Opening
A weekend meant for a quick hometown visit explodes into violence, secrets, and confession. As Joe Talbert protects his brother and races time, Lila Nash uncovers a coded diary that reframes a murder, and Carl Iverson forces Joe to confront the buried guilt that has defined him. The investigation pivots from evidence to conscience, binding strangers through shared, haunting pasts.
What Happens
Chapter 16: A Brother's Protection
Back in Austin, Joe spends Saturday with Jeremy Talbert, teaching him to use a prepaid cell phone and drilling one rule: call if their mother’s boyfriend, Larry, ever hurts him. Joe watches the clock—he owes Molly’s Pub a shift and can’t miss another—but the waiting twists his stomach. The strain of being brother, parent, worker, and student presses in, underscoring the cost of Family Dysfunction and Responsibility.
Their mother finally returns with Larry—the same man Joe once bounced from a bar for hitting a woman. When Joe challenges his mother for abandoning Jeremy, Larry squares up. Joe snaps into action, drops Larry with a wristlock takedown, and grinds him bloody against the floor, promising ruin if he ever touches Jeremy. The fight detonates a bitter argument with his mother, who blames Joe for “running off” to college. Joe leaves, burning with anger and defeat, and catches Jeremy at the window, his face heavy with a sadness only Joe recognizes.
Chapter 17: The Coded Diary
The next morning, Lila wakes Joe with news from the case files. She’s read Crystal Hagen’s diary: the early entries fit the prosecution’s version—Crystal calls Carl “Creepy Carl,” and she records him watching from his window and interrupting her and Andrew Fisher in the alley. Then the tone shifts. After that incident, the diary turns ominous, interspersed with seven entries written in a numerical substitution code Lila can’t crack, deepening the mystery of Truth, Lies, and Buried Pasts.
Lila lays out the pattern: the coded entries sit beside plain hints of fear and blackmail. The last coded entry, dated October 29—the day Crystal dies—mentions a “Mrs. Tate” and ends, “It stops today. I am so happy.” Lila pulls the trial transcript: Mrs. Tate, a guidance counselor, testifies that Crystal asked about rape, coercion, and age-of-consent laws, learned that an older man with a fourteen-year-old goes to prison regardless of “consent,” and left smiling. Crystal appears to have found leverage against her blackmailer and planned to use it—on the same day Carl purchases a gun.
Chapter 18: A Speedy Trial
Joe and Lila wonder why Carl’s defense never decoded the diary. Lila finds a letter from the defense to the Department of Defense requesting help—and nothing after. Joe tracks down Berthel Collins, a law clerk on the case, who explains that DoD bureaucracy stalled everything amid the Iran hostage crisis.
Then Collins drops the bomb: Carl kneecaps his own defense by demanding a “speedy trial.” The sixty-day clock eliminates time to investigate or wait for the code to be solved. Collins says it felt like Carl didn’t want the code cracked, adding that Carl seemed intent on going to prison—an admission that points toward Guilt and Atonement, not straightforward innocence or guilt.
Chapter 19: The Turn of the Tables
Joe confronts Carl about the coded diary and the speedy trial. Carl brushes him off, then offers a riddle: find the crime-scene photos taken before the fire department arrives and compare them to later shots—“what you’re looking at might be looking at you.” The clue plants a new thread of forensic doubt.
When Joe presses the “why” of the speedy trial, Carl’s tone changes. He says he needed to “silence the nightmare,” confessing, “I’ve done things…things that I thought I could live with…but I was wrong.” Sensing a confession, Joe pushes—until Carl pivots the interview and demands equality of burden. He saw Joe flinch at the mention of his grandfather back in their first meeting. If Joe wants truth, he must offer his own.
Cornered, ashamed, and suddenly exposed, Joe breaks. He admits the secret he’s hidden for years: he watched his grandfather die—and believes it’s his fault.
Chapter 20: The Life Joe Buries
Joe tells Carl about Grandpa Bill—the patient anchor in his chaotic home—and a perfect fishing day on the Minnesota River when Joe is eleven. The anchor snags on the bottom. Grandpa steps to help, slips on an empty root beer bottle Joe left rolling on the floor, and tumbles overboard.
His boot catches on a submerged branch, pinning him in the current. Joe freezes. He clings to the anchor rope, failing to realize that letting go would free the boat to drift toward his grandfather. He watches his hero struggle and drown. That moment becomes the loadstone of Joe’s life—the “buried” truth that fuels his fierce protectiveness and constant, punishing sense of duty.
Character Development
Joe and Carl stop circling each other as interviewer and subject and begin to mirror each other—two men whose lives pivot on a single irreversible moment.
- Joe Talbert: Fiercely protective, even violent when necessary, he asserts himself to defend Jeremy. His confession about Grandpa Bill exposes the core of his self-blame and explains his relentless drive to take responsibility.
- Carl Iverson: Shrewd and perceptive, he directs the conversation, withholds the obvious, and hints at a deeper moral calculus behind his “speedy trial.” His need to “silence the nightmare” complicates any simple verdict.
- Lila Nash: Diligent, incisive, and indispensable, she spots the coded entries, connects Mrs. Tate’s testimony, and reframes the case around coercion and leverage rather than a simple predatory narrative.
Themes & Symbols
The chapters braid private shame with public accusation. Joe’s story crystallizes Burdens of the Past: one frozen instant dictates a lifetime of choices. In parallel, Carl’s decision to rush to prison echoes Guilt and Atonement—punishment as a way to quiet an older, unnamed sin. At home, Joe’s clash with his mother and Larry shows the daily cost of Family Dysfunction and Responsibility, where a son becomes both parent and shield.
The coded diary serves as symbol and engine. It literalizes buried truth—what’s public reads one way; what matters is hidden in cipher. As Joe and Lila confront the gaps between what people say and what they conceal, the novel leans into Truth, Lies, and Perception: official narratives satisfy, but evidence insists on a second look.
Key Quotes
“It stops today. I am so happy.”
Crystal’s last coded-entry line suggests she finds leverage over her blackmailer and intends to act. The optimism on the day of her death reframes her not as reckless victim but as someone making a decisive, dangerous move.
“What you’re looking at might be looking at you.”
Carl’s riddle about the fire-scene photos points Joe toward a visual anomaly—an observer within the frame. It foreshadows a forensic reveal and signals that the accepted sequence of events hides a watcher, a camera, or a reflection that changes the narrative.
“I’ve done things… things that I thought I could live with… but I was wrong.”
Carl neither claims innocence nor confesses to Crystal’s murder; he confesses to an unlivable conscience. The line shifts the investigation from legal culpability to moral consequence.
“Then tell me about your grandfather.”
By demanding reciprocity, Carl inverts the power dynamic and forces Joe into vulnerability. The interview becomes an exchange of burdens, binding the men through confession rather than evidence.
Why This Matters and Section Significance
These chapters mark the novel’s hinge. The case stops being a one-way excavation of Carl and becomes a dialogue between parallel traumas. Joe’s confession explains his relentless need to fix, protect, and atone—and opens space for Carl’s own truth to surface. The coded diary, Mrs. Tate’s testimony, and the photo clue destabilize the prosecution’s story and promise a new line of inquiry rooted in coercion and concealed observation. Together, these developments transform the book from a straightforward whodunit into a study of how guilt shapes a life—and how telling the right story, to the right person, can begin to set it down.