I Know Who You Are: A Novel

After her terminal diagnosis, Maggie returns to her flat, resolving to complete her plan. She burns personal documents and confirms that she has been tracking Aimee’s phone and emails. She acknowledges tipping off Jennifer Jones about Aimee’s location with Jack and plans to revert to her true identity once she reunites with Aimee.

Aimee meets her agent, Tony, who reassures her that her notoriety has generated new script offers. He then reveals that her meeting with the director Fincher is happening now, at their table. Feeling physically and mentally unprepared, Aimee panics, but Tony reassures her, and she forces herself to perform.

As Aimee meets with Fincher, Maggie flips through her scrapbook, feeling that time is running out. Ignoring the lump in her chest, she confirms Aimee’s location via tracking. She puts on Aimee’s old trench coat and red lipstick and then leaves her flat, determined to reclaim the love that she believes Aimee owes her.

That evening, Aimee and Jack celebrate her successful meeting at a restaurant bar, sharing a passionate kiss. A tapping on the window draws their attention to a woman outside, who is wearing Aimee’s missing trench coat and waving at them. Aimee races outside, but the street is empty.

Fleeing after seeing Aimee and Jack, Maggie returns to her flat, distressed. She strips off her disguise, cries at her reflection, and finds strange comfort in a splinter still in her finger. She scrubs off her makeup, feeling her true self reemerge.

Detective Croft interviews Aimee and Jack about the stalker and reports that paparazzi captured their kiss. Croft reveals that the identity of the impostor “Ben” is unknown and that Aimee’s birth father, John Sinclair, is alive. Croft adds that John’s last known contact after prison was with a brother-in-law, Michael O’Neil. Aimee says nothing.

Alone, Maggie reviews her plan. Her thoughts reveal that she cast an impostor to play “Ben,” exhumed the real Ben Bailey’s body to plant different remains at the house, and dressed as Aimee to create false evidence. She believes that the plan will soon force Aimee to remember everything and call her.

Tony calls Aimee to say that Alicia White intercepted the director and got the Fincher role. Aimee blames Jack, but he denies it and consoles her. They have sex, after which Aimee remembers where she hid her gun.

While Aimee is with Jack, Maggie waits for a call that doesn’t come. She removes the splinter from her finger and places it on the mantelpiece. She reflects that both she and Aimee use names borrowed from the dead, writes her real name in the dust, and prepares for her final act.

Aimee goes home to retrieve her gun. While jogging on Portobello Road, she spots a childhood photo of “Ben” in a shop window. The shopkeeper gives her a business card for the supplier, a house-clearance company run by Maggie O’Neil. Aimee buys the photo and finds writing on the back identifying the boy as John Sinclair at age five.

Maggie ignores her ringing phone, certain that it’s Aimee. When the call goes to voicemail, she listens to Aimee’s fearful message 13 times. Convinced that her plan has worked, Maggie decides not to call back, forcing Aimee to seek her out in person.

Aimee returns to Jack’s and tries to process the link between Maggie, John Sinclair, and the man who posed as her husband. After they’re intimate again, Aimee tells Jack that she needs to go out. She takes her gun and leaves to confront Maggie.

The address on Maggie’s card leads Aimee to the old betting shop in Essex. In the flat upstairs, she finds a photo album of her career clippings. On the last page is a letter she wrote 20 years ago to her brother, Eamonn, revealing that her name is Ciara and that Maggie and John kidnapped her. A figure appears and calls her Ciara.

The figure removes a wig, revealing “Ben” as her brother, Eamonn. He confesses that he posed as Ben and then had surgery to resemble Jack, stalked her as “Maggie,” and murdered John Sinclair. Blaming Ciara for destroying their family, he attacks her, takes her gun, and uses a stun gun to incapacitate her.

Aimee drifts in and out of consciousness, realizing that she’s rolled in a carpet liner in a moving van. Later, she awakens bound and gagged inside a small box. Eamonn opens it and drugs her into unconsciousness.

Aimee wakes tied to a bed in her childhood home in Ireland. Eamonn, undisguised, says he posed as Maggie to confuse her and plans to keep her there forever. He falls asleep on top of her. Recalling Maggie’s advice that acting could save her, Aimee resolves to perform whatever role she must to survive.

Aimee wakes Eamonn and feigns affection. After he has sex with her, frees one of her hands, and falls asleep, she grabs a heavy statue and strikes his head repeatedly. Then, she runs outside into the storm, and he pursues her. In the shed, she finds the axe, and when he enters, she swings it into his neck and then strikes again, decapitating him.

Six months later, a pregnant Aimee is married to Jack. She attends a press junket for the Fincher film she stars in, having won the role after Alicia White vanished. During an interview for a film titled Sometimes I Kill, Aimee introduces herself and misspeaks, delivering the title as a confession. She smiles, blames the slip on pregnancy, agrees to a retake, and adds that she does not repeat mistakes.