Carrie receives an email from Sima Barak in the Legal and Compliance department of her hospital trust in London, summoning her to a mandatory video conference regarding her “traveling companion[‘s]” arrest. Carrie’s mother warns her that her career is at stake and instructs her to insist that she and Johan were not legally married. At the prison, they meet Johan’s parents, Fredrik and Kerstin, and his brother, Lucas. The families discover that none of them are the source of the mysterious money Johan has been receiving.

Lucas informs Carrie that Johan was arrested for smuggling methamphetamine, known as yaba, from Myanmar. He explains the historical context: The drug sparked the Thai government’s 2003 war on drugs, in which thousands were killed without judicial process, conveying how gravely the authorities treat the offense. He says Johan confessed to doing it knowingly and was not an unwilling drug mule. When Carrie and Lucas visit Johan, he appears physically better and apologizes for his previous harshness. He confirms he transported the drugs but claims the situation is complex, telling her, “I made some poor decisions. Very poor. In doing so I’ve ruined my life, and my family’s lives. But I can’t bear to ruin yours, too” (197). He urges Carrie to return to London to save her job. He reveals that a “friend” leaning on a judge—whom he only subsequently learns is actually Carrie’s mother’s contacts via Prawat—has secured him a better lawyer and a faster trial, but he warns this has put him in greater danger. He explains that he is receiving protection from a powerful group and that outside interference could harm him.

During the video meeting with her hospital, Carrie learns they were informed of her situation by a non-hostile, anonymous email. Her mother dominates the conversation, promising the hospital officials that Carrie will return to London immediately. Later, her mother tells Carrie that Prawat has stopped his investigation after being threatened. Admitting she is also out of her depth, she insists Carrie must fly home.

At their final prison visit, Johan has a black eye, a split lip, and nasty cuts near his hairline—injuries he calls a “warning shot” because Prawat continued to investigate after Johan had already warned Carrie to stop him. Enraged and desperate, Carrie yells at him, demanding the truth. In response, Johan coldly ends their relationship, stating it was fun but is now over. He says he has more important things to deal with and will refuse to see her if she comes again. He then gets up and walks away, leaving Carrie devastated.

Back in London, Carrie’s sister Maya arrives to support her, leading to friction with her mother over how best to help. After several meetings, Carrie’s hospital trust is satisfied she had no knowledge of Johan’s activities and allows her to keep her job. She immerses herself in her work. Shortly before Christmas, Johan’s family abruptly empties the flat, and Lucas informs Carrie that Johan wanted her to leave.



Carrie accepts an offer from her mother to live in her London flat, as her mother is moving to Brighton. Her mother tearfully apologizes for having failed Carrie in Thailand. Two days before Christmas, Prawat calls with destructive news: Johan’s trial was rushed, he was found guilty, and he has been sentenced to 25 years in the notorious Bang Kwang Prison. Prawat adds that he confirmed Johan had been working for a major crime syndicate for some time and had a girlfriend within the organization—information he says came from multiple sources, with the girlfriend believed to be in Myanmar or Thailand. As Carrie processes this, her beeper goes off, calling her back to work. She resolves to become a “lone wolf,” emotionally detached and invulnerable.

The narrative jumps to the present day in Stockholm. Carrie, attending a conference for Roof rental hosts, unexpectedly sees Johan in the hotel bar. She checked the attendee list for his name before booking, but he registered at the last minute. They sit together, and she sees he has lost a finger in prison. Carrie confronts him for abandoning her and for never making contact after his release, as she recently learned online that he received a royal pardon.

Johan is stunned, insisting he thought she knew the truth of what had happened. He vehemently denies he was a drug dealer or ever had another girlfriend, explaining those stories were deliberately planted to deter her from returning to Thailand, though he adds he never believed the girlfriend story would actually reach her. He acknowledges he did carry pills but insists he was not a drug dealer. He also reveals the syndicate tipped off her hospital trust, wanting Carrie and her mother out of the country as quickly as possible. While he maintains he was not part of the syndicate, he says he still cannot reveal the full story. He tells Carrie, “You and me were real,” explaining that their relationship was “the one thing I held on to” during his imprisonment (255). When she mentions her father now has Alzheimer’s, Johan asks if he remembers the details of the events in Thailand. As they part ways, Johan notes it is the 13th anniversary of their first meeting, kisses her cheek, and confesses he thought of her every day.

Shaken by her encounter with Johan, Carrie immediately changes her flight and returns to her home in England, arriving at two o’clock. Before going to her children, she showers in the separate Pig Shed guest property, wanting to remove the energy of her encounter with Johan. She feels a deep need to reconnect with her life with her husband, Robin, and their two young children, Raffy and Maeve. Seeing her family, she feels grounded and secure. She reflects that her relationship with Robin is built on stability, unlike the “explosions and fireworks” she experienced with Johan (232). As she settles back in, she is consumed by guilt for not having told Robin that she had discovered Johan was free.

While visiting her father, Carrie goes through his old diaries and phone bills and finds an unexplained call to a Thai number on the night Johan arrived in Bangkok. The nearly hour-long call occurred around 90 minutes after Johan landed, precisely while Carrie was waiting for him in Soi Rambuttri. Carrie later calls the number and discovers that it is the direct line to a room at the River Paradise Lodge, the Bangkok hotel where she and Johan stayed. She begins to wonder whether her father was the person Johan expected to have told her the truth about Thailand.

Six weeks later, Carrie is back in Stockholm for a two-week surgical placement with her mentor, Yanika Hatziz. On her first day, a patient dies during emergency surgery. The experience is intense, but it solidifies her sense that she belongs back in her profession. Her sister Maya, who is visiting, worries Carrie by producing alcohol. Maya had given up drinking while trying for a baby and had not resumed, given Maya’s history of drinking to blackout in her younger years.

That evening, while browsing Johan’s rental cabin listing on Carrie’s phone, Maya accidentally sends a booking request. Johan immediately calls through the app. After he recognizes Maya’s voice, Carrie is forced to speak with him and explain she is in the city for work. She confronts him about why he asked about her father’s memory and mentions finding a record of a phone call from her father to their Bangkok hotel on the night Johan arrived. Johan explains the call was innocent: He had phoned her father to ask for permission to propose, and her father had called him back on the hotel landline to save him the expense. He insists, “My proposal was not a moment of madness on a boat. I was very serious about it. About you. Us” (255).

Later that night, Carrie messages Johan on the Roof app, confirming that their relationship felt very real to her as well. The following day is long and difficult at the hospital, and she learns from home that her father has viral pneumonia caused by an adenovirus—untreatable—though he is expected to recover. She sees a notification that Johan has replied to her message. In the app, he writes that he is sorry she was never told the truth.

After a brief exchange, he offers her the use of his empty summer house for the weekend to rest. Carrie politely declines, closes the conversation, and wishes him a happy life. Moments later, a new message notification appears on her screen: “I miss you tonight.” By the time she opens the app, he has already deleted it, but she has seen the words.

The deleted message, “I miss you tonight,” keeps Carrie awake all night (261). She cycles through anger and confusion, drafting and deleting multiple replies. The thought of what he wrote unsettles the closure she had tried to impose. At 5:15 am, she gives in to her unresolved feelings. She opens the Roof app and sends Johan a message accepting his offer to stay at his summer house for the weekend, just before her own family is due to arrive for a visit. He reads her message instantly.

The next morning, Maya leaves for home, warning Carrie to be careful and not to trust Johan. As Carrie drives to the peninsula where the summer house is located, she speaks with her husband, Robin, who expresses his concern about the stress she is under. When she arrives at the property, she is shocked to find Johan’s mother, Kerstin, just leaving.

Kerstin recognizes Carrie and is immediately hostile, ordering her to stay away from Johan and his partner, Freja. When Carrie confronts her about the family’s coldness toward her years ago in Thailand, Kerstin retorts that Carrie should not play the “innocent victim.” She then drops a bombshell: She claims the entire ordeal was the fault of Carrie’s mother. Kerstin alleges that Johan was smuggling the drugs into Thailand for Carrie’s mother, and that her mother’s frantic efforts to help him were driven by a “very bad conscience” (270). Stunned into silence, Carrie can only watch as Kerstin drives away.