Krista meets with Elijah Myers, the man who confronted Blake at the food stand. She met him in high school when Elijah helped her create her new identity and disappear after the incident with Jordan.

Krista asks Elijah if someone may be using her old name. He admits that it is, as she is still listed as a missing person. He also scrubbed the internet of all traces of her, meaning that someone could want the name because it would come with a clean record. Elijah promises to look into it for her.

At one o’clock in the morning, Blake comes home from work. Krista always waits up for him with cookies. However, this time, he seems disheveled, with his shirt buttoned wrong. He is dismissive, going immediately to bed.

Later that night, Krista checks his phone and finds messages from Stacie. She is overwhelmed with anger and considers what would happen if she dumped boiling water on Blake’s face. However, she realizes that she would likely go to jail, and the police would link her back to the name Whitney Cross, so she decides against it.

The rest of the night, Krista is unable to sleep, thinking about Blake and Stacie. She remembers when Blake asked about her parents, and she told him that her mother was still alive. She then hired a woman named Wanda to pretend to be her mother. Even though Wanda was pretending, the protective and loving way she acted toward Krista in Blake’s presence made her long for her own mother.

Krista goes to the closet and pulls a box from the back. Inside are letters that she’s written to her mother over the years. In one, she writes, “You and Daddy were wrong about me. All I needed was the right man to make me happy,” insisting that she is a “good person” (263). Now, she writes a new letter, telling her mother that she won’t let Blake get away with cheating on her.

Krista steals Blake’s flash drive with client notes on it. She plans to sell all the data to his competitors and then keep the money. She also intends to give him back his engagement ring and break up with him.

When she meets with Elijah, he explains that the server, whose real name is Amanda Lenhart, stole Krista’s identity. Hearing this, Krista is overwhelmed with rage. She decides that she is going to punish both Blake and Whitney.

Over the next few months, Krista notes how quickly Blake’s life is falling apart. She watches with amusement while she lives off the money from selling the data.

After Krista suggests they get a tenant, she has Whitney evicted from her apartment with Elijah’s help. Then she posts the advertisement for the room at Whitney’s place of work.

Krista hires several actors to pose at people interested in the apartment, causing Blake to hate them all so that he will like Whitney even more. She then comes across Quillizabeth and asks her to come do a reading of their home as they look for a tenant.

After Blake meets Quillizabeth and asks her to leave, Krista is shocked when Quillizabeth pulls her aside. She insists that Krista isn’t safe and that she needs to get out of the house. Although Krista dismisses her, she is troubled by the conversation. However, she decides that Quillizabeth must have interpreted the vision wrong; Krista will be the one who kills Blake.

Krista sees Blake and Whitney—who she now refers to as “Amanda” in her mind—sitting on the couch late at night and then flirting in the kitchen over Frosted Flakes. She decides to empty Blake’s cereal in the garbage, dump out his shampoo and body wash, and put a different soap in his laundry detergent. She then plants apples in the upper cupboard, knowing that he will blame all of it on Amanda.

A few days later, Krista hears Amanda come home from work and she goes downstairs to talk with her. Amanda is crying and tells Krista that Blake came to work and yelled at her about the Frosted Flakes. Krista consoles her, insisting that Blake is just on edge. She suggests that Amanda give him some space.

Krista and Blake go out to eat. She has been playing “thumping” sounds on her phone—hidden in the closet—which has made him think that Amanda is making the noises. She has also started leaving notes for Amanda, passive-aggressively scolding her for doing things and signing them with Blake’s name.

Blake suggests selling their brownstone. Krista decides that she can’t let Blake sell the brownstone yet and points out that they have already spent Amanda’s deposit and would need to pay her back.

As they are talking, Krista sees Elijah come into the restaurant. She goes to the bathroom and calls him. He admits to following her, as he has been worried about her. He is afraid that Blake will become violent if Krista continues to mess with him. Krista feels guilty—she is mean to Elijah, even though he is just trying to protect her. However, she also realizes that he has become a “liability” that she will have to deal with.

Becky comes to Krista’s house, and they talk about what’s going on with Blake. She hints that he is becoming dangerous, prompting Becky to offer her a place to stay. However, their conversation is interrupted by Amanda, who is upstairs, yelling.

When Krista gets to Amanda’s room, she sees rotted fruit and maggots all over her bed. She becomes concerned, wondering if Blake is more “unpredictable” than she originally thought. Amanda tells Krista that she is trying to move out, which makes Krista realize she has to move faster to carry out her plan.

Krista decides that she needs to know why Amanda changed her identity. She tells Amanda that she knows her identification is fake, promising her that she won’t tell anyone. Amanda confesses that she borrowed a lot of money from a loan shark to pay for her mother’s cancer treatment. After her mother died, Amanda had no way to pay back the money. She went into hiding so that the people she owed money to wouldn’t kill her.

Krista is annoyed by Amanda’s story because she didn’t do anything bad like Krista had hoped. However, she is still angry that Amanda stole her identity. She tells Amanda that she is planning on leaving Blake and assures her that they can find somewhere to live together soon.

After Krista helps Amanda clean up her room, she stops by Goldy’s bowl. Goldy was supposed to be their first pet, then they were going to work up to bigger animals and, eventually, a baby. However, now that her future with Blake is ruined, she decides to kill Goldy.

A few weeks later, Krista pretends to find the bleach in the closet and tells Blake that she is leaving him. As she goes to leave, he stands in her way. For a split second, she thinks that she may have underestimated him and that he might hurt her, but he steps out of the way.

As the taxi pulls away, Krista watches Blake start to fight with their neighbor. She thinks of how she caused it by pulling the garbage cans back out multiple times after Blake put them away.

Krista watches Stacie for several days, learning her schedule. She has already killed Mr. Zimmerly, using the clock that has Blake’s fingerprints on it. She goes to Stacie’s house, pretending to be her Uber, and offers Stacie water that she has laced with sedatives.

As they drive, Krista asks Stacie about her love life. She confesses that she liked a guy at work, but they only hooked up once because he was engaged. With that confirmation, Krista is now certain that Blake cheated on her with Stacie.

After Stacie falls asleep, Krista continues to the woods near where she grew up in Telmont. She plans to have “some fun” with Stacie before taking a “souvenir” for Blake (301).

When Krista returns from killing Stacie and dumping the blood on the floor of the brownstone, she goes to see Elijah. Elijah gives her a new identity, though Krista hopes that she won’t have to use it. He also gives her tetrodotoxin, which will kill Blake slowly after he ingests it.

Before Krista can leave, Elijah stops her and tells her that she doesn’t need to kill Blake. He confesses his love for her, which does not surprise Krista. Briefly, she wishes that she could love Elijah, as it would make everything “easier.” Elijah then leans in and kisses her. In response, Krista asks him to go into the bedroom.

An hour later, Krista cleans up Elijah’s apartment, ensuring that there is no trace of her left behind. She had sex with Elijah and then killed him. She tells herself that she is “good” for giving Elijah what he wanted before ending his life.

Krista plans to meet Amanda after she gets out of work. She goes to the brownstone, expecting to find Blake dead—the cookies should cause respiratory failure over the next several hours. However, Blake is not in the house. She checks her phone and sees a text message and a missed call from him. She listens to the voicemail, contemplating how to still make her plan work.