After the annual graduate Christmas party, Emily's friend and lab partner, Beth Wong, takes a dive out of a ten-storey window. Emily is not convinced that her friend's death was a suicide, and she takes it upon herself to find out what's really behind it. After spending time recuperating from the shock with Rusty Monoghan--her landlord, friend, and sometime surrogate mother--Emily returns to the university and is convinced to continue Beth's work in Dr. Mullarcant's little shop of horrors.