The Expats

Kate and Dexter attend a social gathering in Luxembourg. Thinking about the amount Dexter is alleged to have stolen, Kate becomes conscious of the way money manifests itself as a topic of conversation and status symbol among the party guests. She decides to learn the truth about him before the FBI does. Kate goes up to a private bathroom away from the party. Looking at herself in the mirror, she realizes that choosing to marry Dexter had aligned so well with the life of duplicity she had chosen when she joined the CIA. She cries over her self-deception.

On the first day of the new year, Kate dreads being confronted by Dexter over breaking into his office. Instead, he tells her that he will be going to London the following day, which will be his last business trip for some time. He also reminds her of their family trip to Amsterdam, which is scheduled for that weekend. After Dexter leaves, she starts examining their bank accounts. She suspects that Dexter is hiding credentials for a secret account somewhere in their apartment, but after hours of searching for the codes, she is unsuccessful.

Dexter returns home later that night, exhausted from the trip. After he falls asleep, Kate searches his wallet, but she finds nothing. She also checks his mobile phone. Although she doesn’t find the account details there either, she notices that he hadn’t made any calls while in London that day or on any of his past business trips. She suspects that he has a work phone, and when she looks through his briefcase, she finds it. The second phone contains records of two calls to a woman named Marlena. The only other contact on the phone is a man named Niko.

The next day, she searches through more of the house for the account credentials. She is so obsessed with looking for clues that she forgets to feed her children. Dexter later returns home and startles Kate while she is cooking, accidentally causing her to burn herself with the sauté pan. Dexter treats her burn.

At school, Kate and the other expatriate mothers talk about their respective husbands doing housework. This reminds her of when Dexter recently fixed the bureau drawer. She deconstructs the bureau and finds a slip of paper with the credentials.

Kate tries to reconstruct the bureau, but her son, Jake, interrupts her, asking for help in changing the television channel. Kate loses her temper and sends him away. Later, her other son, Ben, asks what she is doing. Kate doesn’t answer directly but asks him to promise not to tell Dexter what he saw. Dexter returns home before she can finish reconstructing the bureau, so she quickly hides her tools. He sends her off to pack her things for their trip while he finishes packing the boys’ clothes. Soon after, Kate sees that Dexter has uncovered the hidden tools. He says nothing about them.

The Moores travel to Amsterdam. As they walk around the city, Kate thinks again about how she will explain everything that she has learned to Dexter. While they eat at a restaurant, Dexter asks Kate about the tools. She lies, saying that she was fixing the window shade. Later, Kate asks Ben if he told Dexter anything. Ben denies it. The next day, while they are walking around, Kate notices a familiar woman watching her from nearby.

The novel flashes forward to the day of the Prelude. Kate retrieves the handgun from her lockbox. She thinks about how Dexter had allowed Kate to choose where they would live and realizes this could have been a manipulation. She hides the gun in her handbag. She then calls an unspecified number, and the person on the other end directs her to visit a ladies’ lounge at the department store. She reaches the lounge and answers the ringing payphone. Hayden is on the other end. She asks to meet and tells him that it’s about the 50 million euros that were recently stolen.

Kate realizes that Julia and Bill have been watching them for months, tracking their movements ever since Julia installed a device on their car. Later that evening, Kate withdraws 4,000 euros from her bank accounts. She buys plastic bags and tape, and she puts most of the money in one bag, which she tapes into her boot. At a secret club, she finds a man to help her buy a gun. Kate takes off most of her clothes to prove that she isn’t wearing a wire and isn’t trying to get the dealer arrested. She bargains with the dealer and settles on a price worth most of the amount she has withdrawn. Soon after, the Moores return to Luxembourg.

Kate is about to use the credentials she found in the bureau on different bank websites when she realizes that Julia might have planted spyware on their computer. She asks Claire if she can use her computer instead and eventually arrives at the correct bank. She examines the account and sees that it contains over 25 million euros. She borrows one of Claire’s cars and drives through the countryside, trying to figure out what Dexter must have done with the rest of the money. She reaches the listed address for the secret bank account and finds an empty farmhouse.

Kate goes to a get-together for the expatriate mothers. On the way home, she suspects she is being followed. When someone begins to chase her, she hides, only then realizing that the person chasing her isn’t a man.

The novel flashes forward to the day of the Prelude. Kate is instructed to meet Hayden at a museum restaurant. Hayden brings up the stolen money. Kate indicates that she wants something in exchange for the information.

Kate goes to a government building to ask about Dexter’s business registration. She learns that Dexter registered the business in Luxembourg a full year before they had relocated from Washington, around the same time that he left his previous bank job. On the way to her car, she becomes paranoid that someone is following her. She gets into the vehicle and notices someone in the backseat. It’s Bill. He tells her to stop the car near a park, where they meet with Julia.

Bill and Julia confront Kate about Dexter, revealing that they had previously traced a hijacked transaction of 1 million dollars back to him. They suspect that Dexter then planned the move from Washington to Luxembourg to flee arrest. The FBI is especially interested in Dexter because his methods are unknown. Dexter committed another robbery around Thanksgiving. They show her several photos of him in each of the cities he had been to for work, including several of him with the woman named Marlena. Kate doubts that the photos are real, so Julia tells her to cross-reference them with his dates of travel. She adds that Dexter had committed a third robbery while in Zurich, stealing 25 million euros from a Serbian arms dealer.

Kate asks why they are telling her all of this, but they let her figure it out herself. Kate’s mobile phone rings with a call from Claire, who tells her that Jake and Ben are the last two boys left to be picked up from school. Kate excuses herself and leaves.

Kate spends a sleepless night trying to look for more clues. When she realizes there is nothing else to find, she quietly wakes Dexter up and asks him to follow her outside.

The narrative shifts to later that day when Kate goes to a restaurant to meet with the Macleans. Julia points to the absence of Dexter’s employment and income records as signs that he is lying about his work. Kate stands her ground, suggesting that their evidence is circumstantial. Finally, they ask her to help them in securing more evidence.

That evening, Kate and Dexter have dinner at a fancy restaurant, where she confronts him about his criminal activity. She tells him that she learned everything through Bill and Julia. Dexter searches her in the restroom to prove that she isn’t wearing a wire. Although Kate doesn’t mention it, her wristwatch has been fitted with a transmitter by the FBI, who are listening in on their conversation. However, Dexter provides an alibi that he and Kate worked out earlier that morning: Rather than stealing transaction funds, he has been making a living as a day trader who hacks into corporate computers to steal insider information. Dexter also explains that Marlena is a sex worker who helps him by seducing corporate officers.

Kate and Dexter discuss how to stop the Macleans from investigating them. Dexter suggests simply cutting off relations with Bill and Julia, letting enough time pass that they close the investigation. They agree to pretend that Julia had attempted to seduce Dexter, offending Kate.

The novel flashes forward to the evening after the Prelude. Kate and Dexter meet with Bill and Julia. Dexter brings up the message about Colonel Petrovic, and Bill explains that the colonel was the victim of a recent robbery. To compensate for the failed exchange, Colonel Petrovic began transferring all his personal assets to the supposed recipient in the transaction, a former Russian general called Velten. He then attempted to arrange a new deal with Velten, which also failed due to information leaks. After a brief period of hiding, the colonel was kidnapped in New York and eventually tortured to death.

The novel returns to the scene in which Kate wakes Dexter up. Once they are both outside, she finally confronts him about everything she has learned and asks him to either admit or deny it. He admits to her accusations, so Kate tells him that Bill and Julia have been investigating them on behalf of Interpol. Dexter explains that he stole from Colonel Petrovic, the man who tortured and killed Dexter’s older brother, Daniel. Dexter spent years collecting reports and intelligence on Colonel Petrovic, collaborating with an old friend of the colonel’s named Smolec. More recently, he discovered a method to steal money during transactions, and he decided to use this method against Colonel Petrovic to eventually get him killed.

Kate argues that Dexter’s actions could be interpreted as the work of a vigilante and thief, but Dexter rebuts that he is trying to seek justice for his brother. Dexter explains how he opened his firm in Luxembourg, setting his plan to humiliate the colonel in motion. Before robbing Colonel Petrovic, Dexter tested his robbery method on a law firm for a corrupt health insurance company. Kate realizes that he stole from the same health insurance company that denied her father’s claims when he was dying. Once he was ready, he asked Kate to move to Luxembourg.