On her way home, Alice notices a green sedan following her. She drives around a block to see if the car will continue tailing her, and it does. When she stops at a light, she can see that the driver looks like Grant. As soon as the driver knows that Alice has seen him, he veers off and disappears into traffic.

Shaken, Alice decides to drive to the cemetery where Grant is interred. She finds the cemetery very pretty, but when she was asked whether she wanted to buy a plot for herself adjacent to Grant’s, she declined. She feels as if someone is watching her as she walks to Grant’s elaborate headstone. Alice carefully examines the plot to be sure that it has not been disturbed in any way. She wonders if it is possible that they buried an empty coffin, but she does not believe the funeral home employees would be involved in this kind of coverup. She fights the wild urge to get the shovel she keeps in her trunk and start digging. She tells herself that she is just being paranoid: Clearly, Grant is dead and cannot be following her around town. She is pleased by her certainty that Grant is dead, because, she explains, she is the one who killed him.

Alice recalls how, for a long while, her relationship with Grant seemed perfect. She found him handsome and witty, and she appreciated the life of comfort and security his wealth offered. Grant seemed to genuinely be in love with her, as well, and their physical relationship was passionate. When he proposed eight months after their first date, she was delighted. They married six months later, and for a time, Alice was happier than she had ever been in her life. Then she discovered that Grant was “a monster” (56).

Alice remembers the day that everything changed in her marriage. Grant showed her a picture of a dress on his laptop; people online were arguing about whether the dress was blue and black or gold and white. He asked her what color she believed the dress to be and she answered gold and white. This enraged him, and he verbally abused her, insulting her intelligence and insisting that she say the dress was blue and black. When she stuck to her own perspective, he threw his laptop down, shattering its screen, and stormed out of the house.

Two days later, Grant finally returned. He brought her flowers and a gift-wrapped box. Alice’s relief turned to horror when she opened the box to see a blue-and-black dress. Grant demanded that she acknowledge the color was blue and black; when she admitted as much but countered that the picture online looked white and gold, he began yelling at her again and pulled up the photo on his phone. He demanded over and over that she say the online picture was also blue and black. Finally, he told her to put on her new blue-and-black dress—if she refused, he said, he would use his money and influence to have her committed to a mental health facility. She ran upstairs and locked herself in their bedroom. Grant pounded on the door, but she refused to let him in.

Their marriage was never the same again. Grant replaced all of her clothes with blue-and-black dresses. Her next birthday cake was blue and black. Grant wanted Alice to have a baby, and he gave her a blue-and-black infant’s onesie. Alice had no intention of ever having a child with Grant, now, so she “took precautions to keep from getting pregnant” (62). She realized that Grant was a real danger to her—she knew he would never let her go, and she was even afraid he might kill her. She decided that she would solve the problem by killing Grant.

Alice recounts how, feeling uncertain of her capabilities as a killer, she decided to combine methods in order to make sure Grant died. She put poison in his food, left a banana peel on a step, and cut the brakes on his Mercedes. After the car accident that ended Grant’s life, Alice felt incredulous as she looked at his body in the morgue—she had trouble processing the idea that she had really been successful in killing her husband.

As soon as she got home, she threw away all of the blue-and-black dresses except for one. This one she kept as a reminder of what she had done, and why. She buried Grant in a white-and-gold casket.

When Alice gets home from Marnie’s, Poppy is waiting, Alice is relieved to see that she is not carrying another casserole. Alice tells Poppy about her visit to Marnie’s. Poppy offers to make her some tea, which Alice refuses. Poppy is skeptical about the idea of sharing Grant’s estate with Marnie’s children; she finds it hard to believe that someone as wonderful as Grant might have had a secret family.

Alice finally confesses to Poppy that Grant was not all he seemed to be from the outside. She tells Poppy about the dress, and Poppy weeps as Alice describes Grant replacing all of her clothing with blue-and-black dresses. When Poppy asks why Alice did not tell her about this when it was happening, Alice explains that she was worried that Poppy might also think that the original dress was blue and black. Poppy loyally assures her that it was white and gold.

When Poppy suggests that they steady themselves with a drink, Alice finally tells Poppy that she is pregnant. She complains about getting pregnant despite having installed LED lights in her closets, and Poppy is confused until she realizes that Alice has mixed up “LED” and “IUD.” Poppy explains the difference and then heads home. Alice takes a shower. Just as she is stepping out afterwards and wrapping up in a towel, she hears the doorbell ring. Peeking through a window, she sees that it is the police.

The officer at the door is Detective Mancini, who is in charge of Grant’s case. He is an older man in a trench coat who greets Alice cordially, tipping an imaginary hat to her. She offers him tea and casserole, but he refuses both. Mancini tells Alice that he has received an anonymous tip that Grant’s car accident was deliberately caused. He explains that the police did not follow protocol following the accident: Grant’s car was not checked out before being scrapped, and so it is now impossible to collect any evidence from it.

When Mancini asks whether Grant had any enemies, Alice volunteers that Grant never trusted Willie, their housekeeper. She is pleased when Mancini’s response makes it clear that the police are aware of Willie’s prison record, because she hired Willie with the sole purpose of making sure that there would be someone suspicious in the household if the police had questions about Grant’s death. The detective agrees that Willie’s background indicates that he is a terrible person, and Alice expresses shock that anyone would be villainous enough to have “over thirty overdue library books” (72). She says that Willie is “a monster” (72).

Unfortunately for Alice, it turns out that Willie has an alibi for the time of Grant’s death: He was engaged in a Quidditch match in Vermont all day. She is relieved when Mancini seems ready to leave without further questions, but he pauses at the door to ask one final question. He takes out a photo that shows the inside of Grant’s wrecked car. He asks what color the dress in the picture is. She says that it is white and gold, and he expresses surprise, saying that he was sure the dress was blue and black.

Looking for a painkiller to ease the headache she has developed, Alice opens one of Grant’s prescription bottles. Inside are not pills but a key. She thinks of the attic room. Now that Grant is dead, there is nothing preventing her from investigating the mysterious room. Using her phone’s light because the overhead lighting has burned out, she heads up the steep, rickety stairs to the attic. She moves cautiously, holding the loose banister carefully because she is aware that, should she fall, no one would be around to help her. She can hear thumping noises coming from above, but they stop as she finally reaches the attic door. Terrified about what she will see when she opens the door, she puts the key into the lock.

Beyond the attic door, Alice finds the source of the mysterious noises: a cat riding a Roomba. The cat, surprised by her entrance, takes off through an open window. There is nothing else in the attic aside from some boxes and a few items of furniture. On a rocking chair, Alice finds a notebook that she thinks is Grant’s diary. She resolves to read a few pages each day, so that she will eventually discover the truth about who is following her.