Every Last Secret

Neena notices a change in William, who seems to be avoiding her. Then, he asks her to meet in the boardroom, where they can’t be seen. William confronts Neena about the abortion; Neena admits it’s true. William calls Neena out on her attempts to seduce him: “Cut the crap, Neena. I don’t buy your sweet-and-innocent routine. Either you want this or. You. Don’t. Which is it?” (171). The chapter concludes with William preparing to have sex with Neena in the boardroom.

Cat talks to her friend Kelly, still away for the summer, on the phone. Kelly asks about Neena, and Cat confirms that Neena has become problematically close to William. After her phone call with Kelly, Cat checks her email and finds an update from the private investigator, who is now following Neena and William. The email includes pictures of Neena visiting William at Winthorpe Technologies—on the same day that William asked Cat to fly back from Hawaii. Cat realizes that William lied to her when he said that he’d been alone at the office.

She’s at home with Matt. It’s been four days since Neena and William first had sex in the boardroom at Winthorpe Technologies, and Neena wonders why William hasn’t pursued her further. The Ryders are having the Winthorpes over for dinner. Matt and William retreat to watch football before dinner, leaving Cat and Neena alone to talk. Cat gives Neena a belated birthday gift. Opening the box, Neena is shocked to find a “trashy, cheap sex toy” (182). Neena is also thrown by the fact that Cat has a new ring—it’s an upgrade from Cat’s previous wedding ring, a new gift from William. Neena is jealous and becomes critical of her own two-carat ring. As the group sits down to eat, Neena brings out a bottle of Cat’s favorite limoncello, just for Cat. Matt, William, and Neena don’t really like limoncello; only Matt has a sip. Cat drinks a lot throughout dinner and then starts to feel ill. She ends up vomiting.

Cat is convinced that her illness is not simply alcohol-related, as Neena insists. William drives Cat to the hospital, where they discover that she’s been poisoned with antifreeze. A sweet liquid, like limoncello, would perfectly mask the taste. Cat plays dumb, asking William, “[I]f the limoncello had antifreeze in it—how? Who?” (190). William doesn’t reply. Matt and Neena arrive to the hospital to see how Cat is doing, and William sends them away. William is clearly rattled by Cat’s close call. No one suspects Cat could have poisoned herself.

When Matt and Neena get home from the hospital, Matt confronts Neena, asking her if she put anything in the limoncello. Neena denies doing so. Matt immediately thinks of their shared past. He says, “I won’t protect you. This isn’t like before. What I did…I can’t go down that path again. It just about killed me” (194).

Encountering Matt at the hospital for his cast removal, Cat asks him if he ever researched the railing that gave way and led to his fall. Matt doesn’t know what Cat is talking about. According to Cat, the railing was secure—except for the part that Matt had leaned on. That part of the railing was held in place by only a single screw. The holes for the other screws were there, but the screws were gone. Implying that Neena removed the screws, Cat says, “I told Neena about it. She told me to throw away the damaged items and that she’d show them to you later […] You did see them, didn’t you?” (196). Thinking he is protecting Neena, Matt lies and says yes. The chapter concludes with Cat revealing that Neena couldn’t have told Matt about the missing screws because she didn’t know about them.

It’s later revealed that Cat orchestrated this meeting at the hospital with Matt so that she could tell him this (false) story about Neena knowing about the missing screws and asking Cat to throw away the remnants of the balcony railing (implying that Neena tried to kill Matt).

Neena returns home from work to find Matt examining the balcony railing. Matt asks Neena about the missing screws. Neena doesn’t know what he’s talking about; she never discussed any missing screws with Cat. Neena tells Matt, “Missing screws, someone poisoning Cat? You’re paranoid” (199). Matt denies being paranoid.

Chapter 38 is told from the perspective of an anonymous male narrator—a hitman. The man describes watching the Ryders’ house, then waiting for them to go to sleep, sneaking into their bedroom, and putting a gun in Matt’s mouth. Matt wakes up with the gun in his mouth. The hitman pulls the trigger.

When the hitman pulled the trigger of the gun, nothing happened. The hitman fled, and Matt, screaming to call 911, woke up Neena. Now, the police are at the Ryders’ home. The Ryders don’t have a working security system, so the police can’t check for video footage of the hitman. Matt describes what happened for the detective—waking up with a gun in his mouth, the hitman pulling the trigger, and the clicking of the faulty gun. When the detective questions Neena, she suggests the incident might have been a dream: “Matt takes sleeping pills at night. Maybe he thought it happened and it didn’t” (208). When Matt overhears, he is livid that Neena doubts him.

Cat and William are at home, when the chief of police calls to tell them what happened at the Ryders’ house. (The chief of police calls them because the Winthorpes wield power in the Atherton community—they’re generous donors to the police department.) Hoping for a clue as to the hitman’s identity, the police come to the Winthorpe home to check the video footage from their security system. Cat and William accompany the police to the Ryder home, where they hear Matt yelling at Neena.

Matt is angry that Neena suggested to the detective that Matt may have imagined what happened. Neena tells Matt, “If someone was in our room, it wasn’t to kill us. He was robbing us. You’re being overdramatic and it’s causing them to look at this in the wrong way.” She adds, internally, “To look at me in the wrong way” (217). William and Cat’s arrival interrupts Matt and Neena’s argument.

Cat describes the police as they go through the Ryders’ home. The police are treating the house as a crime scene and securing a search warrant to look through everything, including computers and phone records. Cat notices how this news causes Neena to panic. Cat reveals that when the chief of police called, Cat told him about Matt’s suspicious fall and Cat’s poisoning. As a result, the incident is being investigated as an attempted homicide, not a home invasion. Cat thinks to herself, “This is why we shelled out six figures last year for the police department” (219). As the police search the Ryder home, Neena and Matt ask the Winthorpes to go home.

Neena describes the police’s discovery of a cavity under the floor of the Ryders’ master bedroom. There, the police find stacks of cash. They also find photographs of William and Cat—printouts from Cat’s Instagram. Cat’s head has been replaced with Neena’s in the photos. Neena realizes, “It looked like the work of a crazy person. Me” (224). Matt is livid and confronts Neena, asking if she’s having an affair with William. Neena denies having an affair and tells Matt the photos are a setup. Matt doesn’t believe her and tells the detectives searching their home that they may also want to check the safe. Neena realizes, “My husband, my sweet, stupid husband, had betrayed me” (226). Matt knows that Neena’s will, kept in the safe, implicates them in the murder of her father.