Opening
A warm routine forms around Brooke Sullivan and Tim Reese as friendship edges into something more—until a single scent rips open old wounds. A flashback exposes another murder, the prison hints at fresh brutality, and a yearbook finally explains a guard’s vendetta.
What Happens
Chapter 26: Sandalwood and Suspicion
A month in, Tim is part of the household rhythm, fixing things and mentoring Josh Sullivan, who’s visibly happier. Their housekeeper, Pamela Nelson (Margie), cooks dinner and teases Brooke about her “boyfriend,” while warning that Josh has been asking pointed questions. When Brooke gently checks in with Josh, he looks up with hope: “Is Tim my dad?” She has to tell him no, and his face falls.
Tim arrives. Brooke greets him—then freezes. His aftershave floods the room with sandalwood, the same scent Shane Nelson wore the night of the attack. Panic and revulsion spike; she orders Tim to wash it off. He scrubs it away and returns stricken. She explains the trigger, and he promises to toss the bottle. The current between them hums again as the past invades the present, embodying The Past Haunting the Present.
Chapter 27: A Confession and a Warning
After dinner, Tim backs Brooke’s rules—homework before baseball—then joins her at the sink. The unspoken tension finally breaks: they kiss. Brooke pulls back, afraid of wrecking their friendship and the stability Josh needs. Tim answers with a lifelong truth: “You know I’ve been in love with you since I was four years old.”
Brooke can’t shake Shane’s warning that Tim is dangerous, an echo that colors her thinking and underscores Manipulation and Control. She questions whether Tim is “too perfect” even as he insists he’s never moved on from her. She silences the doubts—“shut up”—and kisses him again, trying to ignore the faint thread of sandalwood lingering on his collar.
Chapter 28: Eleven Years Earlier
We return to the night of the murders. In Shane’s dim kitchen, Tim accuses him of scheming and cruelty; Brooke defends Shane, unable to see him as Brandon’s killer. She presses Tim about a hushed conversation she saw between the two; Tim claims he told Shane to treat her right and reveals a baseball bat he’s carrying “to protect” her.
They stick together—Brooke, Tim, Shane, and Chelsea Cho—and go upstairs to check on Kayla, who locked herself in a bedroom mid-hysteria. No answer. Shane forces the door. Kayla lies on the bed, chest soaked in blood. Terror accelerates into paranoia and suspicion, driving questions of blame and Vengeance and Justice.
Chapter 29: Goddamn Nelson
In the prison infirmary, Brooke treats Mr. Fanning’s broken finger. He claims a door slammed on it, while Officer Marcus Hunt hovers with uncharacteristic chumminess. As Brooke splints the finger, Fanning mutters, “Goddamn Nelson.” Pressed, he panics and reverts to his door-story.
Brooke reels. There are no other inmates named Nelson. If Fanning meant Shane, then the “victim” might be the aggressor—capable of breaking fingers and commanding fear. Her image of Shane strains under the weight of new implications.
Chapter 30: The Yearbook
Tim brings a weekend project—a birdhouse—and a surprise: their high school yearbook. Brooke worries Josh will spot Shane’s photo and recognize the resemblance, but Tim explains Shane was scrubbed from the book after the murders. Josh laughs at the “dorky” shots of his mom and Tim.
Then Brooke pauses over a gawky kid under H: Marcus Hunt. Tim remembers him as a bullied loner once beaten so badly by football players that he was hospitalized—almost certainly by Shane’s circle. Hunt’s present-day cruelty toward Shane sharpens into motive. He isn’t just a sadistic guard; he’s a man nursing an old wound and a long memory.
Key Events
- Josh asks if Tim is his father, revealing a longing for a dad.
- Sandalwood triggers Brooke’s trauma, tying Tim’s aftershave to the night of the attack.
- Brooke and Tim admit their feelings and start a relationship, haunted by doubt.
- Flashback: the group finds Kayla murdered in an upstairs bedroom.
- Inmate Fanning implies Shane attacked him, suggesting ongoing violence in prison.
- The yearbook reveals Officer Hunt’s high school connection and past victimization, explaining his vendetta.
Character Development Brooke leans toward a future with Tim, yet her body and memory revolt at any echo of Shane. Her clinical composure at work gives way to investigative urgency as she connects Fanning’s injury and Hunt’s history.
- Brooke Sullivan: Opens herself to love, still governed by trauma triggers; sharpens her scrutiny of Shane and the prison power dynamics.
- Tim Reese: Steps fully into a caring, steady role; his old suspicions of Shane and lifelong love for Brooke surface plainly.
- Shane Nelson: Grows more ambiguous—both the center of past horror and potentially violent in the present.
- Marcus Hunt: Evolves from stock villain to antagonist shaped by past abuse, his cruelty reframed as targeted revenge.
Themes & Symbols The Past Haunting the Present drives every turn: a scent detonates Brooke’s PTSD, a flashback exposes more blood, and a yearbook resurrects a teenage assault that still dictates adult lives. Memory isn’t backdrop—it’s an active force shaping choices, alliances, and fear.
Vengeance and Justice blur as characters justify harm with history. Hunt’s prison conduct reads as retribution; Shane’s muttered mention in Fanning’s pain points to rough “justice” inside. Manipulation and Control persist through Shane’s voice in Brooke’s head, bending her perceptions even when he’s absent.
- Symbol: The Sandalwood Scent — A sensory trapdoor to trauma that stains new intimacy with old terror.
- Symbol: The Yearbook — A curated past that still reveals what was excised, exposing the hidden root of present conflicts.
Key Quotes
“Is Tim my dad?” Josh’s hope crystallizes the novel’s hunger for safety and belonging. The question complicates Brooke’s choices, forcing her to weigh truth against a child’s need.
“You know I’ve been in love with you since I was four years old.” Tim’s confession compresses decades of feeling into one line, recasting his steady presence as devotion rather than coincidence and raising the stakes of Brooke’s hesitation.
“Goddamn Nelson.” Fanning’s slip punctures the image of Shane as mere victim. One bitter fragment opens a corridor of violence and fear that Brooke can’t unhear.
The faint sandalwood on Tim’s collar. Not a direct line, but a lingering sensory detail that seeds doubt. Even after washing it off, the past clings, hinting at how easily trauma seeps into the present.
Why This Matters and Section Significance These chapters pivot the narrative from tentative calm to layered danger. Brooke and Tim’s romance offers relief but cannot outrun trauma’s reach; the flashback raises the body count and the stakes; Fanning’s injury and the yearbook reframe the prison’s power struggle as a score-settling decades in the making. With Hunt’s motive exposed and Shane’s present capacity for violence newly suspect, Brooke’s next moves—professionally and personally—now carry consequences that tie the past to every choice she makes.