When Felix Brewer meets 19-year-old Bernadette "Bambi" Gottschalk at a Valentine's Dance in 1959, he charms her with wild promises, some of which he actually keeps. Thanks to his lucrative - if not all legal - businesses, she and their three little girls live in luxury. But on the Fourth of July, 1976, Bambi's comfortable world implodes when Felix, newly convicted and facing prison, mysteriously vanishes. When his devoted young mistress, Julie, disappears 10 years to the day that Felix went on the lam, everyone assumes she's left to join her old lover - until her remains are eventually found in a secluded wooded park.