Opening
Secrets detonate across Connaught Street as the investigation widens from a tidy circle of suspects to a neighborhood saturated with motive, opportunity, and fear. Confessions, bluffs, and simmering resentments expose how far each family will go to protect itself—and how quickly trust collapses when the truth refuses to stay buried.
What Happens
Chapter 26: The Watcher
Detectives Detective Gully and Bledsoe press Al Blanchard, who starts with a lie—he was at work—then backtracks: he had an off-site meeting and went to the Breezes Motel on Route Nine. Cornered, he admits he has known for weeks that his wife, Nora Blanchard, is having an affair with William Wooler. Every Tuesday he parks behind a dumpster at the motel to watch them. On the day Avery Wooler disappears, he sees them leave early—around 3:45 p.m.
Al claims he stays in his car until 5:30 p.m. and then goes home as if he’s been at work. He breaks down, overwhelmed by humiliation and grief. After he leaves, Gully and Bledsoe weigh the new information: Al has a potent motive tied to Revenge and Obsession, the motel’s cameras don’t work, and his alibi is unverifiable. Bledsoe sketches a chilling scenario—Al could have followed William, seen Avery alone, and abducted her to frame his wife’s lover. While William and Ryan Blanchard remain suspects, Al’s confession blows the case open. Gully still wants a word with Derek Seton before they bring Ryan back in.
Chapter 27: The Wall of Silence
The Blanchards’ drive home is suffocating. Nora braces for the reckoning with Al, while Ryan sits apart, offering only that he followed his lawyer’s advice and said nothing to police. His silence feels ominously familiar to Nora, echoing past troubles, and she can no longer trust her read on him. The weight of Family Dysfunction crushes the car, turning every glance into an accusation.
Across the street, Erin Wooler seethes that Ryan has been released. To her, the system protects a possible predator while her daughter remains missing—a raw embodiment of Guilt and Blame. Gully pursues a new angle with the Setons. In front of Alice Seton, she asks Derek about his “friendship” with Avery and suggests Avery might have had a crush. She brings up what Michael Wooler reported: Derek and Avery alone in the tree house, ladder pulled up. Flustered, Derek denies anything inappropriate, but the temperature in the room spikes.
Chapter 28: The Confession
Alice watches, stunned, as Gully’s questions imply Derek crossed a line with Avery. She calls her husband, Peter, for backup. Derek insists he pitied Avery and only talked to her; he claims she must have raised the ladder herself. Then comes the question he can’t dodge: his alibi. He admits he was home alone from 3:30 p.m. until after 5:00 p.m.—the precise window when Avery disappears. After Gully leaves, Derek collapses into tears, swearing innocence. Alice comforts him, but doubt takes root.
That night, the Blanchard marriage ruptures. Al confronts Nora with cold detail: he has followed her every Tuesday for months, hiding behind a motel dumpster, conjuring images of her with William. The restraint cracks and a frightening rage surfaces. The mask of the meek husband slips, revealing the core of a man corroded by fury—an unnerving study in Appearance vs. Reality. Wracked with guilt, Nora says maybe this is their punishment, and her thoughts spiral: what if Ryan found out about the affair and took Avery in revenge? Al rejects the idea, but Nora’s suspicion metastasizes, even brushing against the possibility that Al himself did it.
Chapter 29: The New Theory
Driving back to the station, Gully’s mind locks on one stark conclusion: Everyone here is lying. The theme of Deceit and Lies reframes every interview, especially Derek’s. She develops a theory: Derek, home alone across the street, could have lured Avery inside; if Avery threatened to expose whatever happened in the tree house, he might have panicked and killed her. Without a car, he would have had to hide the body somewhere in the Seton home.
Bledsoe pushes back: a weeks-old tree house incident won’t get a warrant. Gully suggests trying for parental consent. They even consider whether the Setons might help Derek conceal a crime. Switching lanes, Bledsoe instructs Officer Weeks to canvass Connaught Street and identify the anonymous caller by voice. Meanwhile, William, trapped by press attention in his hotel room, calls Bledsoe for an update—and learns the police know about his affair with Nora.
Chapter 30: The Bluff
Friday morning, Gully waits until Peter leaves for work and the kids head to school, then knocks at the Setons’ door. A drained, defensive Alice refuses entry. Gully pivots to Manipulation and Control, bluffing that the police have already applied for a search warrant. Alice’s terror says everything. Gully walks away, confident the panic will spark a search from within.
It does. Alice’s doubts and the threat of an imminent search converge into grim resolve. If the police think Avery’s body could be in her home, she must prove—to herself, before anyone else—that Derek is innocent. She grabs a flashlight and heads for the basement. Across the street, Erin watches, powerless. Seeing Gully at the Setons’ door and not at her own, she feels abandoned. She calls William and confronts him about the affair with Nora. He doesn’t deny it. She hangs up, severing what remains of their bond.
Character Development
The circle tightens around damaged families and compromised loyalties, turning background figures into focal points and exposing fault lines that can no longer hold.
- Al Blanchard: The pitiable bystander becomes a volatile suspect; his voyeurism and bottled rage recast him as both weak and dangerous.
- Nora Blanchard: Guilt curdles into paranoia. She can no longer trust her son, her husband, or herself.
- Alice Seton: The protective mother is thrust into detective mode, torn between faith in her son and a dread she can’t silence.
- Detective Gully: Unflinching and intuitive, she crosses ethical gray zones to force movement when the case stalls.
- Erin Wooler: Isolation hardens into targeted fury as she searches for someone—anyone—to blame.
Themes & Symbols
A web of lies binds the neighborhood, each thread tugging another loose. Deception isn’t only what characters do; it’s how they survive. Gully’s realization—everyone is lying—becomes the lens through which every alibi, every silence, and every display of decency looks suspect. The contrast between calm surfaces and violent undercurrents defines the drama: Al’s meek exterior conceals obsessive anger; the Setons’ normalcy may be a façade; even the police resort to bluffing to extract the truth.
Family fractures drive the plot. Parents protect, accuse, and doubt their children; spouses wound and watch each other; grief demands a villain. The tree house, a symbol of youthful innocence, warps into a secret chamber where boundaries blur and power imbalances take shape. It’s the perfect emblem of the novel’s moral inversion: a childhood refuge turned site of potential harm.
Key Quotes
“Everyone here is lying.”
Gully’s blunt assessment reframes the entire investigation. It justifies her riskier tactics and elevates deception from a character flaw to the story’s governing principle.
“We’ve already applied for a search warrant.”
Gully’s bluff forces the Setons’ hand without probable cause. The line underscores her willingness to manipulate psychology to uncover the truth and highlights the ethical tightrope she walks.
“I was home alone from 3:30 to after 5:00.”
Derek’s alibi creates a precise window of opportunity and plants doubt in his mother’s mind. The admission makes him both vulnerable and newly dangerous in the eyes of investigators.
Why This Matters and Section Significance
These chapters pivot the novel from a focused whodunit into a volatile community portrait. The suspect pool expands to include Al and Derek, dramatically raising stakes and uncertainty. The Blanchard marriage shatters; the Setons teeter; the Woolers splinter further. Gully’s bluff triggers the most suspenseful cliffhanger yet—Alice, flashlight in hand, descending into her own basement—symbolizing how the search for Avery now forces every family to excavate what they’ve buried at home.