Shelter in Place

On the evening of July 22, 2005, 16-year-old Simone Knox goes to the movies at the DownEast Mall Cineplex in Rockpoint, Maine, with her two best friends, Mi-Hi Jung and Tish Olsen. Simone steps out to use the bathroom and, returning, sees a man collapse in the theater doorway with gunshot wounds. Through the gap she catches sight of a figure inside shooting people methodically. She hides in a bathroom stall and calls 911, becoming the first person to alert police. Elsewhere in the mall, 19-year-old Reed Quartermaine, a college student working as a waiter, hears gunfire and sees a shooter laughing as he guns down shoppers. Reed grabs a lost four-year-old boy named Brady and shelters in a kiosk beside the body of Angie, a girl he had been trying to ask out. Three teenage shooters carry out the attack wearing Kevlar vests and helmets. Officer Essie McVee and her partner, already in the parking lot, rush in. Essie kills the lead shooter, 17-year-old JJ Hobart, by firing below his vest. The other two, having sworn to die together if one falls, turn their weapons on each other. The final toll exceeds 80 dead and over 200 injured.

In the aftermath, Simone refuses to leave the hospital until Mi is out of surgery. Her grandmother, CiCi Lennon, a renowned artist who lives on Tranquility Island off the coast of Maine, arrives to stay with her. Mi survives three gunshot wounds; Tish does not. Simone's mother Tulip has a concussion, and her younger sister Natalie is physically unharmed. Reed attends Angie's funeral, struggling with guilt and trauma. Essie, off duty while her shooting is reviewed, finds him outside the church and takes him to a park bench overlooking the bay, where their conversation sparks Reed's decision to become a police officer. CiCi takes Simone to Tranquility Island to escape the press and begin therapy. Meanwhile, Seleena McMullen, an ambitious internet reporter who recorded footage during the attack, begins building her career on the tragedy.

Three years later, Simone and Mi are roommates at Columbia University. Simone drifts through classes while Mi excels in pre-med. After Mi confronts her about wasting her talent, Simone spends the summer on the island, where CiCi encourages her to try working with clay. Reed is now a police officer whose DownEast connection cycles through the media after he makes headlines tackling a fleeing domestic abuser.

The novel gradually reveals that the true architect of the mall attack was Patricia Jane Hobart, JJ's younger sister. A psychopath with an IQ of 164, Patricia had spent months planning a December mass shooting, but JJ moved up the timeline without telling her. Blaming Simone above all, Patricia reasons that without the 911 call, police would not have arrived in time to kill JJ. While maintaining a public persona as a quiet, grief-stricken girl, Patricia begins systematically murdering survivors who received media attention: she shoots an activist in her backyard, poisons Dr. David Wu with botulinum toxin, and uses a car bomb on an author. She also gaslights her mother Marcia, who has a pill addiction, for years, ultimately staging Marcia's death in a house fire. Reed, tracking survivor deaths through news alerts, detects a pattern. Essie, who becomes his partner after returning from maternity leave, finds the connections statistically inconclusive, but Reed maintains detailed case boards.

Simone discovers her passion for sculpture. After a miserable year majoring in business to please her parents, she drops out and declares herself an artist. She spends 18 months in Florence studying with masters and learning bronze casting. CiCi flies over for Simone's first gallery show and purchases Emergence, a bust of Tish rising from water. Back in Maine, Simone's sister Natalie, jealous of Simone's bond with CiCi, deliberately shatters the sculpture. Natalie eventually returns to apologize, and the sisters begin a tentative reconciliation as Simone repairs the piece.

Patricia turns her campaign directly toward Reed. She murders his Realtor and impersonates a substitute agent at a house showing. Reed recognizes Patricia's voice from interviews he has studied, but a moment too late: She shoots him twice before he draws his weapon with his left hand and hits her. Patricia flees to her grandparents' mansion, kills them both, and escapes with cash, fake IDs, and weapons. Essie arrives and keeps Reed alive until paramedics come. The FBI takes over the investigation.

During his recovery, Reed visits Tranquility Island and meets CiCi, who recognizes him from the news and invites him to stay. He learns the island's police chief is retiring and accepts the position. At CiCi's holiday party, Reed meets Simone for the first time. He is instantly drawn to her, and she is moved when he describes her sculpture Emergence as "proof of life." A later encounter with Tiffany Bryce, a former rival of Simone's who was severely injured in the shooting and scarred by years of reconstructive surgeries, pushes Simone to begin sculpting the faces of all the DownEast victims as a memorial.

Reed settles into island life, earns the trust of his deputies, and adopts an abused stray dog he names Barney. He and Simone grow closer through their shared connection to the shooting and his ongoing investigation. He warns her that Patricia will eventually come for them both. Patricia's killings escalate: she abducts and kills McMullen after forcing the reporter to film an interview claiming credit for masterminding the attack, and she sends taunting cards to Reed containing locks of her victims' hair. FBI Special Agent Jacoby takes over the case and begins cooperating with Reed.

Reed and Simone become a couple. She begins casting a bronze sculpture called The Protector, depicting Reed with a sword and Barney at his feet, which becomes her way of expressing her love. A rash of vandalism hits the island, and Reed recognizes it as Patricia probing his response patterns.

Patricia arrives on the ferry disguised as a pregnant blonde. She rents a cottage, maintaining the fiction of an absent husband while keeping a locked room stocked with weapons and maps. Reed identifies the cottage through a tip from the housekeeping crew and breaks in, finding her war room. At the same time, Simone spots the disguised woman near CiCi's house and recognizes Patricia by her jawline and profile. Simone bolts inside, grabs CiCi and a kitchen knife, and they flee to the beach, hiding behind rocks in the rising surf. She calls Reed.

Reed races to CiCi's house. As he descends the beach steps in the dark, Barney senses Patricia hiding at the base. Patricia steps out to fire; Simone, perched on the rocks, shouts to warn him. The shot grazes Reed's shoulder, and he fires three times, hitting Patricia center mass. She is airlifted to Portland, where she dies in surgery at 12:38 a.m. on July 22, exactly 13 years after the DownEast Mall shooting.

Reed's deputies unanimously refuse to relieve him of duty. Simone completes The Protector, reveals it to Reed, and tells him she loves him. She agrees to move in on July 23, making the day after the anniversary a symbol of their future. One year later, in the park in Rockpoint where Reed first decided to become a cop, Simone unveils her completed memorial: a graceful bronze curve of more than 100 faces joined by twining roses and rosemary, every victim's name inscribed on the base. CiCi begins singing "The Long and Winding Road," and the crowd joins in. Simone tells Reed she wants a simple wedding at sunset on CiCi's patio the Saturday after Labor Day, and Reed walks the beach with Simone and Barney under the moonlight.