Caught

In the suburban town of Kasselton, New Jersey, two storylines converge around secrets, scandal, and a missing teenage girl. The novel opens with Dan Mercer, a social worker who coaches inner-city youth basketball, narrating his arrival at a dark house after an urgent call from a troubled teen named Chynna. When he steps inside, a spotlight blinds him. Wendy Tynes, a reporter for the TV newsmagazine Caught in the Act who received an anonymous email tip about Dan, confronts him with evidence of sexually explicit online conversations with a thirteen-year-old girl. Dan stammers as cameras roll. Two days later the episode airs, destroying his life.

The prologue shifts to Marcia McWaid, who discovers one Saturday that her seventeen-year-old daughter Haley's bed is empty and made, the hamper bare, the toothbrush dry. Haley, a driven high school senior and lacrosse captain, never appears at practice. Calls, e-mail blasts, and police searches yield nothing over the following three months.

At an evidentiary hearing, Flair Hickory, Dan's flamboyant defense attorney, argues that Wendy entered Dan's home before police arrived with a warrant and could have planted evidence. The judge throws out all evidence and dismisses the charges. Wendy is fired from the studio. Dan calls, insists he was set up, and asks to meet at a trailer park in Wykertown, New Jersey.

Wendy is a single mother raising her son, Charlie, in Kasselton. Her husband, John Morrow, died twelve years earlier, killed by a drunk driver named Ariana Nasbro, who has been writing letters seeking forgiveness as part of her Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) amends process. County investigator Frank Tremont delivers weekly briefings to the McWaids with nothing new. Marcia shows Tremont a photograph of Haley at Disney World and implores him to keep searching.

At the trailer park, Wendy finds Dan with a beaten face and burn marks. Before he can explain, a man in a ski mask bursts in and shoots Dan, firing twice more into his head. Wendy recognizes the shooter as Ed Grayson, a decorated retired federal marshal and the father of Dan's alleged victim E.J., by his watch, height, and build. She flees as the gunman fires after her. When she returns with police, the body and the orange shag carpet have vanished, though Sheriff Mickey Walker finds blood residue and a bullet hole confirming a shooting occurred. Grayson's attorney, Hester Crimstein, dismantles the case: no body, no weapon, no facial identification. Wendy discovers that Grayson planted a GPS device on her car to track her to Dan's location.

Wendy begins investigating Dan's past. She visits Phil Turnball, Dan's former Princeton roommate, who meets daily with the "Fathers Club," a group of unemployed professionals. Through a wealthy contact named Win, Wendy learns Phil was fired from Barry Brothers Trust for embezzlement. Using Princeton records, she identifies all five members of Dan's freshman suite: Phil, Dan, Farley Parks, Steve Miciano, and Kelvin Tilfer. Four have been struck by scandals in the past year: Phil's embezzlement, Farley's prostitution scandal that ended his congressional campaign, Steve's arrest for illegal drug possession, and Dan's exposure on Wendy's show. Only Kelvin has no online presence.

The two cases collide when Walker's deputy, Tom Stanton, searches Dan's last known lodging, a seedy Newark motel, and finds Haley McWaid's pink iPhone under the bed. Dan's ex-wife, Jenna Wheeler, lives in the McWaids' town, and Haley attended a Thanksgiving gathering at the Wheeler home where Dan was present. Noel Wheeler, Jenna's husband and a cardiac surgeon, and his daughter Amanda confirm the connection. Stanton discovers a Google Earth search for Ringwood State Park on the phone. Tremont mobilizes search teams.

The Fathers Club determines that someone used viral-marketing techniques to amplify the scandals, creating fake blogs and social media accounts to surface damaging information about Dan's roommates. Wendy realizes the anonymous tip that first pointed her toward Dan may mean she was used as a tool. The club tracks Kelvin Tilfer to a psychiatric facility where he has lived intermittently with severe schizophrenia. When Wendy mentions his old roommates, Kelvin grows agitated, screaming "Scar face!" and "Stop the hunt!" before orderlies sedate him.

Two days into the search at Ringwood State Park, a canine unit finds Haley's body in a shallow grave. The case appears closed: Dan killed Haley, and Grayson killed Dan.

Wendy cannot let it go. At Princeton, she meets Christa Stockwell, injured in the roommates' break-in years before and left with severe facial scars, who reveals that during the roommates' senior year all five broke into the dean's house for a scavenger hunt. When Christa discovered them, someone threw a glass ashtray that shattered a mirror into her face. Phil, trying to flee, accidentally drove glass shards deeper with his heel, destroying her right eye. He took full blame to protect his roommates, and his family paid for Christa's silence. Win then shows Wendy surveillance footage proving Phil embezzled close to three million dollars over five years. Wendy understands why Phil was never targeted by a viral-marketing campaign: He orchestrated the takedowns of his former roommates.

Phil arrives at Wendy's house with a gun and confesses. After his firing, his old roommates refused to help him, and Dan admitted it was he, not Phil, who threw the ashtray that disfigured Christa. Phil hired a young woman to play both the prostitute who ruined Farley and the girl who lured Dan to the sting house. He posed as Dan online, planted drugs in Steve's car, and hid incriminating material in Dan's home. Phil insists he did not kill Haley and could not have planted her iPhone because he never knew where Dan was staying. He calls the confession a "gift" to Wendy, proof she did not destroy an innocent man, then puts the gun under his chin and pulls the trigger.

Wendy tries to accept Phil's conclusion but cannot. In Facebook photos of Haley's secret boyfriend, Kirby Sennett, she spots the distinctive yellow couch from the Wheeler home, confirming a drinking party took place there. She also realizes the timeline contradicts Phil's theory: Grayson killed his brother-in-law Arthur Lemaine, a convicted child pornographer who coached E.J.'s hockey team, the day before Dan's apparent murder, meaning Grayson already knew Dan was innocent. Grayson's marksmanship left only one real bullet hole in the trailer, confirming for Wendy that Dan's death was staged.

Wendy confronts Jenna, who confesses after Wendy presents evidence placing her at Dan's motel room. She and Noel hosted a drinking party for Amanda's sake. Haley, upset about a college rejection and a breakup with Kirby, drank an entire bottle of whiskey and died of alcohol poisoning. Noel could not revive her. The Wheelers buried Haley in Ringwood State Park, a place Dan and Jenna once hiked. After Dan's staged death, Jenna planted Haley's iPhone in his motel room and entered the park into Google Earth to frame a dead man. Wendy reveals she is wearing a wire, and Tremont and two detectives emerge to arrest Jenna.

In the epilogue, Dan narrates from a village in the Cabinda Province of Angola, where he teaches children to read. Grayson, drawing on his expertise from the federal witness protection program, staged Dan's death to give an innocent man a chance to start over. Grayson dials a long number and hands the phone to Wendy. Dan says the three words she needs: "I forgive you" (438).