Opening
The novel pivots as Emma Palmer returns home to a house still haunted by old crimes and finds new blood on its floors. When her husband Nathan Gates is murdered in the carriage house, the past floods the present: the missing flash drive resurfaces in memory, the sisters’ pact fractures, and long-buried evidence begins to surface.
What Happens
Chapter 26: Have to Do Something About Emma
After a blowout fight with Nathan, Emma stalls before going home. Nathan clatters around the carriage house on one of his obsessive organizing blitzes; Emma, avoiding him, slips into the main house and wanders through the wreckage of the family’s Secrets and Lies. She thinks about how little she truly knew—her mother’s pills, her father’s crimes—and how something vital still won’t click. In a small act of rebellion, she slaps a TOSS Post-it on her father’s gun cabinet.
Her father’s study triggers the old nausea: he once made her drink whiskey until she vomited, a blunt shard of Family Trauma and Dysfunction. While sifting bills and scraps, she finds a phone statement with a note in her father’s hand: Have to do something about Emma. A memory snaps into place. Just before the murders, she saw her mother, Irene Palmer—disheveled, a thumb-bruised jaw—stashing cash and a flash drive in a lockbox hidden in Daphne Palmer’s closet. Emma had crouched in Juliette "JJ" Palmer’s room; JJ spotted her and said nothing, the old rules of Sisterhood and Shifting Loyalties holding fast. Emma realizes the drive likely held the proof her mother claimed to have—and remembers it vanished the night her parents died.
Chapter 27: The Night They Died
The story flashes back. Teenaged Emma, sporting a new black eye, arrives at Gabriel Mahoney’s house in pieces, whispering that “they” ruined everything and will kill her. Gabriel soothes her, tucks her into his bed, kisses her temple, and leaves in his car. Emma decides nowhere is safe. To run, she needs cash and essentials—and those are back at the house.
She slips inside. A light burns in her father’s study. Upstairs, her mother lies passed out on wine and pills. For a heartbeat, Emma imagines killing her. She shakes it off, steals the tiny key from the nightstand, and retrieves the lockbox from Daphne’s closet. Inside: Irene’s documents, a fat roll of cash, the flash drive. She grabs the money, hesitates, and pockets the drive, too. Hearing Randolph Palmer moving below, she throws items into a bag and bolts. In the yard, she trips, face-first into dirt—the flash of metal slips from her pocket, lost. From the tree house window, a small figure watches her fall, then climbs down toward the glint in the grass.
Chapter 28: Last Known Location
Back in the present, Emma wakes to an empty bed. Nathan’s laptop nest is spread across the kitchen table, but Nathan is gone. Panic crawls over her skin—she tells herself not to open the tracking app she secretly installed. Red wine-lipped glasses in the dishwasher make a different kind of panic drop into her stomach: he had company.
She caves and checks the app. Nathan’s phone is off. Last ping: the middle of the carriage house. That never happens—Nathan lives on his phone. Emma forces herself across the yard, talking her heart into beating. Inside, beyond a worktable, she stops. Nathan lies on the floor, eyes half-open, a neat bullet hole in his chest. Her mind refuses the image, but her body collapses. Outside, the world narrows to sound and heat: a woman with a dog helping her into the house, and then nothing.
Chapter 29: The River Swallows Them Up
Daphne takes the narrative on the night of the murders. In the tree house, she aches with guilt: she told their father about Emma’s secret college applications to keep Emma from leaving her—and now everything is warped. She catalogues her mother’s secrets from her perch, including the two regular cars: a blue Impala (a lover, Daphne thinks) and a black Taurus (a man paid to stay quiet).
She sees a sister—Emma—run, fall, and drop something that flashes. Curiosity and fear propel her down the ladder. She pockets the flash drive, plugs it into the family computer, and scrolls through Palmer Transportation spreadsheets and a chilling photo of Randolph with two men in a rocky landscape—one holding a gun. A hand lands on her shoulder: her father. Daphne feigns boredom, calling it “for your taxes.” He seems to accept this and takes the drive. Later, crouched by the study window, she hears him on the phone: “One of the girls had it... I’ll handle it.” The words settle like stones. Her father’s power, and her safety as his favorite, feel suddenly breakable.
Chapter 30: I Never Did
Emma wakes on the couch, the helpful stranger gone, the shock roaring back. The doorbell rings. It’s JJ—ready to talk—but Emma blurts first: Nathan is dead in the carriage house. She spirals, sure the police will target her again. JJ snaps into action and dials 911.
The police arrive, led by Rick Hadley, the former sympathizer now clipped, cold, and skeptical. Emma’s answers come out thin and scattered. At the hospital, a nurse labels it shock and dehydration. From the hall, she hears JJ on the phone with her fiancée, Vic: “I need to find out what she knows.” Suspicion ignites. JJ comes clean—she’s gay and engaged—and frames it as her rebellion against their father’s dictates. Emma pushes back, accusing JJ of hiding more and demanding to know why she showed up this morning.
[Gabriel Mahoney] appears, having heard the news. JJ warns that leaving with him will look like guilt, a blunt lesson in Truth vs. Perception. Emma, raw and desperate, chooses Gabriel anyway, asking him to get her out.
Character Development
Emma confronts two timelines at once: the old nightmarish girl she was and the accused widow she becomes. The coping habits that once contained her fear collapse under the weight of a new crime scene.
- Emma: Finds the damning note about her, relives the flash drive theft, and discovers Nathan’s body. Her trust in her sisters—especially JJ—fractures. Her instinct to run to Gabriel returns like muscle memory.
- Daphne: Reveals herself as alert and strategic. She retrieves and views the flash drive, lies smoothly to Randolph, and understands the danger without fully grasping its scale.
- JJ: Drops the facade of perfection; comes out and admits she’s engaged to Vic. Her decisive 911 call contrasts with the secretive “I need to find out what she knows,” positioning her as both caretaker and possible threat.
- Randolph: Emerges as calculating and violent-adjacent; his calm confiscation of evidence and the promise to “handle it” confirm the menace behind his charm.
Themes & Symbols
The past’s grip tightens until it bruises. The house functions as a trap—its rooms and outbuildings replay violence, folding new blood into old patterns. The narrative braids “Then” and “Now” so the reader watches cause and effect collide: the missing flash drive, the threatening phone note, the second murder.
The flash drive symbolizes the family’s buried truth: numbers, photos, and names that could break powerful men. It also binds the sisters together in secrecy and fear, turning their unspoken pact into a test of loyalty. As Emma and JJ clash and Daphne’s silence from years ago comes to light, sisterhood becomes unstable currency—love, leverage, and liability at once.
Key Quotes
“Have to do something about Emma.”
- Scrawled on a phone bill, Randolph’s note reframes Emma as a problem to be solved, not a daughter to be protected. It primes the reader to view his later actions—and the murders themselves—as premeditated risk management.
“They ruined everything.”
- Emma’s terrified confession to Gabriel compresses the off-page threats into a single, urgent line. It signals external danger beyond family conflict and explains her choice to run, steal, and hide.
“One of the girls had it... I’ll handle it.”
- Overheard by Daphne, this line exposes Randolph’s network and methods. The chilling euphemism “handle it” suggests a readiness to erase obstacles—including his children—under the guise of control.
“I need to find out what she knows.”
- JJ’s comment to Vic blurs care with surveillance. It deepens Emma’s paranoia and positions JJ at the hinge of the mystery: helper, judge, or something in between.
Why This Matters and Section Significance
These chapters ignite the modern case. Nathan’s murder drags Emma from haunted survivor into prime suspect, mirroring the original investigation and forcing dormant evidence back into play. Daphne’s revelation about the flash drive reorients the entire puzzle: the past wasn’t lost; it was intercepted. The sisters’ fragile unity cracks under fear and doubt, setting up a final stretch where loyalty, truth, and survival can no longer coexist quietly.