67 pages 2 hours read

Riley Sager

Home Before Dark

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2020

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Chapters 29-32Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 29 Summary

Maggie rereads the sleepover chapter of the Book. She can’t afford to believe the sleepover is real, because then everything else in the book would be true. She’s tempted to leave her mother a message asking if she knew about the body in the ceiling. She looks at the Polaroids again. In the pictures of Petra, she wonders if she’s posing for Ewan. The photo of Petra looking at the ceiling where her body would be hidden is chilling.

Maggie notices that she doesn’t have the bandage or scar on her cheek in some of the pictures. Now she wonders when the cut actually happened. The Sound of Music begins playing upstairs and the chandelier is lit. She takes a knife and goes to the study, where she finds Buster on the desk.

She calls Alcott, who comes and searches the house. Alcott doesn’t believe it was an intruder. As they talk, she’s confused when Maggie suggests the Book might be true. Alcott asks her to stop because she’s in danger of following her father down the path that hurt the town and the Ditmers. After she’s alone, Maggie takes the record player outside and breaks it with a sledgehammer.