Tom Royce

Quick Facts

• Role: Wealthy neighbor, initial suspect/antagonist, ultimate villain
• Occupation: Founder/CEO of the social media start-up Mixer (quietly failing)
• First appearance: Spotted by Casey through binoculars at the glass house across the lake
• Residence: The modern, glass-walled home opposite the cabin
• Key relationships: Husband to Katherine Royce; neighbor and foil to Casey Fletcher
• Core conflict: Protecting his public image and salvaging his finances by exploiting his marriage—then weaponizing a haunting to hide his crimes

Who They Are

Boldly handsome in a “lived-in” way and hyper-competent on the surface, Tom Royce sells the myth of the tech titan who has it all: status, money, and the supermodel wife. The reality is rot beneath glass—Mixer is failing, his wealth depends on Katherine, and his “control” is a performance. He’s a study in sleek façades: the man in a transparent house whose secrets are somehow always out of sight. That architectural metaphor is the point. Tom constructs reflections—status talk, curated social media, practiced charm—so observers see what he wants, not what is.

Personality & Traits

Tom’s personality reads as confidence until it curdles into coercion. He cultivates an aura of expertise—on wine, status, success—that doubles as a smokescreen. When that sheen cracks, the core is calculation.

• Intense and controlling: His too-firm handshake and condescending wine “tutorial” signal a man who polices others’ behavior. He pressures Katherine to quit modeling, eavesdrops on her private calls, and grabs her during an argument—early, visible escalations from social control to physical force.
• Deceptive: He manufactures a story about Katherine returning to New York and even posts a staged photo on her Instagram to sell the lie, embodying the book’s fixation on Deception and Misleading Appearances.
• Status-obsessed: He flaunts vintages and name-drops exact addresses to broadcast pedigree. The precision—down to the apartment number—functions as currency he spends to buy respect he hasn’t earned.
• Calculating and murderous: Inspired by Casey’s play, italics Shred of Doubt, he engineers a slow-poison plot for Katherine’s fortune. When it falters, he pivots to staging “accidents” for both Katherine and Casey, demonstrating flexibility in service of selfish ends.
• Performative vulnerability: In the “possession” interlude, he presents as a desperate husband trying to save his wife. This intermission of sympathy is strategic—emotional camouflage that buys him time and complicity.
• Image manager: The impeccable clothing, the catalogue-ready posture, the glass house itself—all are brand extensions designed to distract from financial collapse and moral bankruptcy.

Character Journey

Tom’s arc is less growth than revelation by layers. First, Casey’s binocular gaze frames him as the familiar domestic-thriller villain: charismatic, controlling, possibly abusive. Small tells (eavesdropping; roughness with Katherine) escalate until her disappearance makes him the obvious suspect. Then the story tilts. In a tense basement confession, Tom insists Katherine is possessed by a spirit from the lake—Len (Leonard Bradley)—and recasts his secrecy as protection. For a stretch, the narrative (and Tom) leverage the supernatural to rebrand him as a tragic, outmatched spouse. The final turn strips off the mask. Tom admits his original plan: murder Katherine for her fortune to prop up Mixer. The haunting becomes cover, Casey a liability to eliminate, and his poise hardens into predation. He dies struggling in the lake he tried to use as an alibi, swallowed by the very setting he manipulated—glass, water, reflection—once again betraying the truth behind appearances.

Key Relationships

• Katherine Royce: Tom’s marriage is his lifeline and target. He once may have loved Katherine, but dependency corrodes affection into entitlement: he treats her wealth as a problem to solve and a resource to extract. Even his moments of apparent protectiveness double as containment, keeping her (and the truth) under his control.

• Casey Fletcher: Tom underestimates his neighbor as a messy voyeur, then realizes she’s building a case. Their dynamic becomes a chess match: he counters with intimidation, misinformation, and a staged online presence; she answers with persistence and intrusion. His final plan to kill Casey proves how far he’ll go to erase the witness who won’t look away.

• Len (Leonard Bradley): The possession creates a grotesque triangle—husband, wife, and the man inhabiting her body. Tom claims to fight Len, but he also learns from him: the drowning backstory helps Tom script a plausible “accident.” Even in the supernatural space, Tom treats horror as a tool.

Defining Moments

Tom’s story is a sequence of reveals that sharpen, not soften, who he is.

• The binocular introduction and eavesdropping: Casey sees him stalking his own home to listen in on Katherine’s call. Why it matters: It converts suspicion into observable control—he’s not just secretive, he’s surveilling.
• The fight where he grabs Katherine: Physical escalation confirms a pattern of coercion. Why it matters: It solidifies Casey’s belief he’s dangerous and primes the reader to accept him as the likely abuser.
• The door-pound confrontation (“leave us the fuck alone”): He drives to Casey’s, furious, and tries to scare her into silence. Why it matters: His intimidation acknowledges he knows he’s being watched—and that exposure is his real fear.
• The fake NYC return and Instagram post: Tom crafts a digital alibi to erase Katherine’s absence. Why it matters: It shows he understands image-making at scale and will weaponize social media to rewrite reality.
• The possession reveal in the Fitzgeralds’ basement: Tom reframes himself as protector against a malevolent spirit. Why it matters: It complicates the moral geometry, inviting sympathy and obscuring motive right before the endgame.
• The porch confession and lake struggle: He admits the poisoning plan, then moves to murder Casey and “clean up.” Why it matters: The mask drops; greed, not grief, has been steering him all along—and the lake becomes both weapon and judge.

Essential Quotes

“I told her not to swim in the lake,” Tom says. “It’s too dangerous. People have drowned in there.”

On its face, this line reads as concern; in context, it builds a plausible cautionary frame for a staged accident. Tom’s language quietly preps the narrative he’ll later try to deploy, turning a safety warning into foreshadowed alibi.

“You have to sniff it first. Swirl it around in the glass, get your nose in close, then sniff. Smelling it prepares your brain for what you’re about to taste.”

The wine lecture encapsulates Tom’s blend of condescension and control. He centers himself as the authority in even trivial rituals, rehearsing the performance of expertise that masks insecurity and failure.

“You should learn to mind your own business, Casey. And you should learn to keep your mouth shut. Because whatever you think is happening, you’ve got it all wrong. You have no idea what’s going on. Just leave us the fuck alone.”

This is intimidation masquerading as exasperation. Tom tries to exploit ambiguity (“you’ve got it all wrong”) to halt scrutiny, signaling that exposure—not truth—is his greatest threat.

“By now, I bet you wish you hadn’t been so nosy. None of this would be happening if you had just stayed out of it. Katherine would be dead, you’d be here drinking yourself into a stupor, and I’d have enough money to save my company. But you just had to rescue her and then watch us nonstop, like our lives were a fucking reality show. And you ruined everything once you got the police involved.”

The confession drops the pretense: money, not love, motivates Tom. His rant reframes Casey’s “nosiness” as the single variable that disrupted his plan, confirming that every earlier display—care, fear, restraint—was simply strategy.