Tell No One

David asks Tyrese and Brutus to drive him to the Parkers’ residence. Hoyt asks who is at the door—a new way of behaving for a man who “preferred direct confrontation” (300). When David finds Hoyt in the kitchen, Hoyt asks David if he is armed. When he pats David down, the Glock skids across the linoleum. He asks if David is there to kill him. Then he takes the gun and points it straight at David’s chest. David confronts Hoyt, asking him whose body they cremated, as Elizabeth is still alive.

Hoyt finally agrees to talk about the events of the night and says that Griffin Scope hired the two men buried by the lake to kill Elizabeth. When Hoyt learned of the plan, he went up to the lake with his brother to get rid of them. He was the one who shot them in the head. Hoyt tells David that Scope would stop at nothing until Elizabeth was dead. Therefore, his own job was to make him think that Elizabeth was dead. They sent Elizabeth out of the country. She learned to wear disguises and even then, no-one was looking for her. Elizabeth had “been bouncing around third world countries, working for the Red Cross or UNICEF or whatever organization she could hook up with” (307). The body in the morgue they tried to pass off as Elizabeth was a Jane Doe stored in pathology who was a near enough match. They chose KillRoy as the murderer because they needed a “fall guy” and timed it all to “make a tearful ID” (307).

Luckily for Hoyt, Scope’s people bought that Elizabeth had been murdered, but they still kept tabs on the Parkers and David, in case Elizabeth had passed on any incriminating evidence. Thus, both the Parkers’ and David’s phones have been bugged for the past eight years. David asks Hoyt what happened and why his father’s gun, the one that killed Brandon Scope, was found in Elizabeth’s safe. Hoyt tells him the truth: Elizabeth shot Brandon Scope. Elizabeth, who had been working alongside Brandon, had found out that he was running “all this penny-ante crap, playing at being a tough street guy. Drugs, prostitution, I didn’t even know what” (310). When Elizabeth undertook a relentless investigation of his activities, he broke into the home she shared with David, with a knife. She took the gun and shot him. Elizabeth called Hoyt, and he moved the body. Hoyt wanted to frame Gonzalez, but Elizabeth would not let that happen.

However, someone leaked the truth about Elizabeth’s culpability to Scope’s people, and they organized the night at the lake both as revenge for Brandon’s murder as well as to cover up the truth about his activities. Hoyt claims that Elizabeth kept the safety box with all the evidence for her guilt so that no-one else could be framed for Brandon Scope’s murder.

David leaves and gets into Tyrese and Brutus’ car. Tyrese says he has a call for David. It is from Shauna, who says that she saw Elizabeth and that he is to meet her at the Dolphin.

Brutus and Tyrese drive David to the Metropark station in Iselin, which has a train heading to Point Jervis. On the train, David reads a paper, in which he sees that a man named Melvin Bartola is one of the two found dead at the lake. The name is familiar to David, and he gets off at the next station in order to find a library.

Wu has tracked down Brutus and Tyrese and forces himself into Tyrese’s house, where Latisha and TJ are. He demands to know where Tyrese is.

Meanwhile, David rents a car and goes to the Ridgemont library where they give him access to a Microfiche archive of the New Jersey Journal. He is looking for an article from twelve years ago, one which describes how his father’s car drove over the ravine and the sole witness was Melvin Bartola, a truck driver from Wyoming. Most importantly, the cause of the accident was unknown.

Tyrese and Brutus are in their car, and Tyrese’s cell-phone rings. Wu has TJ with him and asks Tyrese if he knows where David is. 

Following the clue “Dolphin,” David goes to meet Elizabeth at a cabin at Lake Charmaine. A male voice startles him, saying: “You’re back” (323). David aims the gun at the man but puts it down when he confesses to being the Boogeyman, or Jeremiah Renway. Renway says that he is the one who saved David’s life by pulling him out of the lake that night eight years ago. He also dug up the bodies so that someone would find them. He says that Elizabeth is waiting for David by the tree. David finds her and they embrace, promising to never leave each other again. However, they are interrupted by a phone call from Tyrese.

Elizabeth and David are at Goodhart Road where Hoyt is sitting in the front seat of his Buick Skylark. David tells Hoyt to tell Griffin Scope to release TJ. David wonders if the night that Hoyt convinced Elizabeth not to go to the police about her assault by Brandon Scope was because he was on Scope’s payroll. David then asks if Hoyt killed his father. Hoyt replies that he did worse and betrayed him. While Stephen Beck was working with Scope, he discovered “what a monster Brandon really was” (332)and asked for Hoyt’s counsel on what to do with the information. Hoyt told the Scopes, who he thought would merely find some way of keeping Stephen away from Brandon. He never thought that the Scopes would go as far as killing Stephen. The fact of the Scopes’ involvement in his father’s murder is evident to David because Melvin Bartola, the witness, also worked for Scope. Bartola worked for Hoyt and Scope at the same time, but Hoyt told Bartola that he would double his money if he could get Elizabeth out of the country and fake her death. However, in the end, Hoyt felt that he could not trust Bartola and his accomplice, Robert Wolf, and so killed them.

Now that the Scope clan is holding TJ, David wants Hoyt to use any clout he has to influence them. Hoyt points a gun at David’s face and then David presses the garage’s remote to reveal the aspect of Elizabeth. Hoyt tells David to tell Elizabeth to get out of the way or Hoyt will kill him. Hoyt drives David away and Elizabeth is left alone.

David turns to Hoyt and says that Elizabeth did not kill Brandon Scope. Hoyt confesses to being the killer himself. Brandon beat up Elizabeth and Hoyt shot him before he got to her house. When Elizabeth made up the alibi that would excuse Gonzalez and the Scopes began to suspect the veracity of their claims, Hoyt did nothing to contradict their suspicions.

In the car, Hoyt calls Gandle, telling him he has David but that he has to release TJ. When David expresses the fear that Griffin Scope will kill them both, Hoyt aims the gun at him and says “not both” (337).

Hoyt produces an envelope with all the incriminating evidence David’s father and Elizabeth had on Brandon. Hoyt then announces that David is his “fall guy now” (338). If David ends up dead, Hoyt is prepared for Elizabeth to hate him, but at least she will be alive. Four men are waiting for them at Freedom Trails Stables. They are pointing semi-automatic rifles at Hoyt and David. David recognizes Gandle and Griffin Scope. Wu steps out too.

Hoyt presents the envelope to Griffin and says the only duplicate is with an attorney, who will release the information in it, if Hoyt does not call him in an hour and release the code. Hoyt says that now Scope has everything, there is no need for him to attempt to hurt David or his family. Scope still feels vengeful about his son, who got shot down “like a dog” (341). Hoyt says that David shot Brandon, having “found out what was going on and he took vengeance” (342). David denies this claim, but Scope sends Wu to collect the envelope and toss the gun out of Hoyt’s hand. Wu then proceeds to give Hoyt a thorough beating. Scope waves a microcassette player in the air, on which has been taped Hoyt’s conversation with David, where he confesses to killing Brandon.

David realizes that Hoyt knew his car was bugged and that the confession would be heard: “I realized that Hoyt Parker was taking the fall […] that in the end, he, not I, would sacrifice himself to save us all” (343). Hoyt takes a gun out of his ankle holster and shoots Griffin thrice and then turns the gun on himself.

They bury Hoyt four days later, and he has the fame of a hero. Elizabeth and David have escaped. They have lost track of the people they know and are content enough together, although they are still haunted by recent events. David makes an astonishing confession: that he was the one who was home when Brandon Scope broke into their house eight years ago; that he was the one Scope threatened with a knife; and that David retaliated by shooting him with his father’s gun. In a panic, David ran. When he came back to the house, both the body and the gun were gone. Hoyt, who retrieved them, thought Elizabeth had killed Brandon, and Elizabeth put the weapon in a safety box. This was the secret that weighed heavy on David when he and Elizabeth went to the lake eight years ago.

David sometimes wishes he had told the truth eight years ago, but it is enough for him that he can wake up with Elizabeth every day.