Opening
With her world tilting beneath her, Chloe Davis chases answers alongside the enigmatic Aaron Jansen / Tyler Price, only to discover that her fiancé, Daniel Briggs, may have been hunting her from the start. A grim visit to Daniel’s childhood home unravels into a nightmare of family secrets, a stolen ring, and undeniable proof—culminating in a race back to the place where it all began, and where another girl’s life now hangs in the balance.
What Happens
Chapter 36
Chloe and Aaron drive into a neglected Baton Rouge neighborhood to the home of Dianne Briggs, mother of Chloe’s fiancé, Daniel. Wearing reading glasses as a flimsy disguise, Chloe coaches Aaron on their cover: they’re New York Times reporters looking into the recent disappearances of Aubrey Gravino and Lacey Deckler, and they want to dredge up the unsolved case of Dianne’s daughter, Sophie.
Dianne answers the door a wary, battered figure—yellowed eyes, a new bruise, and the smoke-stained house behind her. Suspicious, she hesitates until Aaron flashes a press badge. Inside, the home reeks of stale cigarettes and neglect, a jarring counterpoint to the hygienic perfection Daniel cultivates. Dianne lights a cigarette and warns them her husband will be home soon. Chloe clocks the signs of abuse, then leans in: they’re here because a girl is missing, and answers may start with Sophie.
Chapter 37
Dianne points to a single framed school photo—Sophie, bright and hopeful. She speaks haltingly about a life where escape felt impossible and admits her husband, Earl, has a violent temper. She worries Daniel inherited it. Chloe feels the strain of the spotless life Daniel built against the rot of his past and how perfectly he’s covered it.
Then Dianne confesses what no mother wants to say: she thinks Daniel had something to do with Sophie’s disappearance. She remembers how detached he seemed, how he smirked while watching news coverage, as if he held a private joke. Hungry for proof, Chloe asks to see Daniel’s old room. Dianne, long ignored by police, lets her go upstairs.
The bedroom sits preserved in teenage amber. While scanning the bookshelf, Chloe finds a copy of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil—the exact book Daniel bonded with her over when they met. Inside, she discovers yellowed clippings about the crimes of her father, Richard Davis. The moment snaps something open: their meet-cute wasn’t fate. It was strategy.
Chapter 38
Chloe’s panic spikes. Daniel knew about her father from the beginning. He pursued her because of it. She and Aaron scramble to leave, but as Chloe thanks Dianne, the older woman notices her engagement ring. She grabs Chloe’s hand, eyes going wide. It’s Sophie’s ring—the one she wore the day she vanished.
Chaos erupts. Dianne screams, “Who are you?” Chloe yanks free, and she and Aaron bolt as Dianne chases their car into the street, collapsing, wailing for her daughter. Back at the motel, Chloe hurls the ring aside and unloads everything: the receipts, the necklace, the mounting evidence. Aaron is furious but listens.
She shows him receipts from Angola, site of the prison where Richard Davis is incarcerated. Their messy, charged closeness boils over into sex. Afterward, Chloe weighs visiting her father. Aaron urges caution but promises to go with her. He leaves two Xanax on the nightstand to help her sleep. Chloe fades into darkness.
Chapter 39
Chloe wakes up groggy to a buzz of missed calls. It isn’t morning. It’s 10 p.m. Friday—she’s slept for twenty-four hours. Her phone is full of frantic messages from her best friend, Shannon, and from Daniel. When she reaches Shannon, the news hits like a blow: Riley—Shannon’s teen daughter—is missing after sneaking out the night before.
Chloe’s mind races to Daniel. At the engagement party, he learned Riley’s habit of slipping out. She hears his soothing reassurances now as something else entirely. She vows to help, then plays Daniel’s voicemail. His voice is calm, steady. He knows she skipped the bachelorette party. He says the house is hers; he’ll be gone when she returns. “I love you… More than you know.” He’s leaving—and he’s not done.
Chloe speeds toward home, hoping she isn’t too late.
Chapter 40
The house sits dark. Daniel’s car is gone. Chloe remembers the security system Bert Rhodes installed. On the app, she rewinds thirty minutes. There he is: Daniel, moving with cool efficiency, pausing to pull a delicate chain from his pocket—Aubrey Gravino’s necklace—studying it, pocketing it, and walking out with a suitcase.
The footage crushes any self-doubt. He’s been gaslighting her, collecting trophies, cultivating an image. He doesn’t just kill; he venerates the original crimes, folding Chloe into his fantasy as the ultimate prize. And if the bodies are always moved postmortem, Riley is still alive—somewhere only Chloe would think to look.
A location flashes into perfect, terrifying focus. Chloe starts the car and drives, heart pounding as she passes the rusted sign: “WELCOME TO BREAUX BRIDGE.”
Character Development
As the façade collapses, Chloe shifts from paranoia to clarity, refusing to be managed by lies or by her past. The truth about Daniel locks into place, and she turns toward confrontation rather than survival.
- Chloe Davis: Validates her instincts through hard evidence (the clippings, the footage, the ring), rejects gaslighting, and chooses action—driving to Breaux Bridge to stop a killer and face her origins.
- Daniel Briggs: Drops the mask entirely. Testimony and evidence reveal a calculating predator shaped by violence, obsessed with reenacting and elevating the crimes of Chloe’s father.
- Aaron Jansen / Tyler Price: Moves from wary outsider to committed ally, angry yet steadfast; he offers help even as the moral lines between them blur.
- Dianne Briggs: A tragic witness whose long-held suspicion about her son culminates in the ring’s reveal; her bruises and grief expose the family’s cycle of violence and silence.
Themes & Symbols
The chapters fuse personal history with present danger, turning secrets into weapons. The story presses on the tension between what people display and what they conceal, and how lies—told to survive, to manipulate, or to love—reshape reality. The pristine version of Daniel’s adult life collapses against the squalor of his childhood home, exposing the cost of maintaining appearances and the power of truth to cut through them, a core expression of Deception and Appearance vs. Reality.
The past drives every choice in this section. Daniel’s fascination with Richard Davis bridges decades, while Chloe’s return to Breaux Bridge forces her to confront the trauma at its source. The narrative insists that old wounds don’t fade—they steer the present until faced directly, deepening The Lingering Trauma of the Past. Dianne’s fear and loyalty reveal Family Secrets and Dysfunctional Loyalty, while Daniel’s reverence for violence crystallizes The Nature of Evil and Monstrosity.
- The Engagement Ring: Once a symbol of love and lineage, it becomes a stolen relic from Sophie and a mark Daniel tries to fix onto Chloe—love perverted into possession.
- The Security Camera: A modern arbiter of truth. In a haze of manipulation and unreliable memory, it provides irrefutable evidence and restores Chloe’s trust in herself.
Key Quotes
“Who are you?”
Dianne’s scream detonates the facade in an instant. The question indicts the entire engagement—Chloe’s identity, Daniel’s lies, and the counterfeit life he’s built atop Sophie’s disappearance.
“I love you… More than you know.”
Daniel’s voicemail cloaks threat in tenderness. The ellipsis is a blade; the love he names is obsession, control, and a final announcement that he’s moving on to the next phase of his plan.
“WELCOME TO BREAUX BRIDGE.”
The rusted sign functions like a portal. It’s not just a location but the story’s psychic origin point, signaling that the hunt—and Chloe’s reckoning—has come home.
Why This Matters and Section Significance
These chapters flip the novel from mystery to pursuit. The evidence converges—Sophie’s ring, the Angola receipts, the security footage—to confirm Daniel as the perpetrator and master manipulator. With Riley missing, the threat becomes immediate and personal, forcing Chloe to act on certainty rather than fear.
By steering back to Breaux Bridge, the narrative closes a loop: the new killer’s path runs through the old killer’s legacy. The section sets the stage for a showdown where solving the case means dismantling the past’s hold—and where saving Riley requires Chloe to confront both Daniel and the first monster she ever knew.