The following version of this book was used to create the guide: McFadden, Freida. The Crash. Poisoned Pen Press, 2025. Kindle Version.

As the novel opens, Tegan spends time with Jackson who is helping her during her unplanned pregnancy. Jackson works for Simon, the baby’s father, and it is his job to manage Tegan during this time. Neither Tegan nor Jackson knows that Simon raped Tegan until Simon comes to her apartment, and his cologne triggers the memory of the rape in Tegan’s mind. Simon is a wealthy man, and he designed a nondisclosure agreement where he will provide the financially struggling soon-to-be mother with money to raise the baby as long as she will sign the agreement. Once she remembers the rape, she refuses to sign the document.

Tegan calls the only real person she has in her life, Dennis. He convinces her to drive out to see him. She does so, in a pending snow storm, and she crashes her car before she can make it to him. While she is trapped with an injured leg in her car, a man, Hank, comes and rescues her. He takes her to his home because the roads are too bad to take her to the hospital, and his wife, Polly, is a nurse. Tegan is afraid of Hank and soon comes to believe that he is holding her hostage. She further believes that he is abusing Polly and that they both need to escape from him.

Part 2 reveals the details as they actually are when the narrative begins to focus on Polly. Polly and Hank were unable to conceive babies, and they currently do not have access to adoption. Polly jumps to conclusions about Tegan and believes that Tegan will make a poor mother. She plans to keep Tegan in their basement until the baby is born. She believes that during this time, she will be able to convince Tegan to give Polly and Hank her baby.

Tegan is quite ill from her injury, and her pain increases as the health of her baby decreases. Eventually she begins to hallucinate as her infection spreads to her blood. Polly knows that Tegan is in danger, and she goes out to get her oral antibiotics. While she is gone, however, Hank sees Tegan and realizes that she is in imminent danger. He takes Tegan to the hospital. Tegan plans to tell the authorities about how Polly held her hostage.

While in the hospital, Dennis comes to visit Tegan. After Tegan falls asleep, Dennis tries to give her a lethal dose of morphine, but Polly stops him. She had come to kill Tegan as well but could not get herself to do it. Dennis planned to take his sister’s life because he had a deal with Simon, and Simon would not carry through with that deal unless Tegan signed the agreement. Tegan never turns in Polly because she knows that ultimately Polly and Hank saved both her life and her baby, Tia’s, life.

After Tia is born, Jackson starts spending a lot of time with Tia and Tegan. Tegan believes that one day a romance will develop. Meanwhile, Simon and Dennis both go to jail. The novel ends with the discovery that Hank killed a man named Mitch who had been abusing his daughter, Sadie. Sadie and Polly had been close for quite awhile, and after Mitch’s death, they adopt Sadie, finally completing their family.