself, Christa knows it's her only opportunity to escape from her abusive parents. But her freedom may be short-lived when a dead body is discovered in an abandoned warehouse that Christa frequents. Her D.N.A. is the compass that keeps the police on her trail.