Opening
Obsession and danger tighten across Chapters 16–20 as Camille’s fixation on Will Foust escalates from surveillance to infiltration, while Sadie Foust plunges deeper into a murder mystery and a home that turns hostile. A midnight confrontation, a disquieting memorial, and a burst of violence expose layers of Deception and Manipulation, leaving Sadie with an alibi—and the chilling knowledge that someone is lying on purpose.
What Happens
Chapter 16: Camille
Camille narrates her addiction to Will with clinical precision. She studies his routine, follows him from his house to the subway to his college, and “orchestrates” coincidences—waiting outside a building near his lunch reservation so their paths cross as if by fate. Every move is calculated, every glance rehearsed, the result of quiet hours spent mapping his life.
On campus, a jolt: a tall, polished student in a red beanie—Carrie Laemmer—leans in, touches Will’s arm, laughs at his jokes. Jealousy floods Camille, who decides to keep her “enemy” close. She researches Carrie, learns she’s pre-law in Will’s class, and that she lingers after lectures to talk to him.
Camille buys the class textbook and engineers a meeting with Carrie, posing as a struggling classmate desperate for help. Flattered, Carrie agrees to tutor her. Over two tea-shop sessions, Camille gathers intel—Boston roots, two athletic brothers, running and skiing, three languages, idealism—and watches Carrie actively seek Will on campus. Convinced Carrie is setting a trap, Camille frames her own jealousy as territorial instinct and concludes she must “protect what was mine,” foreshadowing a darker turn in her tactics.
Chapter 17: Sadie
Sadie wakes to a silhouette watching from a chair in the corner of her dark bedroom. She assumes it’s Will—until she feels him beside her in bed. Panic surges. The figure rises and sits on the mattress edge. It’s Imogen.
Imogen quietly confronts Sadie for entering her room earlier. Sadie lies, and Imogen cuts through it with evidence: “Then what was your wine doing there?” Caught, Sadie has no answer.
Imogen’s restraint hardens into menace. Leaning over Sadie, she whispers, “Stay the fuck out of my room,” and gives her a slight shove before leaving. Sadie lies awake, rattled and sleepless, the family dynamic shifted by Imogen’s calculated threat.
Chapter 18: Sadie
Ignoring Will’s cautions, Sadie uses her lunch break to attend the memorial for Morgan Baines. She needs to watch Jeffrey, Morgan’s husband, up close. He’s handsome, polished—and incongruously cheerful, making small talk and laughing as if the grief belongs to someone else. When asked about his daughter, he shrugs that they were never close and that she’s at school, a response that chills Sadie with its detachment.
Sadie sits with Patty’s friends, Karen and Susan, who fill in the past: Jeffrey began an affair with Morgan while married to his first wife, Courtney; Morgan had been his administrative assistant. Then the doors swing and a woman in a bright red top—Courtney—arrives. She confronts Jeffrey; he tries to usher her out; she resists.
Sadie follows at a distance into the empty sanctuary and overhears the scene explode. Courtney shoves and slaps Jeffrey, spitting, “I’m not sorry for what I did… She took everything from me… I’m not sorry she’s dead.” In a disorienting shift, Jeffrey’s anger softens; he strokes Courtney’s hair and pulls her into an embrace. Sadie’s phone pings. She bolts, fleeing before she’s seen, and watches from the car as Courtney drives off, Jeffrey framed in the church doorway.
Chapter 19: Sadie
Back home, Sadie walks into the basement and finds Will pinning a furnace repairman against a wall, snarling that he’s a “parasite” for overcharging. The aggression shocks her. She intervenes; the terrified repairman flees.
In the morning, Will reframes the episode as financial protection and makes Sadie feel guilty for objecting. She apologizes to him—a textbook instance of Gaslighting and Psychological Abuse.
Will casually mentions taking Tate to a Lego event with another mom, Jessica. Sadie’s insecurity flares, a leftover burn from Will’s affair, likely with a student. She recalls suggesting a divorce; he refused, reminding her of promises she supposedly made never to let him go. Dressing, she reaches for Alice’s brown cardigan—comfort to Sadie, “morbid” to Will. He tries to soothe her jealousy with a crude joke about Jessica’s looks, then suggests “bonding time.” For Sadie, intimacy now carries the weight of betrayal; every touch is a reminder.
Chapter 20: Sadie
Determined to clear her name, Sadie arrives at the clinic early and checks the wall calendar. “Foust” is blocked in for a full nine-hour shift on December 1, the day Mr. Nilsson claims he saw her fighting with Morgan. She photographs the schedule—a solid alibi.
She takes a risk, logs into the clinic computer, and pulls Mr. Nilsson’s chart. No cognitive decline, no vision problems—nothing to explain a misidentification. The conclusion is stark: he didn’t make a mistake.
He lied. The question becomes why someone would intentionally place Sadie at a public altercation with a woman later murdered. She begins a search for Courtney Baines, but Joyce arrives, and Sadie shutters the screen, acting as if she simply came in early.
Character Development
These chapters pry open carefully maintained facades, revealing how love, fear, and power warp behavior inside and outside the home.
- Camille: Shifts from passive fixation to active control. She surveils, scripts encounters, infiltrates Carrie’s life, and justifies potential harm as protection of what’s “hers.”
- Sadie Foust: Becomes a determined investigator—defying Will, pursuing leads, establishing an alibi—yet remains vulnerable to manipulation, fear in her own house, and the resurrected pain of infidelity.
- Will Foust: The mask slips. He shows volatility and intimidation, then reframes violence as virtue. His control extends to money, intimacy, and even which objects (Alice’s cardigan) Sadie may find comforting.
- Imogen: Emerges as a calculated, observant force. She stalks the night, marshals proof, and draws hard boundaries with quiet menace.
Themes & Symbols
Deception and manipulation pulse through every thread: Camille counterfeits chance meetings and a student identity to access Carrie; Jeffrey performs as the polished widower while comforting the ex-wife who admits she isn’t sorry the victim is dead; and Will recasts intimidation as financial guardianship to control Sadie’s narrative. The result is a world where appearances actively mislead and trust erodes.
Gaslighting and control thrive in intimate spaces. Will’s inversion of blame trains Sadie to question her own judgment, while Imogen’s midnight visit weaponizes silence, proximity, and evidence to unsettle Sadie in her own bed. Unreliable perception no longer stems from error but from deliberate lies—Mr. Nilsson’s false claim redirects suspicion with surgical intent.
Trauma’s aftershocks—especially the trauma and its lasting effects—shape behavior. Imogen’s intimidation reads as a survivor’s defensive armor; Sadie’s jealousy and hypervigilance are scars from Will’s affair; Camille’s possessiveness suggests long-brewing wounds expressed as control.
Symbols:
- Alice’s Brown Cardigan: A private talisman of comfort and belonging for Sadie in a hostile house. Will’s distaste for it underscores his control over which parts of the family past are allowed to exist.
- Red Accents (Carrie’s beanie, Courtney’s top): Visual flares of temptation, danger, and transgression, marking women who destabilize the men around them—and the plot.
Key Quotes
“Then what was your wine doing there?”
Imogen’s question slices through Sadie’s lie and establishes Imogen as a vigilant, calculating presence. She doesn’t accuse; she proves—shifting the bedroom into contested territory.
“Stay the fuck out of my room.”
A boundary stated as a threat. Imogen seizes psychological dominance, making the family home feel unsafe and re-drawing the power map of the house.
“I’m not sorry for what I did… She took everything from me… I’m not sorry she’s dead.”
Courtney’s confession detonates motive, rage, and resentment in a single breath. The line widens the suspect pool and exposes the moral fog surrounding Morgan’s death.
“Protect what was mine.”
Camille’s inner vow reframes jealousy as defense and foreshadows action. The possessive pronoun signals that she sees Will—and by extension his orbit—as property.
“Parasite.”
Will’s word for the repairman reveals contempt and a readiness to dehumanize. It cues the reader to reassess his capacity for intimidation and harm.
Why This Matters and Section Significance
These chapters escalate the stakes across all timelines while aligning the domestic sphere with danger rather than safety.
- Deepening the mysteries: Carrie becomes a focal point for Camille’s next move; Courtney all but admits motive; Mr. Nilsson’s deliberate lie suggests coordination, not confusion.
- Unmasking facades: Will’s volatility and manipulation, Imogen’s cunning, Jeffrey’s split performance—each forces a re-evaluation of reliability and guilt.
- Bridging past and present: Camille’s possessive spiral and Sadie’s jealous vigilance mirror each other, hinting that earlier secrets directly seed current threats.
- Raising domestic peril: Bedrooms, kitchens, and basements become stages for surveillance, intimidation, and control, turning the home into the novel’s most charged battleground.