Summary

As the novel opens, an unfamiliar teenage girl in dirty soccer cleats arrives at Hannah’s door with a note from Owen. The girl reports that Owen gave her the note at school and paid her to deliver it to Hannah. Hannah wonders if Owen might be playing a joke on her, since it is so odd that he would ask some teenage girl to deliver this note to their house. Still, she feels a sense of dread as she opens the note, which says simply: “Protect her” (7).

After opening Owen’s disconcerting note, Hannah recalls her life before she met Owen, when she was a renowned woodturner in Manhattan. Avett Thompson, the CEO of the tech firm where Owen works, and his wife, Belle, were her clients, and had come to New York for an investor meeting. While they were there...