Dawn sends Seth an urgent email requesting a meeting without explaining the reason for her concern.

Natalie arrives at work to find Dawn's cubicle empty and hears a voice saying 'Help me' on Dawn's phone.

Natalie discovers Dawn's living room carpet soaked in blood and calls the police.

Natalie lies to Detective Santoro about her alibi, claiming Caleb stayed the entire night at her house.

Dawn's body is reportedly found beaten beyond recognition in a woodland area.

Natalie finds a blood-covered ceramic turtle the size of a basketball hidden in her laundry basket.

Seth suspends Natalie after learning that Dawn discovered accounting discrepancies linked to her sales.

Caleb tells Detective Santoro the truth — that he left Natalie's house at 9:30 pm, not the next morning.

Detective Santoro arrives at Natalie's home with a warrant and orders officers to search her house and car.

Detective Santoro arrests Natalie in front of TV cameras at the charity fun run.

Dawn is revealed to be alive, hiding in a motel room and watching Natalie's arrest on the news.

Caleb is revealed to be Dawn's secret lover and the half brother of Mia Hodge.

Seth pays Natalie's bail and reveals that Caleb knew Dawn before he was hired at Vixed.

Natalie finds Dawn standing on a pier at Wollaston Beach with a cinderblock tied to her ankle.

Caleb produces an engagement ring at the finish line of the charity run and proposes to Dawn, who accepts.

When accountant Dawn Schiff fails to appear at work, her coworker Natalie Farrell discovers a blood-soaked living room in Dawn's home and calls the police. As Detective Santoro's investigation intensifies, Natalie lies about her alibi and is implicated by a growing pile of evidence, including a giant blood-covered ceramic turtle found in her laundry. Dawn's body is apparently discovered in the woods, and Natalie is suspended, abandoned by her boyfriend, and ultimately arrested at a public charity event. The shocking twist in Part 2 reveals that Dawn is alive and has spent months engineering an elaborate frame-up with her secret lover, Caleb, who is also the half brother of the bullied girl whose death inspired the revenge plot. Natalie is eventually bailed out, the conspiracy unravels, and she races to a pier to stop Dawn from drowning herself to manufacture a murder victim. The story ends a year later with both women organizing a charity run together, each silently protecting the other's darkest secret.

The headline events of a workplace disappearance turned murder investigation.

Dawn starts her first day at Vixed, where Seth introduces her to Natalie, who seems glamorous and friendly.

Natalie organizes a break-time welcome party for Dawn, who is deeply moved by the gesture.

Dawn buys Natalie an expensive hand-painted turtle figurine as a gift, but Natalie does not thank her.

During a staff meeting, Dawn publicly argues that Natalie's expensive client lunches are creating financial losses for Vixed.

Seth's wife Melinda arrives at the Vixed office and leaves a threatening note warning Natalie to stay away from Seth.

Dawn arrives at her work desk to find her plant overturned, glass turtles smashed, and her stuffed turtle cut open.

Dawn sends Seth an email formally reporting accounting discrepancies she has discovered in Natalie's sales figures.

Natalie confronts Kim and threatens to expose compromising photographs she secretly took at Kim's bachelorette party.

Natalie smashes the ceramic turtle into fragments and drives to Wollaston Beach to dump the pieces in the sea.

Caleb arrives at Dawn's motel room and warns that they must move because Natalie has traced the call.

DNA testing confirms that the dead woman found in the woods is not Dawn Schiff.

While Caleb sleeps, Dawn finds an engagement ring box hidden in his jacket pocket.

Caleb confesses to Natalie and Seth that he planted evidence to frame Natalie and that Dawn is alive but missing.

The unidentified dead woman from the woods is confirmed to be Tara Wilkes, Natalie's former high school friend.

Natalie and Dawn co-organize the annual 5K charity run together, appearing to be on genuinely friendly terms.

Dawn's emails chronicle her arrival at Vixed, her unsuccessful attempts to befriend Natalie, and a steady escalation of humiliations — from an unacknowledged gift to a vandalized desk and being turned away from a coworker's bridal shower. Running parallel to these past events, Natalie's present-day story reveals the ruthless side of her character, including threatening a colleague with blackmail and destroying the murder weapon at a local beach. Once Dawn is revealed to be alive in Part 2, the perspective shifts to show how she and Caleb plotted every detail of the frame-up and what it has cost them both emotionally. The evidence mounts against Natalie until key breakthroughs — a DNA result, a motel receipt, and Caleb's confession — begin to dismantle the conspiracy. The story closes with an apparent reconciliation as the two women co-organize the same charity run Dawn's revenge plan was designed to disrupt.

The office conflicts and hidden schemes behind Dawn's disappearance.

Natalie reports Dawn's absence to Seth, but he dismisses her concern and expects Dawn to appear for their meeting.

Natalie enters Dawn's unlocked home and finds an uncorked wine bottle, a broken glass, and signs of a struggle.

Caleb reluctantly agrees to lie to police and claim he spent the entire night at Natalie's house.

Detective Santoro reveals that Natalie's fingerprints were found on knives and a wine glass inside Dawn's house.

Natalie texts Seth and invites him over, sleeping with him and insisting the encounter is a one-off.

The turtle figurine Natalie threw in the garbage mysteriously reappears at the front of her work desk.

Dawn's final email to Mia reveals she confronted Natalie about missing funds and expects Natalie to visit her that night.

Dawn reveals she cut her own arm deeply enough to soak her living room carpet with blood before disappearing.

A flashback reveals that Natalie and Tara relentlessly bullied Mia Hodge in high school, driving her to take her own life.

Natalie's lawyer reveals that Dawn's blood and hair were found planted in the trunk of Natalie's car.

It is revealed that Caleb wrote all of Mia's reply emails in the months leading up to Dawn's disappearance.

Dawn concludes that she must drown herself to produce a body and guarantee Natalie's murder conviction.

Dawn raises the cinderblock above Natalie's head, but Natalie defends herself by spraying mace directly into Dawn's eyes.

Dawn tells police she was concussed and disoriented for days after a heavy ceramic turtle accidentally fell on her head.

Natalie privately reveals she has been skimming fun run proceeds and that Dawn knows about her embezzlement from Vixed.

From the moment Seth dismisses Natalie's concern about Dawn's absence, a series of decisions and revelations steadily tighten the trap closing around Natalie. She lies to police, sleeps with her boss, and destroys potential evidence, while incriminating items keep reappearing around her. The narrative's central revelation — that Dawn faked her own death, cut her own arm to stage the crime scene, and had Caleb write all of Mia's emails — forces a complete reassessment of everything the reader has accepted as truth. As Natalie sits in jail and Dawn hides in motels, both women confront the depth of what they have done and what they are still willing to do. Dawn ultimately decides to sacrifice herself to guarantee a conviction, setting up the final confrontation on the pier. The story ends not with justice but with a mutual, unspoken agreement between two dangerous women, each holding the other's most damning secret.