Clark draws on a Shakespearean stage strategy, the use of foils, characters who reflect facets of the same theme in different ways. For example, Fran Simmons is a foil to Molly Lasch. Fran's knowledge of Molly's youth and Molly's knowledge of Fran's enable them to provide readers with positive information about each other. Both have experienced trauma, Molly in the present, Fran in the past. Molly has been falsely accused and suffered the consequences; Fran's father has been, to some degree, falsely accused, and he and his family have suffered the consequences. The two women are both vulnerable in many ways yet strong in others, particularly in their sense of right.

Both have experienced the negative effects of rumor and gossip and the notoriety of being associated with a crime. Molly sees Jenna with all the blindness of a longtime friend, but Fran, though also a former school...