48 pages • 1-hour read
The Business Trip
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Part 4, Chapter 39-EpilogueChapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 4, Chapter 39 Summary: “Jasmine: One Day After the Flight”
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of death and cursing.
Jasmine uses the keycard that Trent gave her to sneak into his room. She takes a razor, a small pair of scissors, and a monogrammed handkerchief from his closet. While searching the bathroom for hair, she finds the towel that Trent used to masturbate and takes it back to Stephanie’s hotel room. She smears the contents of the towel onto a pair of her own underwear and a pair of Stephanie’s underwear in order to convince police that he had sex with both of them. She cuts Stephanie’s hair and pulls out some of her own to plant in Trent’s belongings. Jasmine returns to Trent’s room and plants the hair and her blood in his suitcase and the underwear in the pocket of the suit he was wearing. She copies his flight information in order to follow him to Atlanta.
After planting the evidence, Jasmine wheels Stephanie’s body out of the hotel in a suitcase and dumps it off a bridge into a deep lagoon. She plants Trent’s keycard and the monogrammed handkerchief at the site. On the way back to the hotel, she withdraws $3,000 from Stephanie’s bank account.
Part 4, Chapter 40 Summary: “Jasmine: Two Days After the Flight”
The next morning, Jasmine notices a text on Stephanie’s phone from her neighbor Robert. She responds that she met a man named Trent and plans to spend the week with him at his place in Atlanta. She ignores Robert’s texts for the rest of the afternoon.
Jasmine checks out of the hotel and withdraws $15,000 from Stephanie’s account before returning to the motel she checked into on arrival in San Diego. She carefully writes out the next steps of her plan on the motel notepad and then sends texts to Stephanie’s boss and son, Evan, explaining that she is extending her trip. She also texts her own friend Raven asking for a fake passport, telling Raven that she plans to never return to the US.
While checking the Madison news for evidence that Glenn is looking for her, Jasmine sees a story on artificial-intelligence voice generators. She decides to use one of the linked websites and an online recording of Stephanie at a conference to generate fake voice notes to send to Robert and Stephanie’s other friends. Finally, she texts Anna with news about meeting Trent.
Part 4, Chapter 41 Summary: “Jasmine: The Saturday After the Flight”
The next day, Jasmine arrives at the airport early to confirm that she and Trent are on the same flight. She changes her makeup in the bathroom and then puts on a face mask to ensure that Trent does not recognize her. She sends texts to Robert updating him about her travel plans. As she boards the flight to Atlanta, she notices Trent hitting on the woman next to him in first class and feels vindicated in setting him up.
After arrival, she follows Trent to his apartment and then texts the address to Raven. She asks Raven to wear a sexy outfit and bring a pill that she can sneak into Trent’s drink to make him sick throughout the weekend.
When Raven arrives, she rejects Jasmine’s attempts to pay her, assuring her that she can pay once the fake passport arrives. Jasmine tells Raven about stealing Stephanie’s identity but does not reveal the murder. Raven follows Trent to a nearby bar and then texts Jasmine to confirm that she drugged Trent. Jasmine asks Raven to meet her the following day to take photos proving that Stephanie was in Atlanta.
Part 4, Chapter 42 Summary: “Jasmine: The Sunday After the Flight”
Jasmine spends the morning fielding texts from Robert and making him believe that she is spending the day in bed with Trent. She also receives a text from someone named Diana, asking to meet in an hour. When she tells Diana to contact her in a week, Diana repeatedly calls her. Jasmine ignores the calls. Jasmine and Raven take pictures all over Atlanta to send to Robert to convince him that Stephanie’s there. Afterward, Jasmine uses hair dye and fake tattoos to transform her appearance so that she no longer resembles Stephanie. She attempts to respond to texts from Stephanie’s work colleagues but stops when their questions become too difficult to answer.
That evening, Raven delivers the fake passport and encourages Jasmine to return to San Diego and walk across the border to Tijuana. When Jasmine brings up Allison’s murder, Raven reveals that Drake’s family maintains his innocence and is looking for the real murderer. Jasmine plants evidence in Trent’s yard implicating him in her death and Stephanie’s and then sends texts to Robert encouraging him to call the police. She boards a bus to San Diego, confident that her plan is foolproof.
Part 4, Chapter 43 Summary: “Jasmine: Three Weeks Later”
After crossing into Mexico successfully, Jasmine begins to build a new life in Puerto Escondido under the name Erica. She learns that investigators believe that she was impersonating Stephanie at the conference and that Trent killed them both in a dispute about money. She also learns that witnesses spotted “Stephanie” and another woman talking in front of Trent’s apartment the night he got back from Atlanta. She is relieved when attention turns to a missing actress in Los Angeles. Confident that she is finally free, she considers buying a home.
Jasmine’s plans are spoiled when she learns that Raven was caught making fake passports. In order to make a plea deal, Raven admits to the police that she sold a passport to Jasmine and informs them of Jasmine’s role in Allison’s death. Although she knows that there is no evidence connecting her to Allison’s death, Jasmine worries that Raven will show the police the text evidence of her impersonating Stephanie. Jasmine panics and tries to steal a tourist’s purse in order to assume her identity but is stopped by a familiar face.
Part 4, Chapter 44 Summary: “Stephanie: Puerto Escondido, Mexico”
Stephanie watches as Jasmine flees from police but is quickly captured. The police accuse Jasmine of murdering Allison and a woman named Diana and framing Drake and Trent for the murders. Stephanie reveals that she hired an actress named Diana from a doppelganger website to impersonate her at the San Diego conference (so that she could avoid attending the conference). When she received messages from Diana (really Jasmine) delaying the switch back and then saw news reports about her own death, she went to the police.
Stephanie confirms that Jasmine is the woman she met on the plane, and the police arrest Jasmine. They explain that Glenn told the police that Raven was involved in the murders and that Raven then turned Jasmine in to save herself. Enraged, Jasmine tells Stephanie that she is helping “bastards” like Glenn, Trent, and Drake get away with bad behavior. Stephanie replies that Jasmine is the only murderer. Jasmine maintains her innocence, but the police take her away. Stephanie, who quits her job rather than being fired for lying to her boss, regrets her role in the events that led to Diana’s murder.
Epilogue Summary: “Stephanie: Five Months Later”
Five months after Jasmine’s arrest, Stephanie is working in a small public-relations firm. After the truth of her hiring an impersonator to avoid the conference spreads, she is unable to find a job working in news. While writing a report about a new flavor of milk developed by Wisconsin dairy farmers, Stephanie is visited by Trent McCarthy, who has been released from jail and cleared of charges. Like Stephanie, Trent is unable to secure another job in news because of his lying.
Trent suggests that he and Stephanie team up to write a book about their experiences. He suggests that Stephanie write the book and that they split the profit evenly. Stephanie is immediately disgusted by Trent’s arrogant, overly sexual personality and rejects the offer. When Trent demands to know why she won’t work with him, she thinks of Jasmine’s final words to her. Stephanie tells Trent that he is a “bastard” and that she refuses to let “bastards” win.
Part 4, Chapter 39-Epilogue Analysis
In the final section of the novel, Jasmine becomes the novel’s villain. As she frames Trent for the murder of Stephanie, her characterization changes from a survivor of abuse full of self-doubt to an arrogant antagonist who believes that she is smarter than the people around her. The novel shows that, like Trent and Glenn, she sees women as disposable. Her statement that she “ha[s] outsmarted everybody. [She] [i]s a mastermind. […] [She] [i]s in charge now” recalls Trent’s earlier statement that he was the smartest person at the San Diego conference (318-19).
In the moments before she disposes of what she believes to be Stephanie’s body, Jasmine feels “remorse, guilt, even a touch of sadness” about her crimes and the life she has destroyed (275). However, once she realizes that she “need[s] to get rid of this woman to become the woman [she] [i]s destined to be” (275), sadness is replaced by glee. She begins to believe that she “[i]s a genius” as she frames Trent for Stephanie’s murder and congratulates herself for her “tremendous smarts” (287). By the time she escapes to Tijuana, Jasmine has transformed into the type of arrogant person she previously despised.
In the final section of the novel, Jasmine makes a series of mistakes that reflect her growing arrogance about her ability to hide her crimes. At both Stephanie’s hotel and her own, Jasmine uses note pads to write down the details of her plan. Before leaving Stephanie’s hotel, Jasmine “jot[s] down [her] plan for the next day: ‘Western Union, pack up and leave the hotel, check back into the motel, start dropping clues via text’” (276-77). Although the notes do not explicitly mention murder or identity theft, they still have the potential to provide evidence that something nefarious was happening if investigators were to find the pad. Later, Jasmine again exposes herself to capture by writing down the details of her plans. The fact that Jasmine twice leaves evidence of her crimes acts as a red herring. Her notes suggest that she might get caught but mislead the reader about the precise method of her capture.
Jasmine’s hubris leads to her downfall. Although Raven is clearly untrustworthy, Jasmine is so arrogant that she doesn’t realize that it is a mistake to trust Raven with details of her crimes and future plans. The novel foreshadows how Raven is capable of turning Jasmine in. When the two women meet in Atlanta, Raven warns Jasmine that she “will do anything not to go back [to jail], and [she] do[es] mean anything” (292). Despite the fact that Raven explicitly tells Jasmine that she would “turn in [her] own mother” to avoid going to jail (292), Jasmine shares the details of her identity theft and plans to pin Stephanie’s murder on Trent. Jasmine’s willingness to trust her friend despite Raven’s obvious desire to save herself at all costs suggests that her arrogance is overpowering her good sense.
Jasmine’s arrogance also implicates her in Allison’s death. She reminds Raven of her responsibility for the decades-old murder of their classmate, despite the fact that Raven tells her that Allison’s “family is still trying to figure it out all these decades later” (306). Raven assures Jasmine that her “secret is safe” but eventually turns Jasmine in in order to save herself (306). Jasmine’s willingness to trust Raven, who is clearly untrustworthy, reflects her belief that she is smarter than everyone else around her. Her overconfidence marks a significant transformation in her characterization from the beginning of the novel, when she worried that she was less intelligent and capable than her friends and family.
These chapters also explore a key theme of the novel, Doppelgangers and Identity. Jasmine and Stephanie look alike. They also both long for a better life and fantasize about fleeing to a utopic Mexico. Like Jasmine, Stephanie is duplicitous, hiring a woman (Diana) to impersonate her at the conference so that she doesn’t have to deal with the stress of going. As Stephanie tells Jasmine, “We could have been friends in another life if you weren’t a psychopath” (333). Jasmine is Stephanie’s shadow self, a concept explored by Swiss psychiatrist C. G. Jung. The shadow
can be described as highly emotional, driven by primal instinct, often violent, and usually concealed from the social world by the conscious mind. Jung also believed the qualities in our Shadow were determined by the things we criticize the most in others. It is, so to speak, the dark mind, everything we separate from the rest of ourselves (Lonngi, Gail. “The Jungian Shadow and Self-Acceptance.” Texas A&M University at Galveston).
Jasmine may have been like Stephanie, the novel implies, if circumstances had been different—for example, if she had not experienced abuse and poverty. Likewise, Stephanie could have been like Jasmine had she experienced impoverishment and bullying. In this way, the novel implies how external circumstances such as class and economic inequity shape individuals and their potential.
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