Lorna Moreno is the deuteragonist of Saltwater, a complex and morally ambiguous character shaped by a difficult past. Her defining trait is her adaptability and her mastery of discretion, skills she has perfected to navigate the world of the ultra-wealthy. She is a keen observer of people, particularly the rich, whose behavior she dissects with a cynical, pragmatic eye. Her motivation is singular and powerful: survival. She craves the financial security that will allow her to escape her history of instability, addiction, and exploitation. This relentless drive makes her actions difficult to judge, as they are born from a desperation the Lingates have never known.

Lorna’s relationship with Helen is complex. She develops a genuine friendship and sense of solidarity with Helen, recognizing in her a fellow prisoner in the Lingate’s gilded cage. However, this bond is complicated by Lorna’s primary goal. She sees Helen and the Lingate family’s secrets as a means to an end, a path to the money she needs to secure her freedom. This duality is evident in her simultaneous loyalty to Helen and her secret dealings with Stan Markowitz. She operates with a personal code that prioritizes self-preservation above all, a code that leads her to moments of both deep empathy and shocking ruthlessness, as when she nearly drowns Helen in a moment of panic.

Ultimately, Lorna embodies the most extreme version of survival by adopting the enemy’s tactics. Her final act is one of ultimate self-interest and cold calculation. She murders Martina to fake her own death and escape with both the blackmail money and Marcus’s payment. This act demonstrates her complete transformation into someone as merciless as those she sought to escape, represented in the symbolic killing of her doppelganger, Martina. While Helen dismantles her family from within, Lorna achieves her freedom by severing all ties and disappearing. Her survival is proof of her pragmatism and her belief that in her world, saving oneself is the only moral imperative. The Epilogue, while showing Lorna’s continued imperative to survive in the plan with Silvia, shows the distance Lorna has put between herself and her past. The implication of her life in Switzerland is that she has achieved the same peaceful life that Helen has built in Milan.

Sarah Lingate is the novel’s central mystery and supporting character, both as herself and as Renata. A round character, she is revealed through flashbacks, the memories of others, and most importantly, her own writing. Sarah is defined by her talent and ambition as a playwright, a creative spirit that is ultimately suffocated by her marriage into the controlling Lingate family. Before her death, she is on the verge of reclaiming her identity and career, having secretly written Saltwater, a play that fictionalizes her family’s secrets. This act of artistic rebellion is her planned escape, a way to weaponize the truth that her husband Richard is desperate to conceal. Her story highlights the destructive nature of a gilded cage, where wealth and status come at the cost of personal and creative freedom.

The central conflict of Sarah’s life revolves around the corrosive effects of her husband’s and his family’s jealousy and control. Her professional success becomes a source of resentment for Richard, whose own literary ambitions have faded. This dynamic is a key example of Jealousy as a Corrosive Force, which erodes their marriage and leads to the final confrontation on the night of her supposed death. Her affair with Marcus, her brother-in-law, further complicates her position, making her the object of Naomi’s jealousy, as well. She is a woman who “wanted so much” (237) and was punished for not conforming to the strict codes of behavior and loyalty demanded by an ultra-wealthy family.

In a major narrative twist, it is revealed that Sarah survived the falls that Richard, Marcus, and Naomi assumed killed her. She assumed the identity of Renata Tomasi, the family’s housekeeper who was murdered in her place, and lives a hidden life on Capri for 30 years. In this role, she remains a part of her daughter Helen’s life in a limited capacity. Her decision to mail the snake necklace to Marcus after three decades is a calculated act of maternal protection, designed to give Helen the leverage she needs to finally escape the family’s control. Sarah’s story is ultimately one of radical survival, demonstrating a fierce will to live and a mother’s lasting, unconventional love.

Marcus Lingate is a primary antagonist, a static and round character who embodies the cold pragmatism of the Lingate family. As the older brother, he assumes the role of the family’s protector and manager, a position he wields with an air of effortless control and authority. He is more outwardly charming and capable than his brother Richard, but he is also more ruthless. His core motivation is the preservation of the Lingate name and the illusion of their power and stability. Marcus fully represents maintaining wealth to gain impunity, viewing every crisis, including murder, as a logistical problem to be managed through money, influence, and secrecy. His affair with Sarah reveals a hypocrisy beneath his controlled exterior and establishes him as Helen’s biological father, a secret he keeps for over 30 years to maintain the family’s fragile peace.

His role in the cover-up of Sarah’s death is central to the novel’s plot. Believing his brother has killed her, Marcus immediately takes charge, planning to stage the death as a death by suicide or robbery to protect Richard and, by extension, the family. His decision to let Sarah die after finding her injured, and to allow Naomi to push Renata off the cliff in her place, demonstrates an ambiguity in his loyalty, as he knowingly allows the police to think Sarah is dead. He is willing to sacrifice anyone, even the woman he loved, to prevent a scandal. His initial decision to kill Sarah defines his character as one who will always choose the path of containment over morality, seeing it as his duty to be the one who handles the family’s “messes,” even as his decision to let Sarah fake her own death subverts his cold appearance. His final, fatal confrontation with Richard on Gallo Lungo is the direct result of these long-buried secrets finally coming to light.

Richard Lingate is an antagonist and a tragic figure, a character whose life is defined by jealousy, guilt, and paranoia. He is the weaker of the two Lingate brothers, a fact that has fostered a deep-seated resentment toward Marcus and a desperate need to assert his own authority. His marriage to Sarah, an acclaimed playwright, initially serves his self-image as a patron of the arts, but her superior talent soon becomes a source of intense professional jealousy. This envy, combined with his terror of their secret financial ruin being exposed, drives him to suppress her play, Saltwater. His actions on the night of Sarah’s fall are born of this panic, a desperate attempt to control a wife who is slipping from his grasp.

For 30 years, Richard lives with the belief that he is responsible for Sarah’s death. This guilt transforms him into a reclusive, ascetic figure, a performance of penitence that further isolates his daughter, Helen. His confession to Helen on the Salto is a moment of vulnerability, revealing the weight he has carried. The subsequent revelation that Marcus and Naomi allowed him to believe this lie to cover up their own crime shatters his entire identity. He is a man who has been manipulated by his own family, his guilt used as a tool to ensure his silence. This betrayal fuels the final, explosive confrontation with Marcus, where 30 years of repressed anger erupts, leading to his brother’s death and his own arrest. Following Marcus’ death, though, Richard appears to embrace his guilt, accepting that he will likely die in an Italian prison. This change in perspective illustrates that Richard, like Helen, felt trapped in the cage of his wealth.