The story opens with Dr. Alex Delaware in court to see the final judgment against Richard Moody, a father who has been deemed unfit to spend time alone with his children. Alex is mostly retired but still takes only court-related cases and a few referrals from friends. Following the court case, Richard Moody meets Alex outside and pleads with him to change his recommendation. Alex refuses and Richard becomes violent so that Alex has to knock him to the ground in order to get away.

Alex is then called by a friend, Dr. Raoul Melendez-Lynch, to consult a child who is being held in an isolation room pending the beginning of treatment for cancer. The child is Woody Swopes and he is being raised by Mr. and Mrs. Swopes, though Alex eventually learns they are not actually his parents. The young woman introduced as Woody's sister, Nona Swopes, is actually his mother. When Mr. and Mrs. Swopes steal Woody from the hospital and take him away, Alex volunteers to go to the motel where the family is reportedly staying. There he finds blood and a short time later the bodies of Mr. and Mrs. Swopes are discovered. Nona eventually tells Alex that she'd told her parents she was no longer going to masquerade as Woody's sister and a fight had erupted. Nona's boyfriend, Doug Carmichael, had killed the Swopes and dumped their bodies at Benedict Canyon.

Alex begins his quest to find Woody but Raoul is already in La Vista, the hometown of the family, with the idea that Woody is being held by a cult known as The Touch. Alex finds former movie stars, lawyers and psychologists among those populating the cult and eventually discovers that there's a great deal of drug, sex and even a murder to be attributed to the illicit and illegal actions of the cult. As the plot unfolds, Alex discovers the truth about Woody's parentage and then discovers that Nona's own father was actually the La Vista Sheriff. The situation thickens as Alex learns that Nona had had sex with Sheriff Houton and that the sheriff had been led to believe that he might be Woody's father. A showdown occurs as Alex finds Nona and Woody and tries to convince Nona that transferring Woody back to the hospital is the only way he'll survive. Her boyfriend, Doug Carmichael, appears on the scene and would have killed Alex except for Sheriff Houton's intervention. Nona, enraged over Houton shooting Doug, shoots the sheriff. Woody is returned to the hospital with a good prognosis, Nona is arrested as are those involved in The Touch, and Alex makes plans to meet his girlfriend in Hawaii.