Keep It in the Family

The narrative shifts to Debbie’s perspective in the present as she navigates the aftermath of Dave’s suicide. Dave’s presumed identity as a serial murderer of children has thrust the Hunter family into the national spotlight. Debbie finds the attention excruciating. Because the British public reviles Dave, Debbie feels unable to mourn him. She has been shunned by her neighbors and friends, and her attempts to express disbelief have been rebuffed. Isolated, Debbie confines herself to the home she once shared with Dave and grieves alone. As she reflects on their past together, she admits that Dave was the only person who truly knew and accepted her. He knew that she was a serial killer and was powerless to stop murdering children. He also knew that, as a child, she was used as bait to lure in victims for her parents. He never judged her for her childhood or her murderous compulsions. Instead, he loved and supported her. He also encouraged her to reconnect with her grandparents and tell them about the horrors she escaped.

As she reflects on her childhood, Debbie reveals that after the incident with Precious and fleeing her parents’ home, she lived with her grandparents until the age of 16. After her grandparents learned the truth about Debbie’s childhood, her grandfather gathered a group of his friends. Together, they murdered Debbie’s parents and cremated their bodies. Then, when Debbie was 16, they gave consent for her to marry Dave. Debbie reflects on the support and stability that her grandparents offered her and wonders why it wasn’t enough to stop her from following in her parents’ footsteps. Her rumination is interrupted by a knock at the door. Debbie muses, “These clandestine visits are all I have to look forward to” (268). Her visitor remains unidentified.

The narrative returns to Mia’s perspective as she considers the implications of Mark’s new theory. Searching for clues, she scrolls through the pictures she took of the shed, focusing on the evidence that directly links Dave and Debbie to the house. By mistake, she scrolls up too far and clicks on the video she recorded the day she climbed into the attic. In the aftermath of her fall and the discovery of the bodies, she never watched the video that she took that day. Now, as she reviews the footage, Mia realizes that she didn’t fall from the attic. Debbie pushed her.

The narrative maintains Mia’s point of view as she meets with Finn to share her discovery. She shows him the video, pointing out the moment when Debbie clearly shakes the ladder, but as usual, Finn refuses to listen to her. He accuses Mia of holding a grudge against his mother and argues that Debbie must have stumbled instead. Mia then produces her second piece of evidence: a DNA test that she secretly asked Mark to conduct on a hunch.

This chapter returns to Finn’s perspective as he is confronted with the results of Mia’s illicit DNA test. Finn is outraged, but he cannot ignore the results; Finn is not related to Dave and Debbie at all. He is not their biological son. Mia admits that she and Mark suspected this when they stumbled upon the case of two siblings who were presumed to be Dave’s victims. A five-year-old girl and her infant brother were both kidnapped, but only the girl’s body was found in the attic. Mia and Mark have begun to suspect that instead of killing the baby boy, Dave and Debbie adopted him and raised him as their son. As Finn struggles to process this discovery, Mia insists that this is proof of something more sinister—something that didn’t end with Dave’s death. She points out the holes in Dave’s story, highlighting the more implausible aspects of the theory that he was the killer. However, when Mia hints that Debbie might really be the killer, Finn storms away and yells at her to leave him alone.

The narrative returns to Debbie’s perspective as she secretly follows Finn. Unbeknownst to Finn and Mia, she has followed them to their meeting, and she watches as Mia shares the DNA results. Although Debbie cannot hear their conversation, she assumes that Finn and Mia are rekindling their romance. Debbie still believes that Mia murdered Dave, and she is convinced that Mia is still neglecting Sonny. Unable to cope with the idea of Finn and Mia reconnecting, Debbie makes a secret emergency phone call, implying that the person on the other end of the line will solve her problem with Mia.

Mia spends time with her parents and Sonny as she attempts to heal from the ongoing trauma of the reopened investigation. She is experiencing new struggles with her PTSD, but she is determined to engage in therapy and put in the necessary work for her recovery. She is also benefiting from the newfound support of her parents. As Mia and her parents cook a Sunday lunch together, Finn visits to share a pressing discovery with Mia.

The results of his DNA test have forced Finn to acknowledge the validity of Mia’s theories, and he has been conducting his own investigation by digging through Dave and Debbie’s records. Standing on her doorstep, Finn presents Mia with documents indicating that Debbie, not Dave, is the killer. As Finn and Mia grapple with the implications of this new evidence, Mia’s mother asks them why they let Debbie take Sonny for an afternoon walk. Finn and Mia are paralyzed with horror when they realize that neither of them arranged this; Debbie has kidnapped Sonny.

The narrative shifts to Debbie’s perspective as she wheels Sonny’s stroller through a cemetery. Debbie reflects on how much she loves Sonny and admits that she is sorry that she will have to “save” him. In some subconscious corner of her mind, Debbie senses that Finn and Mia are unraveling her lies and that she will soon be cut out of Sonny’s life. Alone in the cemetery with her grandson, Debbie opens a small suitcase.

This chapter describes Finn and Mia’s panicked journey to find Sonny before Debbie can hurt him. On a sudden impulse, Finn suggests that Debbie might have taken Sonny to the same cemetery that she often visited with Finn when he was a baby. They arrive at the cemetery within minutes and find Debbie alone with an empty stroller. Sonny is nowhere in sight. Together, Finn and Mia confront her with the truth, and Debbie has a panic attack.

The narrative shifts to Debbie’s point of view as she confesses. She admits that Finn is the baby who was kidnapped; she killed his older sister and stole Finn to raise as her own. Sobbing, Debbie confides that she and Dave had a baby together, but the baby died in his sleep; they were reeling from the loss when Debbie saw a mother with two young children neglecting her baby boy. Although Dave was horrified that she kidnapped a baby, Debbie bullied him into supporting her, just as she forced him to support her years of murder. Now, she confesses that Dave knew exactly what she did and helped her to hide the bodies. When he lied to Finn and Mia and died by suicide, he did so to protect Debbie’s secrets.

The narrative shifts to Finn’s perspective as he stares at Sonny’s empty stroller. Finn is numb with horror; he is paralyzed as Debbie hurls accusations at Mia. Debbie tells Mia that her actions are payback for Mia’s decision to steal Finn away from her. She believes that Finn and Mia have secretly resumed their relationship; when Mia refutes that claim, Debbie insists that she is lying. When Debbie implies that she has “saved” Sonny by murdering him, Finn grabs Debbie and shakes her. He tries to play on her love for him, using their relationship as leverage to make her reveal Sonny’s whereabouts. Debbie refuses to answer him; instead, she points to a suitcase containing Sonny’s folded clothes.

The narrative shifts to Mia’s perspective as she frantically searches for Sonny. Believing that Debbie has killed and buried him nearby, Mia begins digging in the ground with her bare hands. Mia breaks her fingernails, cutting herself on sharp thistles and roots, but she keeps going, sobbing as she searches for her baby.

She only looks up when she realizes that Finn isn’t helping her, and that’s when she sees that Finn has pinned Debbie to the ground. His hands are clenched around her throat.