Don't Open Your Eyes

Annabelle Reynolds, a marketing professional in Bayport, Connecticut, wakes from a terrifying dream in which her husband, James, a neurologist, chokes her in their kitchen. She reaches for a butcher knife before he releases her and casually mentions winning "best doc" in Connecticut Magazine. Annabelle dismisses the nightmare. She and James share a comfortable life with their two daughters, 15-year-old Scarlett and 11-year-old Olivia. Despite outward contentment, Annabelle carries a private grief from before her marriage.

That evening, at their anniversary dinner, James presents her late mother's restored heirloom ring, then mentions winning best doc, exactly as in the dream. Her hands begin to shake. More dreams follow and prove prophetic: She dreams of a restaurant called Blue Fig before her usual spot is renamed to match, and she dreams of a plane crash over Atlanta that occurs the next morning with the same flight number. She researches precognitive dreams and recalls her mother mentioning that her grandmother had dreams that came true.

Interspersed chapters follow Scarlett, who has been frozen out by her former best friend's clique. Isolated, she begins texting a boy named Ben, whom she met on a Taylor Swift fan server on Discord, a messaging platform. Ben claims to be 16 and based in Chicago. Because Scarlett's father is strict about online privacy, she keeps Ben secret, but over time he draws out personal details, including her home address. Scarlett also befriends Avery Draconis, a sharp, independent classmate who becomes her closest confidante.

Scarlett harbors a deeper secret. She has taken a DNA test by forging her parents' signatures and discovered a maternal half-sibling: a brother. Convinced her parents have lied to her, she searches her mother's closet and finds a letter expressing undying love for someone lost. Scarlett assumes it was written to an old boyfriend, not realizing it addresses a son Annabelle believes died at birth.

Flashback chapters reveal the backstory. During her senior year at UConn, Annabelle cared for her mother, Miriam, who had early-onset Alzheimer's at 56. Her father, Gerard Morgan, abandoned the family when Annabelle was six. Annabelle began a secret affair with her professor, Randy Bennet, whose roommate was James, then a medical resident. She became pregnant. When she found Randy in bed with another woman, she fled to James. Randy left for a teaching job in Arizona, his abandonment echoing her father's. James proposed, offering to raise the child as his own. Annabelle accepted out of gratitude and trust rather than romantic love.

The birth was traumatic. Annabelle went into labor two weeks early during a storm. The hospital was short-staffed, and James, then an OB resident, performed the emergency C-section. Annabelle developed preeclampsia, a dangerous complication involving extremely high blood pressure, and seized after briefly holding her newborn son. When she regained consciousness 18 hours later, James told her the baby had died of respiratory distress. The loss became the defining trauma of her life.

In the present timeline, Annabelle's dreams escalate. She dreams of James and Scarlett dying in a car crash at a specific time and stalls their departure until the danger passes; James returns reporting the exact accident she foresaw. She dreams Olivia will break her arm at gymnastics and pulls her from practice; the beam tips over and another girl is injured. When she dreams of a gas leak at James's office and rushes in screaming for an evacuation, nothing happens. James is humiliated, and their marriage strains as he dismisses her dreams.

After declining a promotion following a dream in which James criticizes her for being away too much, Annabelle is assigned a new client: Chase Sommers, an investigative journalist and crime podcaster. She recognizes him instantly as the man from her recurring dreams. On work trips to California, they discover shared backgrounds of paternal abandonment. Chase confides about his troubled marriage to Tara, describing multiple late-pregnancy losses and his fear of losing custody of their son, Lucas. When Annabelle shares her prophetic dreams, Chase responds with empathy, unlike James. An emotional affair develops.

Short chapters narrated by an unnamed woman called "The Wife" reveal someone monitoring her husband, searching his office, reading his texts, and discovering he is growing close to another woman and studying her interests to ingratiate himself. She resolves to stop him.

Ben tells Scarlett his father has business in Connecticut and suggests meeting. She arranges to see him at a coffee shop, lying to her father about staying at Avery's. When she arrives, a man in his 30s or 40s says her name. Realizing she has been catfished, she flees on her bike. A white BMW strikes her in an alley. Scarlett is diagnosed with a closed traumatic brain injury and placed in a medically induced coma. The investigation stalls with no witnesses and the fake Instagram account Ben used now deactivated.

During her coma, Scarlett hears Chase visit and recognizes his voice as the man from the coffee shop. After nearly two weeks, doctors reduce her sedation. Chase tells Annabelle the truth: Lucas's blood type is incompatible with both his and Tara's, and a DNA test confirmed that Lucas shares a maternal sibling match with Scarlett. Chase believes their babies were switched at birth and tells Annabelle her son is alive. He explains that he initially posed as Ben to contact Scarlett while investigating, then hired Annabelle's firm to assess her character before revealing the truth.

Before Annabelle can absorb this, Detective Stanton calls: The phone used to text Scarlett belongs to Chase, and Scarlett's backpack was found in his home. Police arrest him. Scarlett, now awake, confirms that the man from the coffee shop visited her hospital room. When Annabelle presses James, he confesses: He deliberately swapped Annabelle's living son with the Sommers' deceased newborn, rationalizing that Annabelle had expressed ambivalence about motherhood while the Sommers family was desperate for a child. Enraged, Annabelle calls him a monster. James wraps his hands around her throat, pinning her to the kitchen counter, exactly as in the opening dream. She reaches for a knife. He releases her and walks out.

Tara visits Annabelle, presenting herself as a fellow victim and mentioning the possibility of taking Lucas to Paris. Annabelle contacts her lawyer to assert parental rights. Then Annabelle has a decisive dream: She watches Tara purchase a prepaid phone using Chase's credit card, text Scarlett while posing as Ben, rent a white BMW, and deliberately drive into Scarlett. Chase's lawyer obtains rental records confirming this evidence. Police arrest Tara.

Tara's final chapter reveals her as "The Wife." She faked multiple pregnancies to keep Chase, catfished Scarlett for months, struck her with the rented car, then planted evidence to frame Chase. A climactic scene exposes James's complicity: He sought out Tara after recognizing Chase, and together they conspired to discredit Chase and protect the baby-switch secret. Tara was supposed to make Chase appear to be grooming Scarlett, but she escalated to violence without James's knowledge. He visits Tara in jail posing as a pastor, believing the conversation is privileged, but Tara has been wearing a wire. Detective Stanton arrests James for kidnapping.

One year later, James has been sentenced to 20 years in prison and Tara to 25. Annabelle has moved with Scarlett and Olivia into a smaller house near the beach, with a room for Lucas, who lives with Chase but visits on weekends. Over the following year, Annabelle and Lucas's bond deepens. One night, Lucas calls her "Mom" for the first time. The novel closes with Annabelle watching her three children together as Chase arrives for dinner. She smiles and replies, "Let me sleep on it" (336), reclaiming her dreams as a source of possibility rather than dread.