10-year-old Harriet dreams of leaving her home, where she doesn't feel she's needed by her mother and sister Gwen. When her mother dies in a car accident, she really starts to make plans for leaving and she finally does so together with her childlike (mentally ill) friend Ricky.

An attorney decides to take a trip with his father to their isolated family cabin to talk things out but their ensuing family argument is suddenly interrupted by two escaped convicts.

We become intimate with the "Sordid Lives" of a family in a small Texas town preparing for their mother's funeral. Among the characters are the grandson trying to find his identity in West Hollywood, the son who has spent the past 23 years dressed as Tammy Wynette, the sister and her best friend who live in delightfully kitschy homes, and the two daughters--one strait-laced, the other quite a bit looser.

Beautiful Rachel is the homebound wife of a wealthy, emotionally cold millionaire, Holden. While Holden is away on one of his many business trips, Rachel's close -- very close -- friend, the equally beautiful, plots to kill Holden for the inheritance. With murder on their mind, they seduce simpleton cowboy Travis, whom they meet in a bar, and convince him to do their dirty work. Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the cunning women, a private eye hired by Holden to follow Rachel (he suspects her of having an affair) discovers the scheme on the night of the intended murder. Alibis backfire, loyalties are questioned, and more than one murder takes place before the unpredictable ending.