The four-paragraph version: Meghan is an ICU nurse treating a patient, Caitlin, who is in a coma after jumping off a bridge, and there's indications she may have been pushed. Meghan also recently divorced from her ex-husband Ben and has a teenage daughter, Sienna. There's also been a string of attacks in the city with an intruder assaulting women in their homes.
Meghan is reunited with a friend from high school, Nat, who is trying to leave her abusive husband. Meghan invites Nat into her home and tells her a secret, that Sienna was the product of a one-night stand and that Ben doesn't know he is not really her father. Soon, Nat disappears, and Meghan is gets a call from someone saying that've kidnapped Sienna and she needs to wire $10,000 to an account to get her back. Meghan pays, but it turns out is was a ploy, and Sienna was fine all along. The police determine that some woman paid someone to set up an account in their name. Meghan also learns that the Nat she knew in high school died 19 years ago and that "Nat" is a fake.
Meghan tracks down fake Nat and confronts her, leading to an altercation on a pedestrian bridge where fake Nat threatens to reveal Meghan's secret, and Meghan shoves her off the bridge onto the tracks below. (So, it's revealed that the first part of the book is told in two interweaved timelines, that fake Nat is actually Caitlin, and Megan was the one who pushed her.)
In present day, Caitlin (fake Nat) begins to awake, so Meghan kills her by overdosing her with insulin. It's also revealed that the perpetrator of the attacks in the city is Luke, one of Meghan's co-workers. Meghan is placed on probation but gets away with killing Caitlin. It turns out Caitlin was Ben's new girlfriend. Ben doesn't indicate that he knew anything about Caitlin's scheme or Meghan's involvement in anything. The book ends with Meghan thinking to herself that she'll never really know how much Ben knows about everything that happened with Caitlin.
The Prologue opens with Meghan Michaels getting a call, telling her that her daughter has been kidnapped.
In Part I, Meghan is an ICU nurse in Chicago caring for a patient, Caitlin Beckett, who has attempted suicide by jumping off a pedestrian bridge onto the train tracks below. Meghan has a teenaged daughter, Sienna, and has been divorced for a year from her ex-husband and high school sweetheart, Ben. Meanwhile, there have been a series of attacks lately in Chicago with an intruder attacking and raping women in their homes.
Caitlin's parents, Mr. and Mrs. Beckett, frequent the hospital, hoping for Caitlin to emerge from her coma. A witness to the fall soon comes forward, saying that Caitlin had an altercation with a man shortly before and suggests she may have been pushed, as opposed to being suicidal. When Meghan notices a strange man in Caitlin's room, Police show her some photos and Meghan identifies the man, who turns out to be Milo Finch, an ex-con that Caitlin knew from when she was living in California before. Meghan soon recieves a strange note in a red envelope with the word BITCH scrawled on it.
At a divorcee support group, Meghan runs into Nat Cohen, who she knew from high school. Nat has a bruise on her face, and Meghan suspects that Nat's ex, Declan Roche, is physically abusive towards Nat. Meghan and Nat soon meet for coffee. When Nat gets beaten up again, she finally tells Meghan about her husband's abuse, saying she's afraid to divorce him. He also controls their finances.
Nat can't afford to pay for a place to stay, so Meghan invites her to stay with her instead. As the two women bond, Meghan confides in Nat that Ben doesn't know that he isn't Sienna's father. She was the result of a hookup after they'd had a bad fight. Meanwhile, Meghan worries that Nat is on the verge of going back to Declan. She comes home a day later and sees that Nat is gone.
The next morning, Meghan gets a phone call soon after Sienna leaves for school. The voice on the other end says they've kidnapped Sienna, and they want Meghan to send $10,000 in the next five minutes or else. Meghan is unable to contact Sienna, so she sends the money and then contacts the police. They find out that Sienna was just in another class re-taking a test and was never kidnapped, so the whole thing was a ploy.
When Meghan sees Milo Finch again, he tells her that he hates Caitlin, but he didn't push her. He says that Caitlin worked at his restaurant and stole from him, so he fired her. She then retaliated by breaking into his home, downloading child pornography on his computer and sending it to people. He was convicted, marked as a sex offender and sentenced to five years in prison.
Meanwhile, Meghan tries to reach out to Nat unsuccessfully. She soon finds out that the Natalie she knew in high school actually died in a car crash when she was 19, so the woman she met ("fake Nat") was a fraud. She also realizes her jewelry (engagement and wedding ring) were stolen from her house. The police then tell her they've tracked down the account that Meghan was ordered to wire the $10,000 but it belongs to a drug addict who was paid to let some woman set up an account using his name.
Meghan happens to spot fake Nat on the street and confronts her. They end up on a pedestrian bridge. Fake Nat declines to explain herself. Instead, there's an altercation, and fake Nat insults Meghan and threatens to reveal the truth about Sienna's father. Meghan shoves fake Nat and she falls off the bridge onto the tracks below.
(Basically it's revealed that Part I of the book has been told using two interweaved timelines. Fake Nat is Caitlin and Meghan is the one who pushed her. Everything at the hospital happens after that.)
In Part II, it has been two weeks since Meghan pushed Caitlin (aka Fake Nat) off the bridge. Caitlin begins to wake from her coma, amd Meghan realizes she needs to kill her. As Caitlin contines to improve, Meghan takes an insulin pen from another patient and injects Caitlin with a fatal overdose. Caitlin goes into cardiac arrest and dies.
Meghan is upset afterwards and tells Sienna to go stay at a friend's house, claiming that she's sick and doesn't want to give it to Sienna. Ben soon shows up, saying that Sienna said she was acting strangely and wanted him to check up on her.
As Meghan and Ben talk, he mentions having recently concluded relationship with a woman named Caitlin, and Meghan wonders if Caitlin had been seeing Ben. Megan then texts Sienna and Sienna responds that she never asked Ben to check up on her. Megan asks Ben to leave, and he does.
Back at the hospital, Meghan is placed on administrative leave while they investigate what happened.
Meghan comes home to find Sienna's phone and sees that Sienna was lying, that she actually did ask Ben to go over to check up on her. She also sees in Sienna's texts with Ben that Sienna is calling her (Meghan) a liar and is very angry with her. She goes to talk to Sienna who is with a guy, Nico, and Meghan sees that they have a red envelope with a note with them that has the same handwriting as the BITCH note she got before.
Meghan confronts Sienna, who finally admits that she sent the note and that she's angry because Fake Nat/Caitlin told her the truth about her father. Sienna also tells her that she didn't tell Ben.
Meghan is upset afterwards and goes to have a drink with Luke. Afterwards, Meghan gets a call from Luke's wife Penelope, who calls to warn her about Luke. She says that the police have determined that Luke is the perpetrator of the various attacks on women in the city. They're now looking to apprehend him. She found Meghan's contact info because she saw that Luke has a photo of her and her daughter and felt she needed to warn her. Meghen realizes that before Luke left, she told him about Sienna was at home alone.
Meghan rushes home to find Sienna, who isn't there. Instead, Luke texts her to go to an address. Meghan goes, and sees that Luke has a gun on Sienna, and he says that they're going to help get him out of there. Instead, the police show up, Luke is shot dead. Sienna goes to the hospital with a busted ankle from Luke abducting her.
Meghan and Sienna reconcile, and they agree not to tell Ben the truth. In the Epilogue, Ben tells Meghan her engagment ring ended up at his place somehow and he returns it to her (confirming that he was dating the same Caitlin who stole her ring). When he leaves, Meghan realizes she'll never know how much Ben truly knows about what happened with her and Caitlin.
The book opens with Meghan Michaels missing a call from her daughter, Sienna, just after 10AM in the morning. When Sienna calls again, she immediately picks up, but there’s a man on the line. In the background, she hears Sienna scream “Mommy!” and she hears the sound of commotion on the other line. The man tells her that if he ever wants to see her daughter again, she should do exactly what he says.
Part I
Chapter 1
Meghan is a nurse in the ICU along with her co-worker Bridget, a fellow ICU nurse. They tend to a patient Caitlin Beckett, 32, who has attempted suicide by jumping off of a pedestrian bridge.
Chapter 2
At 7PM, Meghan’s shift ends. She heads out and texts Sienna to let her know she’ll be late. She thinks about how their front door hasn’t been latching properly lately and there’s been a string of break-ins around their area.
Meghan makes her way to a church to attend a divorce support group. She sees a woman there who looks lost, and Meghan reassures her and introduces herself. It turns out that the woman, Natalie “Nat” Cohen, graduated from the same high school class as Meghan. The two catch up briefly. During the meeting, Meghan sees that Nat has a large bruise on her forehead.
The group is led by Faye, a therapist. Meghan recalls her first time volunteering talk about her divorce with Ben and how she was struggling with it and raising her daughter even though she was the one who left him. She and Ben met in high school, but twenty years later they were unhappy and fought all the time. Ben was focused on work, amd Meghan was lonely.
Chapter 3
The next day at work, the nurses gossip about Catlin, the attempted suicide case, talking about how she’s lucky she didn’t get hit by a car or a train after she jumped. Her parents, Tom and Amelia Beckett, were contacted last night and are now camped out in the waiting area.
Meghan’s friend and fellow nurse, Luke, asks Meghan how she’s doing. Meghan recently learned from Sienna that Ben has a new girlfriend, and she finally joined a dating site and went on a date with a guy named Alec. Meghan tells Luke that the date was forgettable.
Eventually, Catlin’s parents come in to see her during visiting hours. Caitlin is still in a coma. They tell Meghan that they weren’t close with Caitlin. She moved out to California three years ago and they didn’t even know she’d moved back. They say that Caitlin’s been doing various jobs like working retail or waitressing, and they’ve been helping to support her.
Later, Meghan sees a man standing near Caitlin’s room, just staring intently through the glass and into the room in a way that makes her uncomfortable.
Chapter 4
When she gets home that night, Sienna is in the kitchen with a male friend, who she introduces as Nico. Nico helps Meghan with the groceries, and Meghan invites him to stay for dinner, but he declines saying he has to go.
After dinner, Meghan sees that she has a friend request from Natalie Cohen Roche.
Chapter 5
The next day, Caitlin’s parent are still at the hospital. Meghan brings them by a blanket. Mrs. Beckett asks her if she’s ever known anyone who did something like this, and Meghan thinks about her younger sister Bethany and how hard it was when she killed herself.
Mrs. Beckett also says that Caitlin was their youngest. Her two older sons live in New York and Seattle. Meghan then talks about her own daughter and how she only had one child because of how difficult it was.
Mr. Beckett also talks to Meghan and tells her that he’s a lawyer. He’s channeling his grief and worry into doing research about survival rates for falls like the one his daughter took.
When his wife isn’t around, he tells Meghan that Caitlin actually contacted him six months ago asking for money, which she has often done in the past, but this time he said no. Then, a few weeks ago, he got another call from her, but he ignored it because he assumed it was another request for money. However, she left a voicemail that he only listened to after the suicide attempt. In it, she says “Daddy, I’m in trouble. I need your help.”
Later, in the break room, Meghan sees on the news that there’s been another attack in the city, a few blocks from where she lives. The attacker followed their victim into their apartment through the back door, waiting for them to unlock it and then robbing and raping them. Luke talks about how he needs to work more for the money, but he doesn’t like the idea of his pregnant wife, Penelope, being alone all the time at night with all the attacks going on.
Chapter 6
The next morning, Meghan sees that someone is moving in downstairs. Sienna leaves for school, a 40-minute commute involving two buses and some walking, at the expensive Roman Catholic college prep high school she attends.
She goes online to look at Nat’s profile on Facebook and sees photos of Nat and a handsome man. She sees that Nat is now a teacher at a cooperative nursery school in Lincoln Park. As she browses, she gets a message from Nat, and Meghan ends up inviting Nat to grab coffee or a drink.
Chapter 7
At work, the Becketts have taken a liking to Meghan, though Luke finds them strange.
Today, Meghan checks in on a 71-year-old stroke patient, Marin Layley, who requires insulin injections. Meghan thinks to herself how they should really put the insulin away after each use, but it’s easier to leave it out though theoretically someone could come in and just take her insulin pen.
When Meghan returns to check on Caitlin, she sees the same strange man from a few days ago standing in Caitlin’s room. Meghan goes in to talk to him, and he says he’s a friend of hers. The man looks at her name tag, which has her full name on it. She tells him only family is permitted there, and the man leaves.
That night at home, Sienna asks for photos of herself as a baby for a school project due tomorrow. The pictures are in the building’s basement storage unit. Meghan goes down to fetch the scrapbook, but the light switch isn’t working. Instead, she wedges the door open so light from the foyer shines through so she can find the photos. Then, she thinks she hears someone else down there too and sees that someone unwedged the door, and it doesn’t open. She knocks and her neighbor Mr. Hilman opens the door for her and says that it got wedged shut from the other side. Meghan wonders who would have done that.
Back upstairs, Meghan and Sienna go through the scrapbook until they find one that Sienna likes.
Chapter 8
The next night, Meghan gets a call from the doctor saying that there’s an “asymmetry” in her recent mammogram that they want to get it checked out.
She then meets up with Nat for coffee, noticing again the bruise on her face, which Nat says she got from walking into a door. Nat brings up Bethany’s death and asks about her marriage to Ben Long, since Meghan and Ben met at their high school. Meghan talks about how they divorced a year ago.
Nat tells her that she’s a pre-school teacher, but she doesn’t have any kids of her own. She says her family loves her ex Declan Roche, and they don’t understand what he’s really like. He’s been cheating on her with a younger woman. He also has been very busy with work, where he’s on the partner track at a law firm. It makes him very stressed out and he gets mad sometimes. Nat looks upset when she says this and soon says she needs to go, saying that she promised a sick friend to bring by some dinner.
On her way home that night, Meghan thinks about Nat’s bruise and what she said about Declan being violent sometimes. The walk home involves passing by two derelict buildings and a dodgy parking lot. When she gets home, there’s a man in his late thirties there, Evan, talking to Sienna. He says he lives downstairs and came to give then some of their mail they received by accident.
Afterwards, Meghan chides Sienna for opening the door to a stranger, but Sienna says that she thought it was her since she had just texted to say she was coming home.
Chapter 9
The next morning, the news reports another attack.
At the hospital, Meghan’s brother Jackson is there today, having flown in from London. Mr. Beckett says that their older son Henry is in the middle of a trial for work. Meghan recalls Mrs. Beckett saying how Caitlin isn’t close with her brothers and she suspects that they resent Caitlin for having a closer relationship with her than they do.
The police are also there investigating Caitlin’s case since they’re now suspecting that she was actually pushed off the bridge instead of it being suicide. A witness says that someone else was there and she saw something contentious happen between them. Apparently she didn’t think much of it until she saw the news about Caitlin. The police have also learned Caitlin was recently started working with a realtor and was looking to buy a condo, which seems to point against suicide.
Meghan then brings up the strange man she saw in Caitlin’s room the other day. She describes the man’s dark curly hair and bent nose, and they agree they should tell the police.
That night in the break room Meghan looks at the mail she took from her home mailbox that morning. There’s a red envelope with no address or postmark and a piece of paper that has the word “BITCH” scrawled on it. She throws it in the trash.
Before Luke leaves, he checks on Meghan and offers to walk her home. He expresses concern over her and Sienna with all the attacks going on.
Chapter 10
Ben comes to pick Sienna up and the hostility is palpable. Ben gets Sienna a few days every other week and pays child support equal to 20% of his income. Meghan would be fine even without child support, but Ben resents having to pay it.
Meghan messages Nat to see how her “sick friend” is doing, but the message goes unread and she gets no response for a while. Eventually, Nat responds to say that she lied about the friend and that she left because she saw Declan through the window, watching her. Meghan then asks Nat if she’s okay and gets a unsatisfactory response, so she says she’s going to go see her.
When Meghan arrives, Nat is outside, a few doors down from a comedy shop. She’s badly injured. She says that Declan convinced her to go back to him yesterday, and things were great for a moment and they made love. However, when he mentioned wanting to start a family, she asked him how his therapy was going and it made him angry. Nat says she’s been staying with a friend for the past few weeks and lied to her and said she fell down the stairs. She called in sick to work to avoid having to explain.
Meghan then wonders if he installed a tracking app on her phone which is why he might’ve found them them having coffee the other day. She checks Nat’s phone and sees that Nat is sharing her location with Declan and turns it off. Meghan then suggests filing a restraining order against him. But Nat is scared of how he’ll react if she does that. Nat soon heads back to her friend’s house.
Chapter 11
The next morning, Meghan finds herself thinking about Caitlin, and she ends up going to the pedestrian bridge that Caitlin fell from to see for herself. As she walks across it, she sees Jackson Bennett there. He tells her he didn’t really come to see Caitlin, instead he came to support his parents.
Meghan finds there’s something she doesn’t quite like about him. As they talk, she mentions getting married at Promontory Point, and Jackson comments he was there last weekend. After they part, Meghan remembers that Jackson was supposedly in London until two days ago, so she wonders if he was lying about having been in London.
Chapter 12
Heading out of work, Meghan comes across Nat carrying a duffle bag being reprimanded by an older man. Nat says her friends felt she’d overstayed her welcome and now she’s going to stay at a hostel. Meghan is aghast at the idea. She asks Nat if she got alimony in the divorce, but Nat says she’s not divorced. She hasn’t filed the papers because she’s scared of how he’d react. Declan also has all their credit cards and control over their money.
Meghan tells Nat to come stay with her. At home, Meghan tells Nat more about Ben and how they met. Meanwhile, Nat tells Meghan that she’s thought about calling the woman that Declan is seeing to tell her what he’s really like. She also shows her texts from Declan and how they go from begging and nice to threatening and mean.
She reassures Nat that she’s safe here but Meghan wonders if that’s really true.
Chapter 13
The next morning at work, the staff talks about how a pharmacy technician at the hospital was attacked last night. Apparently the perpetrator followed her home from work and her fiancé was out of town that night.
The police come by to talk to Meghan and ask her about the man that she saw in Caitlin’s room the other day. They show her some pictures of men Caitlin had been in contact with to see if Meghan recognizes any of them, and she does. She also tells them about the comment Jackson made about being in town last weekend, despite originally saying he’d just gotten in from London.
Afterwards, Meghan tells the Becketts she identified the man, and Mr. Beckett says the man she identified was Milo Finch, a ex-con and former restaurant owner who followed Caitlin from California. Privately, Mr. Beckett asks Meghan to keep the voicemail he shared with her the other day private and she agrees.
Back at home, Meghan looks up Milo Finch and sees that he’s a registered sex offender who was found guilty of possession of child pornography and sentenced to five years in prison.
Chapter 14
After work, Sienna calls to tell her that her dad got them tickets to see Dear Evan Hansen tomorrow, which is when Sienna is supposed to be home. But Sienna really wants to see the show, so Meghan agrees to let her go. Sienna also tells her that Ben has a girlfriend now. Meghan then tells Sienna that a friend of hers from high school, Nat, will be staying with them for the week.
She sees Nat on the phone, who then quickly hangs up, and Meghan senses that it was probably Declan on the line, though Nat claims it was a wrong number. Meghan thinks about the statistic that women tend to go back to their abusers at least seven times.
Over a glass of wine, the two women chat. Meghan asks Nat about how she met Declan and asks her about when he started getting violent with her. Nats says it started a few weeks after they got married.
Meghan then confides in Nat that she cheated on Ben once a few weeks before their wedding, back in May 2007. She says they’d gotten into a fight and she’d ended up in a bar with a guy who offered to buy her a drink. She spent the night with the guy, who then left in the morning without saying goodbye. She and Ben soon made up, and she’d learned that she was pregnant shortly after. After Sienna was born, she confirmed that Ben wasn’t the father but didn’t tell him.
Nat thanks her for trusting her enough to tell her, and she encourages Meghan to forgive herself and to let it go.
Chapter 15
A young woman soon shows up after visiting hours looking to see Caitlin, and Meghan informs her that only family is permitted to visit. The young woman sees Caitlin’s parents hovering over her and tells Meghan how Caitlin would’ve hated it. She tells Meghan that Caitlin hated her parents and the whole loving parents thing is a charade. The young woman then leaves.
Meghan follows the woman outside and catches up with her when she’s about to get into her car. Meghan asks who she is, and she says she’s Caitlin’s roommate. Caitlin had responded to an ad she posted online looking for a roommate. She also tells Meghan that she thinks Caitlin had been seeing someone. The past few weeks, Caitlin would disappear for a few days at a time, and she assumed Caitlin was with him.
After work, Mr. Beckett offers to walk with Meghan for a bit on the way home. When he starts asking personal questions, she declines to answer. He then confronts her about having said something to the police about Jackson possibly being in town recently. He tells Meghan that it’s because Jackson is having an affair and seeing someone in Chicago. London was a cover story for the affair.
Mr. Beckett asks Meghan not to talk to the police about things their family tells her, since he says that sometimes people tell lies. He talks about his wife Amelia, who is a grade school teacher. He said that once there was a girl in her class who got in trouble for misbehaving and also happened to have a bruise on her arm that day. The girl told people Amelia did it, which was a lie. After the DCFS investigation cleared her, people were still skeptical of her so she left that job. Mr. Beckett also says that Caitlin was a difficult child and that after the DCFS investigation, Caitlin would use suggestions that her mom was hurting her to make her mother uncomfortable in order to get what she wants.
He talks about how much Amelia wanted Caitlin’s love and how she might not make it if Caitlin doesn’t survive.
Chapter 16
The day after the show, Meghan texts Sienna to ask how it was and she confirms it was great. When she gets home, she’s upset to see Nat isn’t there and her bag is gone. Sienna says she never saw her, so Nat must’ve left sometime after Meghan left for work. Meghan worries that Nat may have gone back to Declan.
The next morning, Sienna leaves for school, and Meghan gets the call saying that Sienna’s been kidnapped and she needs to do what this man says if she ever wants to see her daughter again. He wants her to wire him $10,000. He tells her she has five minutes or she’s dead.
She sends the money. Meghan they calls Sienna’s school and they say she didn’t show up for third period. She calls the police, and Sienna soon shows up, looking confused. Sienna says that she was just retaking a math test, and Meghan realizes the kidnapping was a lie.
The police explain that they likely used spoofing to make her think the call was coming from Sienna’s phone and that they just had someone pretending to be Sienna. Meghan asks why she was targeted, and they say she just got unlucky.
Chapter 17
Meghan and Sienna are at a deli when Meghan notices Milo Finch outside. She goes to confront him, but he tells her to relax and that he’s not going to hurt her. Milo tells her he didn’t push Caitlin, but admits that he doesn’t want her to survive. He says Caitlin took everything from him. He says that she worked for him at his restaurant, but she stole from him and he caught and fired her.
As retribution, she broke into his home and downloaded child pornography and sent it to people he knows. They didn’t believe him when he said it wasn’t him. He went to prison and his wife left him, taking his son with her. When he got out of jail, he went looking for Caitlin. He says there’s no legal recourse for what she’s done so he hopes she’ll die. Milo then leaves.
Caitlin is tempted to call the police but she thinks about what he’s already gone through and doesn’t.
Chapter 18
Meghan continues to wonder about Nat, and she notices her Facebook profile is gone so she can no longer message her. Meghan decides to go to the nursery school where Nat works to check on her. However, when she does, they have no clue who Natalie is and they say that she doesn’t work there. Meghan then goes to Declan’s law firm to ask to see him, but she gets the same response. She sees a photo of him on their brochure, but the woman says that it’s a stock photo.
Meghan then reaches out to a mutual friend from high school that Nat mentioned she was still in touch with, Emily Miller. Emily says that Nat died 19 years ago in a car crash. After they talk, Meghan searches online for Nat’s name and confirms that it’s true that Nat and her family were killed in a collision.
Meghan starts to wonder who she’s been speaking to.
Chapter 19
As the days pass, the police track down the account she wired money to and sees it belongs to Joseph Minor, a local drug addict who was paid so some woman could use his identity to set up an account. Meghan wonders who this woman was. Meghan’s indignation and anger grows when she sees that her wedding ring and engagement ring have gone missing.
Meghan goes to get her follow up mammogram, and when she exits the building she spots fake Nat. She follows her, chasing her down the street. She loses her briefly but finds her again and manages to pin her down. They end up on a pedestrian bridge with train tracks underneath them.
She confronts the woman who declines to explain herself. When the woman shows that she has her wedding ring, Meghan attempts to wrest it from her. The woman throws it off the bridge and proceeds to insult Meghan. Finally, Meghan shoves the woman, and the woman falls. She’s dead. No one else is around. Meghan retrieves her ring and leaves.
Part II
Chapter 20
The book now reveals that Part I of the book was told in interweaved timelines. Fake Nat is actually Caitlin Beckett and Meghan was the one who pushed her off the bridge.
Caitlin has been here for two weeks now, and Meghan thinks about how she was the one who pushed her. Suddenly, Caitlin’s eyes blink open and then shut again. Mrs. Beckett sees it and tells her husband. Then it happens again and her eyes stay open, looking at Meghan.
Chapter 21
Mrs. Beckett asks Caitlin to squeeze her hand but there’s no response. Caitlin’s eyes close again.
Meghan recalls how Caitlin had threatened to tell Ben about Sienna’s real father which is when she pushed her. Meghan is hoping Caitlin will have locked-in syndrome where the brain is functioning but the body doesn’t respond. When Meghan is alone with her, she tries to assess Caitlin’s responsiveness. Caitlin reflexes responds when she pinches her, which means she’s not in locked-in mode and she seems to be getting better.
Meghan knows it’s a matter of time before Caitlin will be taken off the respirator which means she’ll be able to talk. Meghan thinks to herself that she needs to kill Caitlin.
Chapter 22
The next day, Caitlin is taken off the respirator. Meghan thinks about how to kill Caitlin and remembers Mrs. Layley’s insulin pen. She grabs one when she leaves Mrs. Laylay’s room.
Chapter 23
She goes into Caitlin’s room and injects her with it three times. She then knows she has to leave and act normal, but she’s preoccupied when Luke tries to talk to her. Luke wants her to come over to meet a guy he and Penelope knows, Dan, as a double date. Meghan distractedly agrees.
Chapter 24
As expected, Caitlin’s heart slows and she goes into cardiac arrest. Meghan waits until very late to call in a code blue. Meghan admits to giving her insulin by mistake since she knows she won’t be able to hide it. Caitlin dies.
The charge nurse comforts her telling her it was an honest mistake, but she also tells her to get a lawyer to be safe. Meghan is a mess and suggests to Sienna that she stay somewhere else, saying that she’s sick and doesn’t want her to also get sick. Sienna agrees to go stay with her friend Gianna.
When she gets home, Ben is outside. He says that Sienna was concerned about her and asked him to go check on her. She tells him she’s just upset because she lost a patient at work today. She invites him inside and lets Sienna know she’s okay, and she says is wasn’t necessary for her to text Ben about it.
Ben asks about the patient who died, and Meghan says she was 32 and died of cardiac arrest. As they talk, Ben starts making things intimate. Meghan tries to shift the tone by asking about his girlfriend, but Ben says they’re not together anymore. Meghan then asks what her name was, and Ben says it’s Caitlin.
They’re interrupted when Meghan gets a text from Sienna, who says that she never texted Ben about Meghan. Meghan suddenly wonders why Ben has shown up here tonight. Meghan tells Ben that Sienna is headed home and that she thinks he should leave. Ben thinks for a moment and then he agrees and leaves.
Chapter 25
The next day, Meghan’s head is spinning about Ben and Caitlin. Ben then starts texting her about wanting to see her. She also gets a call from HR at the hospital wanting to talk to her.
Meghan goes in and answers their questions and it quickly becomes clear their main concern is their own liability. They’ve filed a report to the nursing board, and they explain that there will be an investigation. She’s on administrative leave until then.
When she sees officers at the hospital, Meghan worries they are there for her, so she turns and leaves.
Chapter 26
Back at home, Sienna is home. Ben has tried to reach out for a third time. Meghan can hear Nico with her, despite Sienna knowing she’s not supposed to have boys over without her present. Meghan is about to get mad at her, but sees her phone instead. She looks at Sienna’s texts with her father and is taken aback by how angry Sienna is with her. Meghan sees that Sienna did text Ben about her yesterday and she’s confused.
Meghan goes to interrupt what’s going on with Sienna and Nico. She sees a red envelope with writing on it, the same messy scrawl that had written the word BITCH to her before. Meghan then tells Nico to leave, and asks Sienna what’s going on. Finally, Sienna tells her that Caitlin told her the truth that Ben isn’t her real father.
Sienna is distraught about it but says she hasn’t told Ben the truth. Meghan tells Sienna that he’s still her dad.
Chapter 27
Luke soon reaches out to check in on her. He invites her to grab a drink. They talk about what happened briefly, but Meghan switches the topic to ask about Penelope. Soon, Luke says he should head home, and Meghan gets a call from Penelope. She says that she found her number in Luke’s things.
Penelope warns her that the police came by today because they’ve confirmed that Luke’s DNA matches with the DNA of the perpetrator from the last attack. She says Luke is the attacker. Meghan recalls Luke telling her about how he was raised by a absentee parents and an abusive father and how he was in juvie for a while.
Penelope then says that she found a box of his mementos and it included a photo of her and Sienna, so she thought she should warn her. Meghan then remembers that Sienna is at home alone and that she told Luke about it.
Chapter 28
Meghan immediately calls the police to tell them she thinks Sienna may be in danger. She then rushes home, and Sienna isn’t there but her phone is still there. She then gets a text from Luke telling her to go to a specific address.
Meghan goes there and Luke is there with Sienna but tells her not go come any closer. Luke says he’s not going to jail and that she and Sienna are going to help him find a way out of this. As Meghan tries to negotiate, a gunshot goes off from an officer arriving and shooting Luke, and then Luke lets a shots off too. There’s blood everywhere.
Chapter 29
Luke is dead, but Sienna isn’t shot. Instead, she has a busted ankle from when he kidnapped her. Sienna is taken to the hospital. Sienna and Meghan reconcile. They both agree it’s better not to tell Ben the truth.
Epilogue
A month later, Meghan returns to work. She’s on probation, but the fact that she owned up to it and has an otherwise spotless 20-year record helps. After work, Ben shows up to pick up Sienna, and he also says that he found Meghan’s engagement ring and it somehow ended up at his condo.
When they leave, Meghan realizes she’ll never know how much Ben truly knows.
Not Recommended Published April 02, 2024
Page Count 336 pages
Goodreads3.79 (out of 5)
From the Publisher
Meghan Michaels is trying to find balance between being a single mom and working full time as an ICU nurse, when a patient named Caitlin arrives in her ward with a traumatic brain injury. They say she jumped from a bridge and plunged over twenty feet to the train tracks below.
When a witness comes forward with new details about Caitlin’s fall, it calls everything they know into question. Was a crime committed? Did someone actually push Caitlin, and if so, who... and why?
Meghan lets herself get close to Caitlin until she’s deeply entangled in the mystery surrounding her. Only when it’s too late, does she realize that she and her daughter could be the next victims...
