Hidden Bodies

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2016

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-5

Chapters 6-10

Chapters 11-15

Chapters 16-20

Chapters 21-25

Chapters 26-30

Chapters 31-35

Chapters 36-40

Chapters 41-45

Chapters 46-50

Chapters 51-56

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

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Chapters 31-35Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapter 31 Summary

Joe changes clothes and puts Delilah in a giant duffel bag. He takes the Donzi boat from the Quinns’ pier and buries Delilah at sea. When he gets back to the dock Love is waiting and she is furious. He realizes that he overreacted. She thinks he is just like every man who gets jealous when his girlfriend gets attention. She asks him directly why he can’t just be happy for her.

They apologize and kiss. She says Monica and Forty broke up, and that she wants Joe to come with her to Palm Springs. She explains her relationship with Milo. She says he is her “third twin” and they are closer than she and Forty. They go inside as summer ends.

Chapter 32 Summary

Joe sees that Boots and Puppies already has an IMDB entry. The characters are named Harmony and Oren, who are a thinly disguised Love and Milo. The script is filled with love scenes. Joe thinks that Love should be at least slightly offended by the script, which looks like blatant manipulation by Milo, who finished it after meeting Joe.

They reach the house where they’ll be shooting and living. Joe hates the house. He hates watching Love and Milo kiss in their scenes. It is only day four of twenty-eight shooting days, and he feels like he’s losing his mind. Everyone refers to him as Love’s boyfriend and treats him like an errand worker. Then they change his name to Loverboy. He decides to start lifting so Love will notice him and announces that he is going for a run. On day seventeen, Milo hints that Joe can return to LA if he’s bored. On day Twenty-three, Love notices Joe’s growing arms. Immediately after she compliments Joe, Milo thanks Joe for being okay with the new scene, which Joe doesn’t know about. In the scene, Love’s character gives Milo’s character oral sex in the kitchen. Joe has two days to make sure that it doesn’t happen.

Chapter 33 Summary

There is only one day left in the shoot. Joe invites Milo to Coachella to see Beck perform. If he can kill the scene, he won’t have to kill Milo, but it doesn’t work. When he tries to convince Love to take his concern seriously, she says that it’s Oren who wants oral sex, not Milo. And she is Harmony, not Love. Barry says the addition of the explicit scene will get them into festivals, which will give them credibility on the independent circuit. Ray and Dottie empathize with Joe.

Love tells him that she and Milo slept together the morning before she met Joe. She brought Joe there to get rid of Milo, which actually makes him feel better. She then breaks her rule and gives Joe oral sex. During the act, Joe sees Milo watching, and he hopes he overheard their conversation.

Chapter 34 Summary

In the morning, Love texts Milo and says the oral sex scene in the movie is off. Forty texts Joe and says to go to the Ritz and ask for the Deuce Suite. When Joe arrives, there is a mountain of cocaine on the table, along with two sex workers. Forty says a producer named Megan Ellison is interested in their scripts, The Mess and The Third Twin. Love texts Joe to see if he knows where Forty is.

Joe calls and tells her that he is with Forty, then keeps watch until Joe returns to the film shoot. On the final day of the shoot, Joe is elated. Ray and Dottie are flying them out for a wrap party in Cabo and he feels that he has conquered Milo. Then Officer Robin Fincher arrives on set.

Chapter 35 Summary

Fincher says he’s investigating some local robberies. Joe sneaks to Fincher’s car and sees headshots of Fincher in the front seat. Fincher follows him and says that Delilah is missing. He punches Joe in the stomach and then kicks his knee. He says that Jim and Regina, Delilah’s parents, love their daughter. He says that Dez told him more than enough about Joe. Then Calvin showed Fincher Love’s Instagram page, which is how he found them. After more questions, he lets Joe go back inside. Joe knows he has to get rid of him.

Chapters 31-35 Analysis

Delilah’s reaction to Joe, when she saw him as he truly was, was visceral fear. She didn’t know anything was wrong with him until she found the bag, confronted him, and saw that far more was wrong with him than she could have guessed. Fincher, on the other hand, immediately realizes that Joe is not what he seems.

When Love confronts Joe about his behavior, she is unsparing. She says, “You were such a dick to me, Joe. The second we got the green light, you turned into one of those dickhead guys who doesn’t like it when his girlfriend gets attention” (241). This is ironic because, while Joe, a murderer, is not like most guys, his insecurities are as familiar to Love as they would be with any other man. After Joe apologizes, Love tries to explain her past with Milo, whom she claims also wants the best for Forty. Joe thinks, “Love is essentially asking me to tolerate her bond with another man, a good-looking fucker she’s known for longer than she’s known me. It’s impossible, like snow in Malibu. Absurd. But what can I do?” (243). Love may or may not be aware that she is testing Joe’s confidence and magnanimity, but Joe is aware and willing to attempt the feat.

The majority of the tension in the remainder of these chapters arises from the film shoot in Palm Springs. Love may have an innocent take on her relationship with Milo, but Milo obviously relishes being in control of the film—the directing, the writing, and his ability to influence Love’s actions. He never suggests that Joe should leave while Love is around, but whenever they are alone, he hints that Joe is bored, and that he might be better off waiting for them back in LA.

It is ironic that Joe’s idea of romantic love involves mutual possession, which does imply that it is transactional. He wants Love to belong to him, but he also wants to belong to her. However, he wants the mutual possession to be on his terms. He bristles when the crew begins referring to him as “Love’s boyfriend” (247), which is exactly what he wants to be. But he does not want to merely be someone’s boyfriend. To his credit, Joe plays along as best as he is able, until Milo adds the scene with oral sex to the script. In another example of petty, male insecurity, Milo adds the scene after Joe begins working out—and after Love notices his improved physique. Still, Joe is horrified by the scene. Love is willing to perform the act on a man in the film because she insists that it will not actually be her but the character. Milo pretends to be similarly mystified, because the character in the film receives the fellatio, not him.

Things improve when Love admits that she used Joe to get rid of Milo. She is willing to compromise and sacrifice something that matters to her for Joe, which is not something he experienced with Amy or Beck.

However, the familiar pattern repeats: just as Joe eliminates two potential complications—Delilah and Milo’s romantic advances—another appears in the form of Fincher.