RATING: SUPERB
SPOILERS!!!
Wow!!! What a roller coaster of emotions!!! The more Lizzie investigates, the more lies she discovers about Zach. Onnie returns once more after she had taken Zack’s laptop, and she comes, apologising and promising she would try to crack the password. The following day she leaves a message to Onnie, thanking her but at the same time implying she should leave.
That day she decides to go to the Isle of Wight, where Zack was from. It takes her a long time to find someone who can tell her anything about her husband, but she finally finds an old neighbour of hers. Her discovery shows her that Zack only told her lies. First, he lied about his name; his name wasn’t Zack, but Jack Jones. Zack also claimed that his father mistreated and abused him as a child, and that was why Lizzie justified his behaviour towards her. Now she learns that Zack’s mother was single, and he was the product of a one-night stand with a navy worker, and Zack only saw his father when he was five. The neighbour claims that his mother doted on him. When he grew up, he changed his surname to Hopkins, which was his father’s family name, and his mother was quite upset about it. Then the neighbour tells him about Polly, his girlfriend. She died, drowned, when she and Zack went sailing on her father’s boat. Zack claimed that she had jumped into the water, and he couldn’t do anything when the current dragged her away. At the time some witnesses said they had seen Zack and Polly arguing, and the police arrested Zack for questioning, but nothing came out of it.
When Lizzie leaves the Isle of Wight, she is terrified. She is convinced that Zack killed Polly and Charlotte as well, and she fears Zack is out there to kill her. When she gets to London, she even thinks she sees him on his bicycle. Then after leaving Howard at home, she goes to see Sam. For the first time she tells someone what her marriage was like: about his abuse, his possessiveness, his obsessions… He also tells her that the reason why she intended to leave him is because she went to her surgery when she failed to get pregnant, and the doctor told him that Zack had had a vasectomy. This was the last straw for her, so she wrote that letter to him. Lizzie also tells Sam that she believes that Zack faked his death and is there to kill her. Sam is kind to her, but it is clear that she doesn’t believe her. Lizzie feels that she needs to do something if she wants to finish with this torture, so she kills Sam, and they end up sleeping together.
The next morning she gets home and finds that her house has been left in a state. Everything is in disarray, and Lizzie believes that Zack must have done this after witnessing her with Sam. She goes to the study, thinking that he is there, but the person who is there is Victoria. She is worried about Onnie, and Victoria thinks that her daughter caused all the chaos in the house. When they see the laptop, Lizzie realises that Onnie must have read whatever Zack had saved there. Lizzie discovers that the password is her name, and she finds his diary, what we have read all through the novel. The last part implies that Zack wanted to commit suicide after she read Lizzie’s letter
Lizzie’s car and dog are nowhere to be seen, and it is clear that Onnie has taken them.They realise that Onnie has gone to Cornwall, so they set off together. They find Lizzie’s car near the place where Zack died, and Onnie and Howard are there. Onnie is furious and in a state, accusing Lizzie of lying to her about her and Zack. Onnie threatens to kill herself and the dog, and at some point she takes a tumble and falls on the busy road, and Lizzie rushes and gets her out of danger’s way. They are close to the tree which Zack crashed his car into, and she sees the flowers and realises that she misread the card, and instead of Xenia, the signature is from Aine x, Onnie’s real name.
After this terrible incident, Onnie has to be sent to therapy again, especially after the entries she read in Zack’s diary about Onnie being his daughter. This could send anyway over the edge. She has slept with her birth father, and Zack’s unsympathetic words about her were more than a teenager could put up with. Lizzie also comes to terms with Zack’s death, and all the strange incidents that she thought were part of Zack’s terror campaign had all a reasonable explanation. The missing objects had been taken by her sister, even the figurines in her mother’s shelf; the dead bird in her living room is a common incident; Howard feeling sick was caused by something he ate in her shed; and Sam’s attack was just some random mugging.
The epilogue takes place a year later. Sam and Lizzie are together, and they have a daughter. Lizzie is happy, but she isn’t totally convinced that Zack is gone forever. I think the reader feels the same as Lizzie; we are not really sure if the man did commit suicide as he wrote in his diary. That is left to our imagination.
I really loved the book. It was so gripping and creepy!!! I sometimes didn’t like Lizzie; she was a nice woman, but I think she was a bit of a doormat as long as Zack was concerned.
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