The Lola Quartet

The novel opens with two parallel scenes set a decade apart. In a small Virginia town, 17-year-old Anna Montgomery lives in a basement with her infant daughter, Chloe. A plastic bag duct-taped beneath Chloe's stroller holds nearly $118,000 in stolen cash. At a music school in South Carolina, a pianist named Jack plays through the night on painkillers while his roommate, Liam Deval, has driven to Virginia to rescue the girl Jack inadvertently endangered. Deval arrives and tells Anna they must flee: The man she stole from may know where she is.

Ten years later, Gavin Sasaki, a reporter at the New York Star, travels to his hometown of Sebastiana, Florida, to cover invasive wildlife. Gavin aspires to investigative journalism but is stuck at a declining newspaper amid layoffs. His fiancée, Karen, has recently left him after a second-trimester miscarriage. On his last night, his sister Eilo, a broker who sells foreclosed homes, shows him a photograph of a 10-year-old named Chloe Montgomery. Gavin recognizes the surname: Anna Montgomery was his high school girlfriend, who vanished without explanation a decade earlier.

Back in New York, Gavin unravels. He submits a story with an invented name after losing an interviewee's information, then fabricates quotes and sources for subsequent articles. His editor, Julie, discovers the fabrications and fires him. He returns to an apartment where a mushroom may be growing on the ceiling, his electricity has been cut off, and he has been evicted. Eilo offers him a job and a place to stay, and Gavin flies to Florida with only a carry-on bag.

The novel shifts to Daniel Smith, formerly the bass player in the Lola Quartet, a jazz ensemble from their high school days, now a detective on the Sebastiana police force. Daniel flies to Salt Lake City to negotiate with Paul, a meth dealer from whom Anna stole $121,000. He offers to repay the debt with an expected inheritance, but Paul demands interest and insists that Chloe be present in Florida as insurance. Daniel realizes too late that Paul had stopped looking for Anna years ago; by raising the subject, Daniel has brought her back to Paul's attention. On the flight home, burdened by alimony and child support for four children from two marriages, he fears what Paul might do to his own family if the money falls short.

In Florida, Gavin learns the foreclosure business, negotiating cash-for-keys deals in which displaced homeowners receive payments to vacate properties quickly. At the police station, Daniel dismisses Gavin's inquiries about Chloe, citing his history of inventing people: "Your clothes are all wet" (82). Gavin tracks down Jack Baranovsky, his closest friend from the quartet, and finds him addicted to pills, living in a tent behind a rundown house. A neglected runaway of about 13 named Grace, staying at the house where Jack is camping, answers the front door. Jack confirms he has met Chloe but falls asleep before saying more. Gavin finds Taylor, the vocalist who sometimes sang with the quartet, who reveals that at the quartet's last concert she saw Anna leaving with Daniel and shares rumors that Anna may have been pregnant. Daniel reluctantly confirms the child exists but warns Gavin not to get involved.

Part Two shifts to Jack's time at Holloway College, where Deval is his roommate. During winter break, Daniel makes bitter comments about Gavin abandoning his pregnant girlfriend. After the break, Anna arrives at the dorm with three-week-old Chloe en route to Virginia. Deval drives her there; weeks later, a postcard from Detroit says he is not returning. Paul then confronts Jack on campus, threatening Jack's younger sister. Terrified, Jack reveals Anna's location: Carrollsburg, Virginia. He drops out and returns to Florida. Nearly a year later, he encounters Deval performing at a local club. Deval tells him he reached Virginia just in time.

Anna's perspective traces her flight from Utah. After stealing Paul's money, she flees by bus, warned by Daniel not to return to Florida. Deval drives her from South Carolina to Virginia, then to Detroit, where he studies gypsy guitar. Anna stays indoors, terrified, redyeing her hair as a disguise. They move to Brighton Beach in Brooklyn, where Deval uses the stolen money to fund his musical career. Eventually they separate, and Anna returns to Florida with Chloe and the remaining $11,000, which she uses to pay off the gambling debts of her half-sister, Sasha.

Gavin bribes a motel clerk and finds Deval registered as "D. Reinhardt." Suffering heatstroke outside the room, Gavin lurches through the door. Deval, believing Gavin threatens Anna, shoots him in the left arm. In the hospital, Daniel tells the full story: Anna was pregnant at 16 and told Daniel the baby was his. He drove her to Utah, where they stayed with his friend Paul, a former construction worker turned drug dealer. When Chloe was born visibly white, Daniel realized the child was not his. Anna stole the money and fled. Daniel instructs Gavin to file a false police report and directs him to Sasha at the Starlight Diner.

Part Three opens with Sasha's perspective. Her gambling addiction forced her out of college until Anna appeared with Chloe and $11,000 to erase her debts. When Anna called in a panic about someone photographing Chloe, Sasha relayed the information to Daniel, who said he would go to Utah to negotiate repayment. A flashback reveals the theft's origins: Anna took the money after overhearing Daniel tell Paul, "I could kill her" (255). Paul pressured Daniel to name Anna's associates, but Daniel misdirected Paul toward Florida and warned Anna to flee elsewhere.

The transaction unfolds at the Starlight Diner. Daniel's plan places Grace in a frilly dress by the window as a decoy for Chloe. Paul will count the repayment money in the parking lot, confident the amount is correct because the girl he believes is Chloe is nearby, serving as collateral. As Sasha walks Grace toward the back of the restaurant, she glances outside and sees a man's pale face and what appears to be a sudden falling motion.

The local paper reports Paul was found shot behind the diner. Gavin understands Deval killed him; there was never any inheritance money. Deval appears at Gavin's apartment in the early morning, hands scrubbed raw, to say he took care of a problem. He gives Gavin the address of Anna's motel.

Sasha, unable to go to the police without destroying Anna and Chloe's lives, asks William Chandler, her park-ranger friend and informal Gamblers Anonymous sponsor, to accompany her to a casino. She wins over $6,000 and decides to leave for Alaska. Daniel warns her that going to the police would turn Chloe into another Grace, a child adrift in the system.

Gavin visits the motel and meets Chloe for the first time. Inside, Anna defends the killing: They had no money, Paul threatened their families, and she could not go into hiding again. Gavin tells her it was "the worst thing anyone I know has ever done" (267) and leaves, frightened by the conviction in her eyes.

Gavin urges Sasha to leave town and drives north. He pulls into a police station parking lot intending to report the murder, but when an officer approaches, Gavin asks only for directions to the interstate. He cannot accept the consequences for Chloe, who would lose her mother and likely enter foster care. He drives toward Chicago, composing a letter he will write but never send, telling Chloe he loves her and will always wonder who she is. The suburbs stretch endlessly behind him as he heads north toward morning.