Dessyre (des-i-ray): inspired by actual events

From the time she was six months old through high school graduation, she grew up in Kansas City. She was editor of the school newspaper, and she dated the quarterback. After high school, she served for four years in the United States Marines Corps.

In later life, Marisa Du Plessis fell on hard times. Now homeless, she had some minor run-ins with the law.

Consequently, 35-year-old Marisa was deported to Canada, a country she had visited before that only in her infancy. It was an onerous price to pay for her transgressions.

Her parents, it was discovered, had met in Canada where both had recently been employed by an emerging manufacturing company. Within months of Marisa's birth, they were transferred to Kansas City, where they raised their two girls and lived out their lives. Though all were lawful permanent residents, the Du Plessises neglected to apply for United States citizenship for themselves and for their daughters. Two relatively minor criminal convictions rendered Marisa ineligible to remain in the only country she knew as her home. She had to go.

But she found her way back. More than once.

This compelling tale is told from the perspective of an itinerant musician who offers a woman a late-night lift to the edge of a college town following a gig, unaware at the time that she is a fugitive from United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement. There is something peculiar about her, he senses, but he can't put his finger on what it is. Does this person need his help, or is she someone he should fear? She becomes his mid-summer obsession.