"Deceptive Calm" begins against the turbulent backdrop of 1968. Two American legends, Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, are felled by assassins. In the South, it was a tough time to be black.

A stunning light-skinned beauty, Vanessa, lives in a Catholic orphanage for Black children in the Jim Crow South.. Her personal traumas include a Ku Klux Klan attack, the death of the nun who reared her, and a back-alley abortion which lead Vanessa to change her race. Obtaining the birth certificate of a dead white baby, she assumes the child's identity to begin her new life.

Starting out as a college intern, she works her way up the newsroom ranks to become the first female co-anchor of the evening newscast. Her mesmerizing and glamorous on-air personality moves the station to the top of the Nielsen ratings. Later, she marries into a wealthy and powerful family. Her charmed life abruptly ends when her first child is hospitalized and diagnosed with sickle cell anemia.

Discovering his wife and toddler son are Black, her husband plots their murders. The police investigation seems clear cut, until a curious, young detective uncovers clues to Vanessa's childhood. As he launches into her past, nothing is as it appears. The detective gets thrown off the case but still manages to unearth her prior life. The aftermath of the discovery brings down one of the pillars of San Francisco society, the ruthless Von Westerkamp family.