She Didn't See It Coming

Lizzie explains that her parents do not approve of her interest in true crime because they think it is “disgusting, unhealthy.” Jayne posits that Lizzie likes posting in the group because she “enjoy[s] being in the know” (294). Lizzie denies this. Jayne says Lizzie’s posts suggest she knows a lot of details about how Bryden died, and she asks if Lizzie was jealous of Bryden.

Lizzie returns home and tells Donna that the police suspect her of murdering Bryden because of her Facebook posts. Her parents demand to see the posts.

Derek returns home late and tells Alice that he knows about her past. Alice confesses that she killed a man when she was a teenager because he assaulted her. She was never charged because the police “realized that it was so clearly self-defense” (299). Derek then confesses to her that he has been doing illegal work for some clients to make good money. She understands this because she also wants to be rich. That night, Alice thinks about her childhood friend, Susan Cleeve. Susan knows something that could reveal that the murder Alice committed as a teenager was not self-defense.

When Alice was a teenager, she had an affair with an older, married man. At first, she found it exciting. When she became bored and broke it off with him, he continued to pursue her, so she told him to meet her in a ravine at night, then she murdered him with a rock. She told the police that she killed him in self-defense, and only her friend Susan had known that Alice had been dating an older man. Now, Alice hopes that Jayne arrests someone for Bryden’s murder soon so that they will stop investigating her past.

Jayne returns home and is troubled to see that things in her apartment have been moved.

The next day, Jayne goes to work, feeling tired after a sleepless night wondering who broke into her apartment. She wonders if it was Alice. She and Detective Kilgour review their evidence in the case and decide to check Lizzie’s alibi.

Paige drives Clara to day care, feeling frustrated that Sam did not want to spend time with her. She reflects that “what she knows could hurt him” (307).

Alice looks up Jayne’s boyfriend, Michael Fraser, online. He is a professor in the Psychology Department of the university, so she decides to attend his lecture.

Tracy Kemp meets with Kayly Medoff (the woman whom Henry was accused of kidnapping and raping). Kayly does not recognize her as Henry’s wife. Tracy tells Kayly that she was also assaulted and that she is looking for Kayly’s guidance. Kayly tells her that it is difficult to report sexual assault to the police. Kayly was certain that she identified the correct assailant even though he was wearing a mask because she recognized his voice and his nervous tic of “tapping the fourth finger on his right hand” (310). Shocked, Tracy runs away; she is now certain that her husband kidnapped and assaulted Kayly, as he also has this nervous tic.

The eyewitness, Francine Logan, returns to the police station and tells Jayne that the person with the suitcase in the elevator’s cell phone had rung, and the ringtone was “Bitter Sweet Symphony,” by the Verve. Jayne realizes that she recognizes the ringtone.

Jayne interviews Paige and asks her if she was having an affair with Sam. Paige denies it. Then, Jayne tells Paige she knows it was Paige with the suitcase in the elevator the day Bryden died. When Kilgour calls Paige’s cellphone, they hear the distinctive ringtone, and Paige asks for an attorney.

Paige realizes that her dream of marrying Sam and raising Clara is no longer possible. After her attorney arrives, Paige confesses to the detectives that Sam killed Bryden.

Paige tells detectives that on the day of the murder, Sam had come home in the middle of the day, argued with Bryden, then killed his wife. Then, he had called Paige on a burner phone to help him dispose of the body. Paige says that she had carried the suitcase containing the body, taking it down to the storage area and then throwing Bryden’s clothes in the dumpster. She claims that she did this because she loved him. She also confesses to lying when she claimed that Bryden was having an affair with Derek; she had wanted to distract the police from her affair with Sam. Paige is arrested, and so is Sam.

Lizzie is shocked to learn the police have arrested Sam for the murder. Donna feels relieved that her suspicions about him have been confirmed.

Sam insists to the police that he is innocent and has never owned a burner phone. Meanwhile, Lizzie sees that an anonymous post in the Facebook group states that Henry Kemp abducted and raped Kayly Medoff.

Jayne calls Derek to tell him that Paige has confessed to lying about his affair with Bryden. Alice is surprised and relieved.

In her jail cell, Paige mulls over how much Sam had taken advantage of her. She is angry he was “unwilling to commit” (329) to their relationship.

The narrative abruptly shifts into the past to reveal that six days before Paige’s arrest, she buzzed Bryden on the intercom from the parking garage and indicated that she needed to talk to Bryden urgently. Bryden let Paige in, after which Paige suffocated Bryden with a plastic bag.

Jayne interviews Sam, who insists on his innocence and says that Paige is lying. He says he has an alibi for the time of the murder and then confesses that he has a “drug problem” and had been with his drug dealer that afternoon.

Jayne tells Paige that Sam has an alibi for the time of the murder. Paige is furious that Sam lied to her about not having an alibi. (The narrative reveals that she had murdered Bryden so that she could be with Sam. However, when she realized that Sam “didn’t really care for her” (335), she decided to pin the murder on him instead.)

That evening, Jayne and Michael celebrate Jayne’s success at closing the case. Michael tells Jayne that a beautiful woman came up to him after his lecture that afternoon and “asked some very good questions” (336), then asked to meet for coffee. When Jayne expresses surprise, he reassures her that she has “nothing to worry about” (336).