This Book Will Bury Me

Jane returns to the house, worried about Mistress. She clutches her father’s urn for comfort and decides that she must look for Mistress herself. She picks the lock on Mistress’s bedroom door and searches through her notes. She finds one in which Mistress appears to have been looking into Citizen. Curious about why her friend would seem so suspicious of one of their group, Jane tiptoes into Citizen’s room. He is still at the station, but she is wary of being caught in someone’s room again. Nevertheless, she knows his password and accesses his laptop. She finds a gruesome trove of crime-scene photos but also a shot of his kitchen, saved as his video-chat background. This was the view she saw each time they chatted online, and she now wonders whether he was actually in his kitchen—and, if not, why. Lightly returns and finds Jane. She shares her new information, and Lightly is also puzzled.

The police arrest Odell, and Citizen gives an interview to NPR. The internet starts to go wild: There is no online record of Odell existing prior to this year. There is an Owen Rhodes, who grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and has seemingly disappeared. Jane and Lightly are puzzled, wondering whether they have the wrong man and what Citizen is up to. They decide to look at Bridget’s senior yearbook but find that Mistress was there the day before and stole it.

Jane and Lightly instead consult Bridget’s junior yearbook. As they comb it for boys who might have been Bridget’s “creepy neighbor,” they are stunned to see Citizen’s picture. They were sure that he graduated from a Naval academy; moreover, they wonder why he never mentioned that he went to school with one of the victims. Jane panics, and Lightly tells her to breathe: They will retrace the steps of their investigation and get to the bottom of this mystery. They call Bridget’s friend, who confirms that Citizen was the neighbor who scared Bridget and likely killed her dog. Jane wonders if he might have killed Bridget because she was going to take that story to her parents and the police. Bridget’s friend says that she told the original detective about Citizen, but he ignored her.

Lightly and Jane visit the original detective on Bridget’s case. Lightly has been emailing him for weeks but has not gotten a response. When he mentions this, the detective is puzzled, explaining that he emailed back multiple times. Jane wonders if Citizen or Goku could have hacked their emails. Next, they ask the detective about Citizen and learn that he was apparently the prime suspect but had an airtight alibi. They are stunned that this information wasn’t in the file. However, the detective tells them that it was. They then realize that Citizen reviewed that file and lied to them about it.

Citizen’s alibi was his Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps coach. Citizen was a member of the organization and was at a meeting during the time of the killing. Lightly and Jane decide to visit the coach. When they explain that the person who killed Bridget likely committed other murders, he breaks down. He tells them that Citizen was his best student but that his father was abusive and Citizen needed a mentor. He felt certain that Citizen wasn’t a killer and provided a false alibi. They are stunned.

Jane’s phone then pings: It is Susan, Bridget’s friend, asking if Mistress confronted Citizen as she told Susan that she was about to do. Lightly and Jane rush back to the house in a panic, wondering if Citizen hurt Mistress and if he is the real serial killer.

There is a new twist in the Delphine murders story: Odell Rhodes is actually Owen Rhodes. He began using an assumed name to give himself a fresh start after a period marked by a battle with addiction and a serious mental health crisis. He also has an alibi for the night of the first murders: He was arrested for attempted rape.

Jane and Lightly listen to this news on the radio in stunned silence. Knowing that Citizen used a false background for their Signal chats, they wonder if he could have committed the Delphine murders, perhaps casting blame on Odell to direct attention away from himself. They also question whether Goku was also involved.

Lightly and Jane head to the Delphine Police Department. Outside, two groups of protesters shout at each other. The first group is pro-Odell and sees his charges as evidence of bias against people with mental health disorders. The other group cites his rape charges as evidence of his overall guilt and is against freeing him.

Once inside, Lightly and Jane ask to speak to Hale and Reingold. The two men are furious with them, but Lightly and Jane beg to share their new information. Jane tells them everything they’ve found out about Citizen and shares their suspicion that Goku was also involved in the murders. Hale and Reingold seem convinced and put out an all-points bulletin for Citizen and Goku, but they also tell Jane and Lightly that law enforcement must do its own research before filing charges. They also issue a warning: Goku and Citizen have reason to want Jane and Lightly dead, so they should be careful.

Lightly and Jane gather all the weapons in the house and go to sleep, with Lightly on the floor by Jane’s bed. In the morning, Goku returns alone and claims not to know what’s going on. As he stands with Jane and Lightly, the FBI bursts in and, seeing the cache of weapons, orders everyone on their knees with their hands up. They handcuff Jane and Lightly alongside Goku, although Hale arrives moments later, corrects the search team’s mistake, and frees them. Hale also orders Citizen’s DNA collected and shares a note with Jane and Lightly: It appears to be from Citizen and contains an address. Jane panics, sure that Citizen has Mistress.

The address turns out to be that of Stacie’s family. When they arrive, Stacie’s family members learn Jane’s real identity and are furious, none more so than Stacie’s sister, who opened up to Jane while she was disguised as Veronica. The officers tell the family that they believe Stacie’s killer is on their property and ask if there is a secluded spot where he might have left a body. Natalie directs them to the grain silo, where they find Mistress alive. Citizen is indeed Bridget’s killer, and he kidnapped Mistress when she accused him of the crime, leaving her in the silo. She does not know where he went.

Lightly, Jane, Mistress, and Goku are in an FBI safehouse. The FBI has questioned and released Goku. Initially, the group remains suspicious of him, but the atmosphere soon thaws: Citizen duped them all. He is currently on the run as the most wanted man in America.

A popular true-crime television show, Nina Grace, has broken the Citizen story. The coverage is sensationalistic, and the show maligns the FBI and the Delphine police for bungling the investigation.

The group discusses the details of the case: Jane is still sure that Lizzie committed the first three murders and that Citizen used them as cover for his own copycat killing, but no one else is sure on that point. They also discuss Citizen, realizing that he was not really hiding in plain sight. They just chose to ignore the warning signs: He had the kind of history of childhood abuse that serial killers often do. He was also cold and calculating, obsessed with serial killing and his need to win, and loved control. As they muse over their collective refusal to see Citizen’s true nature, the door opens: The FBI has brought Lizzie to the safe house. Citizen implicated her in the first three killings, and the FBI believes that he has a personal vendetta against her.

Lizzie smiles coldly at Jane and greets her as Veronica. She asks her why someone told a serial killer that he could implicate her in his crimes. Jane is terrified, but the rest of the group stands up and forms a wall between her and Lizzie.

Months later, back in Florida, Jane receives a letter from Citizen. He assures her that he did not commit the first three murders and that he is sure that Lizzie did. He notes that he cannot confirm his involvement in any other murders but that he has some speculations: He bets that Bridget’s murder was an accident. Her dog’s death was also likely an accident, and the “rough play” that precipitated both killings had just gotten out of hand. He wonders if Jane can sympathize with a young man who was abused and didn’t want his life ruined over two mistakes. He also speculates that the second Delphine killings were the work of someone who wanted to keep his group, the only real family he’d ever known, together. Sleuthing kept them cohesive, but they needed a more complex case.

He explains that he wants to convince the FBI that Lizzie committed the first three killings and asks for Jane’s help. He tells her to send her information about Lizzie to the address he includes in the letter. He adds that his feelings for Jane were real and that he wasn’t even mad when she found the eyelash. She was, he feels, the only person capable of truly seeing him. Jane finishes the letter, crushed. She believes every word he said. She writes down one line and mails it back to him.

Jane and her mother take her father’s ashes to Italy, where he and her mother met. Jane realizes now that there is an entire, complex, unknowable web of reasons why her father died. She will never “solve” the mystery. Likewise, her father was a complicated, multi-faceted individual, and she will never truly know every aspect of his personality. She’s at peace with that truth and feels ready to move on.

There is one final development in the case: Citizen and Lizzie murder each other as well as an FBI agent (Lizzie dealt the fatal blow) in a safe house. The public goes wild, and speculation rages through the true-crime community, especially on the Real Crime Network.

The uproar lasts for an entire year after the murders, especially when Natalie publishes a tell-all book that Jane knows is mostly lies: It accuses her as well as her entire group of having known about Citizen’s crimes. Jane is telling her own story to set the record straight. She has one last piece of information to share: The one sentence that she sent to Citizen was the FBI safe house’s address. She knew that Lizzie and Citizen were both cold-blooded serial killers who could strike again at any time. She unleashed them on each other, knowing what the outcome would be. She is proud of this decision and feels that it is what her father would have encouraged her to do.