As the Chief of Rheumatology at Columbia Presbyterian, Dr. Paul Allen's specialty is diagnosing patients with conflicting symptoms. He lives with his second wife and their twin sons after a failed marriage earlier in his career that produced a son named Daniel. When the Democratic candidate for president is shot at a rally, Daniel is caught on video as the assassin. Daniel has always been a good kid but, as a child of divorce used to shuttling back and forth between parents, he is also something of a drifter. At the age of nineteen, he quietly drops out of Vassar and begins an aimless journey across the United States, during which he sheds his former skin.