Those Empty Eyes

On a train leaving Paris, Alex reflects on how the police chalked her family’s murders up to a botched home invasion—a theory that doesn’t explain the lone fingerprint found on the windowsill and the photo of three women left at the bottom of her parents’ bed. Alexandra has been investigating these two pieces of evidence, along with a box of unmarked statements from a Swiss bank that she found in her father’s belongings, as she tries to solve the mystery herself.

Alex speaks to a banker at the Swiss bank where the statements originated. She transfers $1,000,000—money from her settlement—into the bank and then tries to bribe the banker to give her information about the statements. Since no name is attached to the statements, the banker refuses, so Alex leaves. However, the banker’s assistant, Drew Estes, recognizes Alex.

Upon seeing Alex leave the bank, Drew contacts his girlfriend. Both are true crime fanatics and are obsessed with the conspiracy theory that Alex Quinlan killed her family but got away with the murders.

Alex goes to a bar, where she thinks about how she’s going to explain to her guardian, Garrett Lancaster, why she moved $1,000,000 of her settlement money into a Swiss bank. From a booth in the bar, Drew and his girlfriend, Verne, watch her.

During one of her rare trips to campus, Alex encounters a girl who invites her out for drinks later that night and gets her address in doing so. The girl is Verne.

Later that night, Verne and Drew arrive at Alex’s apartment. They reveal that they know Alex’s history, and they threaten Alex that they’ll expose her location and identity to the paparazzi unless she gives them money. Alex haggles with the pair over how much money to pay them, while scheming about how to get to her bedroom. She tells them that she has 1,000 pounds in her room—enough to tide them over until she can properly manage a withdrawal of the larger amount they’re demanding. In her room, Alex instead retrieves a loaded gun that Garrett secretly and illegally got her when she first moved to England. Verne sneaks up behind Alex while she has the gun in hand, frightening her, and she inadvertently fires the gun. In the aftermath of the gunshot, Verne is on the floor, and Drew runs for the door, which suddenly bursts open.

Alex awakes 12 hours later with no memory of what happened after firing the gun. She’s in Leo’s apartment, and he explains that Garrett hired him to keep her safe. He followed her to Switzerland, where he noticed Drew and Verne starting to track her; he broke into her apartment immediately after hearing the gunshots. Leo reveals that he captured Drew and Verne.

Leo and Alex discuss what to do with Drew and Verne and how to keep them from going to the police. Leo describes the pair as “useful idiots,” which gives Alex an idea of what to do with them.

Under orders from Leo, Drew Estes returns to Switzerland to retrieve information from the bank where he works. Leo has threatened Verne’s life if Drew doesn’t comply.

Drew returns to London and meets Leo and Verne in a pub. There, Drew delivers documents he stole from his boss’s computer. Leo tells the couple that he’ll harm their families if either of them says anything about the encounter with Alex; Drew and Verne agree to stay silent.

Leo delivers the papers from the Swiss bank to Alex. When Alex leaves Leo’s apartment, a car pulls up. Garrett gets out of the car and tells Alex that she’s being removed from school and returned to the US, where he’ll give her a job.