Like Mother, Like Daughter

This chapter is an excerpt from Katrina’s journal. In a story, she wrote, “She loved him in that way young girls do, utterly senseless and deeply brave” (150). Reed had described the line as “brave.” Katrina felt that it was an admission that he understood that the line was about her feelings for him.

The day after Katrina disappeared, Cleo goes to Caffe Reggio. She reads more of her mother’s journal, including the last entry where Katrina describes being locked away in a windowless room for more than a day. Cleo realizes that the rest of the entries, as well as many others, have been ripped out.

Cleo thinks about the day at the beach when she was 12. They argued, and afterward, Katrina told Cleo that she didn’t learn how to swim until she was in law school. Then, Katrina taught Cleo how to swim in the ocean.

Cleo messages Randy, one of the men Katrina had been communicating with, through the dating profile. He agrees to meet who he thinks is Katrina at the café. While Cleo waits, Annie arrives and confronts her. Annie tells Cleo to text Janine, who is worried about her. Annie calls Cleo and Aidan selfish and leaves.

Randy arrives. He tells Cleo that Katrina seemed to have an argument with a client named Vivienne Voxhall.

Cleo tells her therapist how much she likes her current boyfriend, Will, but she worries that if she tells Katrina, her mother will “make [her] feel bad about it” like she did when Cleo told her about Charlie (161). Cleo admits that Kyle once punched her in the face. She feels guilty for staying with Kyle after that and for being angry with her mother even though Katrina was right.

Two days before Katrina disappears, Lauren calls her. Katrina expresses doubts about her parenting, and Lauren comforts her. Then, Katrina calls Mark and tells him what she has learned about Doug’s case. She tells him that she is being followed and that she thinks it is Darden. Katrina then calls her friend Ahmed at a cyber investigation firm. She asks him to get as many messages as he can from Doug’s cell phone, which is missing from the crime scene.

Katrina meets with a burglar named Jimmy Ahearn, who agrees to steal Kyle’s phone. Then, she meets with Aidan to tell him that Cleo is seeing Kyle again. She also reveals that Kyle has evidence of Cleo dealing on his phone but that she is going to get the phone. She wants to find a way to keep Kyle away from Cleo “permanently.”

Katrina tracks Cleo’s phone to the school library. She watches as Kyle goes into the library and talks to Cleo. Then, Katrina follows Kyle to a dorm and watches as Kyle sells drugs to Annie and her boyfriend, Geoff. After Kyle leaves, Katrina confronts Annie. She tells Annie that Kyle has pictures of his clients on his phone as “insurance.” Annie tells her that she should worry about her own daughter and her new boyfriend.

Twenty-five hours after her mother disappeared, Cleo goes to the famous Dakota apartment building and confronts Vivienne Voxhall. Vivienne tells Cleo that she didn’t do anything to Katrina because she was in a meeting when Katrina disappeared. Vivienne tells Cleo that Katrina wasn’t a patent attorney; she was a “fixer” who helped Blair, Stevenson clients cover up wrongdoings. Vivienne doubts that Jules had an “episode” because she sounded fine when they spoke the day before. Vivienne gives Cleo Jules’s home number and address.

Cleo goes to Jules’s building in Washington Heights and convinces the superintendent to let her in. In the apartment, Cleo finds documents about the MDL certification of the Darden Pharmaceuticals lawsuit. She is leaving the apartment building when she runs into Detective Wilson.

Cleo shares what she has learned with the detective. Wilson tells her that their elderly neighbor George says that he saw Cleo arrive at the apartment at 5:30 pm, not 6:30 pm. Cleo tells the detective that George has Alzheimer’s disease and that he might have confused Katrina with Cleo because they look similar. Cleo tells Wilson that Kyle might also be involved and that Aidan managed to get Katrina’s inheritance money.

Katrina writes in her journal about a walk she took around Haven House with Reed. During their walk, he kissed her.

Two days before her disappearance, Katrina texts Cleo and asks her to come over for dinner on Sunday night at 6:30. Cleo agrees. Then, Katrina receives Doug’s text messages from Ahmed. His last text message was from an unidentified number asking him to meet at 11 o’clock in the evening at a strip mall in Yonkers. Ahmed tells Katrina that the text came from Phil Beaumont, the in-house corporate attorney for Darden Pharmaceuticals. The next morning, Katrina shares her findings with Mark. He says that he knew about the meeting with Phil already and asks her to come into the office.

That evening, Katrina watches Cleo’s dorm from the park across the street. Janine joins her, and they talk about their respective insecurities about their approaches to mothering. Katrina gets a phone call from Tim Lyall, a junior partner at her law firm. Tim says that Jules told him to call her. After he hangs up, Katrina calls the office to get Tim’s home address. Katrina asks Janine to keep watch on Cleo’s dorm until she gets back, and Janine agrees. Before she leaves, Katrina warns Janine that Annie also knows Kyle “better than she should” (199).

Cleo tells her therapist that Katrina started pulling away from her when she was in middle school. Her therapist suggests that there might be something in Katrina’s past that causes her to act that way. When her therapist asks about Will, Cleo says that he is a “regular person” she met on campus but that her mother is too “uptight” to give Will a chance. The therapist suggests that deep down, perhaps Cleo is concerned that there is a problem with Will.

Twenty-eight hours after Katrina disappeared, Cleo gets out of Detective Wilson’s car. Wilson warns Cleo to be careful, but Cleo is not sure what she is referring to. Cleo goes back to Katrina’s house and talks to George, who seems typically grumpy about the police presence.

Inside, Cleo sees that the kitchen has been cleaned. While she waits for her father to arrive, she reviews the documents she took from Jules’s apartment. She notices that they are from the plaintiff’s attorney, not the defense (Blair, Stevenson). She realizes that Jules must be the plaintiff in the lawsuit against Darden, which is why she got fired.

Aidan arrives. They argue, and Cleo tells him that she isn’t sure if he really wants to find Katrina. She tells him that she knows he was having an affair with Bella. He admits to the affair but says that it was not with Bella.

Cleo texts Will and asks him to come to her dorm that night because she’s upset. She checks Katrina’s laptop again and realizes that Katrina’s phone is linked to the computer. She sees the series of threatening messages that Katrina received. Will arrives, and they have sex.

This chapter is an excerpt from a Wall Street Journal news story. It reports that Doug Sinclair, vice president of risk assessment, was solely responsible for the warnings about Xytek’s risks in pregnant people not being passed on to the FDA.

The day before Katrina disappears, she searches the Blair, Stevenson database and realizes that Tim Lyall is a fixer just like she is. Katrina goes to Tim’s apartment building and convinces the doorman to let her in. She searches his apartment and finds printouts of a series of emails that Doug sent to Phil Beaumont. In the emails, Doug repeatedly warns Phil about the reports of Xytek’s adverse side effects that he received from doctors. In the final email, Doug threatens to go to the press if his warnings are not heeded. There is also a draft of an email that Doug had begun to write to Katrina.

Katrina realizes that Darden, and therefore Mark, knew about their relationship. She wonders if they thought she would go along with the coverup in order to prevent their relationship from coming to light. Then, Katrina receives a text from the threatening unknown number with a picture of Cleo. The extortionist says that they want $3 million in 24 hours “or Cleo’s the one who will pay” (218). Katrina texts her friend NYPD Sergeant McKinney and asks him to watch Cleo.