Prima's life growing up on the coast of Southern California is nearly perfect until her twentieth birthday when her father attempts a murder-suicide of their family. She is the only survivor. His act is even more incomprehensible because, until that moment, he was always a committed and loving father.

As Prima uncovers his past, she learns that for years he'd secretly been sending monthly checks to a woman, Maria. She initially suspects he was having an affair with her, but she finds out that Maria was a surrogate mother in a genetic research program at her father's university where he was a reproductive endocrinologist. The experiment involved inserting non-human, primate DNA into human embryos. All were believed to be a failure. However, one baby survived and was hidden by her father who was paying Maria to keep the birth a secret.

Though Maria does not know the whereabouts of the child, she sells the story to the tabloids.When the news breaks, the university is desperate to find proof of their success and do further research on what they consider to be a laboratory specimen, property of the school. At the same time, the news sparks religious groups who are offended by the polluting of God's creation. They consider it a non-human blasphemy and begin protesting at the university.

At the center of the conflict is the search for the missing specimen, and Prima suspects that she is it.