No One Can Know: A Novel

In the present day, JJ thinks about how her girlfriend, Vic, asked her to stay away from Emma and their past. Now, the closer JJ gets to Emma, the more the past begins to reappear. Logan texts JJ about Emma’s questions regarding that night. JJ keeps getting a flashback from the night of the murders: “yellow wallpaper, white grip, red hand” (158). The truth is, JJ does not remember much about that night because drugs and alcohol altered her perception. She does remember the secret she and Daphne kept from Emma. JJ and Daphne discovered their parents’ bodies first. They found a gun, which Daphne hid somewhere. JJ calls Daphne for the first time in many years. Daphne tells JJ she hid the gun in the carriage house, and JJ reports that she gave Nathan the keys. Daphne says that she knows, and it is time for her and JJ to act.

In the present day, after meeting Logan, Emma reflects on everything she did not know about her family. She did not know that Irene was experiencing addiction or Randolph was possibly involved in criminal activities. Again, she recalls the flash drive. She remembers seeing Irene look for something in Daphne’s room. Irene found a metal lockbox and placed a silver flash drive inside. Emma believes that whatever was on the flash drive is linked with her parents’ murder. The flash drive is gone, however, because Emma herself lost it the night her parents died.

The day of the murders, after Randolph and Irene destroy her portfolio, a distraught Emma goes to Gabriel’s house. Gabriel is appalled at her injuries and comforts her, promising to keep her safe. Emma does not believe him and decides she must take matters into her own hands. She leaves Gabriel’s house at 11 o’clock that night, intending to steal money from her parents so she can run away. At home, Irene is asleep in her bedroom, and Emma takes the lockbox key from her nightstand. She retrieves the box from Daphne’s room. Inside are cash, the flash drive, Irene’s passport and other documents, and a green post-it note with numbers scribbled on it. Emma takes the money, and on impulse, the USB drive. She packs her backpack and leaves, tripping on her way out. She does not notice the flash drive fall out, but Daphne, watching from the treehouse, climbs down to retrieve it.

In the present day, Emma wakes up and notices Nathan is not in bed. She can’t find him downstairs either and worries he left her. Emma has always feared abandonment, or, worse, something bad happening to Nathan. She starts cleaning, reassuring herself that Nathan is fine, and finds two wineglasses in the dishwasher, one with red lipstick on it. She realizes Nathan had someone over last night and reluctantly checks his phone’s location, which shows him in the carriage house. In the carriage house, she finds Nathan sprawled on the ground, a bullet hole in his chest. Shocked, Emma stumbles and faints. A woman with a dog catches her and guides her to the house. Emma faints again.

At the time of the murders, everyone ignores young Daphne because she is quiet and small, but Daphne knows all her family’s secrets. She knows her mother is having an affair with Hadley, who drives a blue Impala. Daphne finds plugs the flash drive Emma dropped into a computer. The drive contains evidence against Randolph from a private detective Irene hired, including a photo of three men next to a car. One of the men is Randolph, one has a wine-colored birthmark on his face, and the third has a gun. Before Daphne can look at the next file, Randolph interrupts her. She pretends she found the flash drive by accident, and Randolph lets her go. Later, Daphne overhears him tell someone on the phone that the flash drive has been discovered and Randolph will take care of matters. Daphne senses she has done something awful and needs to correct matters.

In the present day, Emma wakes up and remembers that Nathan is dead. The doorbell rings, and JJ steps in. Emma tells JJ that Nathan is dead. JJ calls the police. When Hadley arrives and questions Emma roughly, JJ intervenes. Emma, slurring her words, is taken to the hospital at Chief Ellis’s suggestion and treated for shock and malnutrition. She tries to ask JJ about her whereabouts the night of their parents’ murder, but she evades the questions. Gabriel arrives at the hospital and offers to take Emma to his house. JJ thinks this will make Emma seem suspicious, but Emma feels she has no other option.

At Gabriel’s house, Emma tells Gabriel that her sisters wanted nothing to do with her after their parents’ death. Emma changed herself to be lovable and found a man, Nathan, who loved the stranger she became. Now he is dead, and it is probably her fault. Gabriel comforts Emma, admitting he has always cared about her but kept their relationship platonic because when they met, he was 21 and she was only 16. Chris, Emma’s lawyer, visits and tells Emma that the state police are investigating Nathan’s case because of the Arden Hills police’s bias against Emma. Chief Ellis, he adds, is already under suspicion for mismanagement of public funds. Chris advises Emma not to speak to the state detectives until he figures out what is going on. He assures her that he has always believed she is innocent and will look out for her. Emma tells Chris that Nathan was having an affair.

Daphne recalls once watching a poisoned rat slowly die. Randolph found her and killed the rat with a shovel, putting it out of its misery. Daphne felt guilty for watching the animal suffer without considering its pain. The night her mother dies, Daphne kneels next to the suffering Irene, shot in the chest. Not wanting Irene to be miserable like the rat, she pinches her nostrils shut but is interrupted by the sound of another person.

In the present day, Daphne is the woman who moved Emma after she discovered Nathan’s body. She left afterward, not wanting to explain her presence to the police. Since Emma moved into the Palmer house, Daphne has kept an eye on her, but she has not been able to protect Emma. Daphne asks JJ to meet her.

Detective Mehta, a state police officer, questions Emma in Chris’s presence. Mehta asks if Emma knew Nathan was having an affair. Emma says she found out months ago, when Nathan had accidentally logged in their shared calendar the details of a planned tryst with his mistress, Addison. Emma also discovered romantic emails between the two, but left the matter alone, assuming things would work themselves out. Detective Mehta tells Emma that Addison broke things off with Nathan a couple of months before they moved to Arden Hills and asks Emma to hand over her phone and computer for the investigation.

Emma recalls that Nathan used to conduct “trust audits” with her in the beginning of the relationship, asking for her passwords and going through her accounts. Emma thought that if she and Nathan trusted each other, they would not need to read at each other’s emails. As it turned out, Nathan was the one keeping secrets from Emma. After the interview, Chris tells Emma she is the prime suspect in Nathan’s murder. Emma tells him she will check out the camera feed from the night before Nathan’s murder.