She Didn't See It Coming

She Didn’t See It Coming (2025) is a domestic thriller mystery by Shari Lapena. When a wealthy, beautiful young mother named Bryden Frost fails to pick her three-year-old daughter up from day care, her husband Sam and sister Lizzie immediately report her missing. That evening, the police find Bryden’s body and realize that the murderer must be someone that Bryden trusted. As Detective Jayne Salter investigates, new secrets about Bryden and Sam’s seemingly perfect marriage come to light, highlighting multiple aspects of The Tension between Outward Appearances and Hidden Realities, Betrayal in Intimate Relationships, and Emotional Responses to Grief and Trauma.

Shari Lapena is the author of several domestic thrillers, including bestsellers such as The Couple Next Door, Not a Happy Family, Everyone Here is Lying, and A Stranger in the House. She lives in Toronto.

This guide is based on the 2025 Penguin Kindle e-book edition.

Content Warning: The source material and this guide feature depictions and discussion of rape, substance use and addiction, mental illness, physical abuse, cursing, graphic violence, sexual content, and murder.

Plot Summary

While on her way to pick up her daughter, Clara, from day care, Bryden Frost rear-ends a Tesla belonging to the handsome, wealthy Derek Gardner. They exchange contact and insurance information so that Bryden can pay for the repairs.

Six weeks later, Bryden, her husband Sam, and their daughter Clara are eating breakfast together when Sam gives Bryden a kiss goodbye and leaves for work as usual. Bryden drops Clara off at day care, then returns home to work from the family’s condo unit for the day.

At 5:30 pm, Sam gets a call from Clara’s day care because Bryden is late picking Clara up and is not responding to their phone calls. Sam picks Clara up, then returns to the apartment, where he finds Bryden’s phone, wallet, and laptop. Panicked, Sam calls Bryden’s best friend, Paige, who does not respond. He then calls Bryden’s sister, Lizzie, who lives nearby. She does not know where Bryden is and advises Sam to call the police.

Detective Jayne Salter arrives on the scene and interviews Sam, Lizzie, and the neighbors. Lizzie insists that the detectives should get a dog to search the building. Jayne learns that a nearby neighbor, Henry Kemp, was previously accused of abduction and rape but was cleared of all charges. Henry Kemp states that he was at work at the time of Bryden’s disappearance, and this alibi is confirmed. Jayne learns that the CCTV in the condominium complex’s parking garage had not worked for weeks. Meanwhile, Lizzie and Bryden’s parents, Donna and Jim Houser, arrive from Florida.

The next day, Jayne learns that Bryden had been in contact with Derek Gardner and had paid him in cash for the repairs to his car. Sam does not have an alibi for the day before, claiming he was in the park from noon to 2 pm. Jayne interviews Derek Gardner, who lives nearby with his wife Alice. He states that he only met Bryden once after the accident so that she could pay for the repairs to his car.

Jayne interviews Lizzie, who claims to have been at home alone all day and therefore does not have a verifiable alibi for the day of the murder. Then, Jayne interviews Bryden’s best friend Paige, who appears to be lying when she states that Bryden and Sam had a perfect relationship and would never cheat on one another. The police conduct a search of the condominium building with a cadaver dog and find Bryden’s body hidden in a suitcase in the storage area in the complex’s basement.

Sam goes to the police station and formally identifies Bryden’s body. He also identifies the suitcase as his own. Jayne tells Sam that Bryden must have known the killer because she would have had to buzz the person into the building from the garage area.

Lizzie takes her parents to her house to stay while the investigation continues. While at home, she begins to post anonymously about her sister’s murder on the “True Crimes in Albany NY” Facebook group, in which she is very active. Lizzie enjoys the attention that she gets from the group. That evening, Sam and Lizzie have a drink together in the hotel room where he is staying while the police search his condominium. Sam tells Lizzie that he is worried about the “things” the police will uncover in the investigation.

The next day, the detectives interview Paige again. She alleges that Bryden was having an affair with Derek Gardner. The police interview Derek again, and he denies having an affair with Bryden. Derek’s wife, Alice, is suspicious that he is lying because he has had affairs in the past. Meanwhile, Lizzie and Bryden’s mother Donna is becoming increasingly convinced that Sam killed Bryden; she notes that he is acting guilty and does not have an alibi. The coroner conducts an autopsy and determines that Bryden was asphyxiated with a plastic bag.

Later, Paige reassures Sam that she did not tell the police about their affair. She explains that she tried to mislead the police by telling them that Bryden was having an affair with Derek. Meanwhile, the detectives interview Bryden’s doctor and learn that Bryden had had a broken rib; at the time, the doctor had suspected that Bryden was a target of domestic abuse.

Detective Jayne Salter interviews Sam, who denies assaulting his wife and says he has no knowledge of his wife’s alleged affair with Derek. He then asks for a lawyer. Before the interrogations can continue, Sam has a panic attack and is allowed to leave. That evening, Sam reflects on the fact that he does not understand why he hit his wife. He feels that she betrayed him by going to the doctor for treatment.

The next day, Jayne learns that Derek Gardner started his business using money that his wife inherited after his wife’s mother, Mary, died in an unsolved hit-and-run accident. She wonders if Derek killed Mary to obtain the money, so she interviews Alice Gardner, who insists that Derek was not having an affair. However, Alice does not respond to the questions about her mother’s death.

Alice returns home and confronts Derek, telling him that if he had not been having an affair with Bryden, the police would not be investigating Mary’s death. Alice is nervous that the police will discover that she killed her mother for the inheritance money.

A witness named Francine Logan goes to the police station and reports that she saw someone with a suitcase in the elevator at the time of the murder, but she is not sure if the person was a man or a woman.

Meanwhile, Lizzie continues to post to the Facebook group about the investigation into her sister’s death. She insinuates that it was her idea to have the police search the building with a cadaver dog. Donna is increasingly worried about her daughter spending so much time alone in her room online, and she speculates that her daughter might be “taking drugs.”

The next day, Lizzie takes Clara to the park. While there, she is approached by Alice Gardner, who insinuates that she is following the case online and believes that Sam committed the murder. Lizzie is shaken by the threatening encounter and reports it to Jayne.

The next day, Paige goes to the condo unit unannounced, entering through the garage. Sam and Paige have sex.

The detectives find Bryden’s clothes in a dumpster. Sam goes to the police department and identifies the clothes, confirming that they are likely Bryden’s. That evening, Donna confronts Lizzie about her antisocial behavior, and Lizzie tells Donna that she is not doing drugs.

The next day, a story about Alice’s mother’s unsolved hit-and-run is in the local paper. Jayne interviews Alice again and tells her to stay away from Lizzie. Alice tells Jayne that she was shopping alone at the time of Bryden’s murder, but she does not have a receipt to prove this. Alice returns home and tells Derek that they must find a way to stop Jayne’s investigation.

Later that day, Donna goes to the police station and tells Jayne that she is nervous about the time that Lizzie has been spending on the computer. Jayne decides to investigate Lizzie’s internet activity and soon learns that Lizzie has been using a pseudonym to post information about her sister’s murder in the Facebook group. Jayne interviews Lizzie and suggests that she killed her sister to gain attention from the true-crime group. Lizzie denies the allegations and is released.

That evening, Alice breaks into Jayne’s apartment. She does not take anything, but she moves some books around so that Jayne will know that someone was there. Later, Derek tells Alice that he has learned through his internet search that Alice was also responsible for the murder of a man when she was a teenager. Alice tells Derek that she killed the man in self-defense, which is why she was not charged for the crime. (In reality, she killed the man because he continued to pursue her after she broke up with him.)

Meanwhile, Paige grows increasingly frustrated with Sam’s dismissive attitude toward her. She feels that he is taking her for granted when he asks her to go grocery-shopping or to drive Clara to day care.

The next day, the eyewitness, Francine Logan, returns to the police station to report that she has remembered that the person in the elevator with the suitcase had a unique ringtone. When their phone rang, it played “Bitter Sweet Symphony” by The Verve. Jayne realizes that this is Paige’s ring tone, so she confronts Paige with this evidence. Paige alleges that Sam murdered Bryden during an argument and then asked for her help to cover up the crime. She claims that this is why she transported Bryden’s body in the suitcase.

Jayne arrests Sam, who denies the charges. He explains that he has a substance addiction and that he was with his drug dealer at the time of the murder. Jayne confronts Paige with this new evidence. In a flashback, the narrative reveals that Paige killed Bryden by asphyxiating her with a plastic bag so that she could then take over Bryden’s role in Sam and Clara’s life.

That evening, Jayne celebrates closing the case with her boyfriend, Michael, who tells her that a beautiful, intelligent woman approached him at work that day. The beautiful woman was Alice Gardner, but neither Michael nor Jayne realize this.