No One Can Know: A Novel

Daphne has a one-bedroom cottage in Arden Hills, five miles from her childhood home. When she is not travelling, she stays at the cottage. Few recognize her because her appearance has changed over the years. She goes to the Palmer house, where she finds Nathan out and Emma asleep. Seeing prenatal vitamins on the kitchen counter, Daphne concludes Emma is pregnant. She makes toast for her sister and places it on the bedside table as Emma sleeps. She unlocks Emma’s phone and activates a location tracking app. Daphne feels Nathan does not love Emma enough. She will do whatever it takes to ensure Emma is safe.

At the time of the murders, Emma examines her eighth oil painting, a portrait of Gabriel. She has been taking painting lessons from Lorelei, Gabriel’s grandmother. Although her parents disapprove of her art lessons, Emma loves oil painting. Irene spots the portrait and asks if Emma is sleeping with him. Emma is astonished because she has not even kissed anyone yet. Irene tells Emma to stay away from Gabriel and go downstairs to play the piano. Emma dislikes playing and punches the keys too hard in the effort to produce a tune. Irene shuts the fallboard to protect the keys, bringing it down on Emma’s hand and badly bruising her fingers. Juliette takes Emma’s place at the piano and plays flawlessly.

In the present, Emma recalls that she was mostly at Gabriel’s house the night of her parents’ murders, though they were not in a romantic relationship. When she returned home, she found Daphne in the treehouse, her clothes soaked with blood. Emma told Daphne to change and burned her clothes in the fireplace of the Saracen House, a nearby abandoned building. Afterward, she called the police.

Emma calls her lawyer, Chris, wondering if her parents had enemies. She knows Randolph had affairs. Chris recalls that Irene once told him she discovered something illegal and wanted to report it to the police, but she was too scared. Emma suddenly remembers a hidden flash drive and a green post-it-note with numbers scribbled on it. Just then, seeing two teenage boys flinging a rock at the house, Emma hangs up and follows them to the Saracen House. The boys apologize and leave. Emma recalls that all the cool teenagers in her youth spent time at the ruined building. Inside, Emma finds carved initials and discovers that Juliette did one of them. This seems impossible, since Juliette, the perfect child, would never visit Saracen House.

Emma goes to the Mahoney residence to ask Gabriel about Juliette’s past. Emma talks to Lorelei about Kenneth Mahoney, Gabriel’s father and Lorelei’s son, who went missing two months before the Palmers murders. Kenneth struggled with alcohol addiction, and Lorelei raised Gabriel. Emma apologizes to Gabriel for leaving him with no alibi and asks about Juliette. Gabriel replies that he heard Juliette was dating Logan Ellis, the police chief’s son, and used to meet him at the Saracen House. Logan used to run an illegal side business selling prescription drugs. Gabriel asks about Emma’s renewed interest in the past. She tells him she does not want her child to think she is a murderer.

Gabriel confides that he suspects his own father, Kenneth, of the murders. Kenneth worked for Randolph, who fired him for theft months before the murders. Kenneth was never seen again, but may have returned for revenge on the Palmers. Lorelei, however, says that Kenneth’s theft charge was false. He was fired because he found a discrepancy in the cargo weights of Randolph’s trucks and brought it to his notice. Everyone believed Randolph’s version because of his wealth and supposed respectability.

At the time of the murders, Emma secretly prepares an art portfolio to apply to UCLA and thinks fondly about Daphne’s interest in poisonous plants. Emma has not told her parents about her UCLA application because her parents have decreed the girls can only go to colleges located within an hour of home. Just then, her parents call her downstairs and tell her they discovered Emma’s UCLA application, through Daphne. Randolph orders Irene to leave the room and beats Emma. Upstairs, Irene slashes Emma’s portrait of Gabriel. When Emma discovers this, she shoves her mother. Randolph intercepts and punches her, then destroys the rest of her portfolio. Emma leaves.

In the present day, Emma returns from Gabriel’s house and to find Nathan, back from the hardware store, angry at her for breaking her promise and leaving the house. Emma tells Nathan that he cannot imprison her. Nathan asks Emma about her visit to Gabriel’s house, revealing he has been tracking her phone. Emma is stunned at the violation but before she can respond, Nathan accuses her of harboring feelings for Gabriel. Emma explains that she is trying to investigate her parents’ deaths. Meanwhile, Gabriel sends Emma an old photo of Juliette, taken at Saracen House. In the photo, Juliette wears a red flannel shirt and oversized Doc Martens. Emma remembers Juliette wearing the shirt the night of her parents’ death, but not the shoes, which Emma decides means the Doc Marten footprints are not Juliette’s.

On the night of the murder, Juliette sneaks out of the house at 11 o’clock, ditching her usual dress for jeans and her secret, beloved Doc Martens. She says goodbye to Daphne, who is in the treehouse. Juliette knows Daphne won’t tell on her. Logan picks up Juliette and gives her relaxant drugs. They go to Saracen House and drink with many other teenagers. Nina, an older girl, joins the group. Juliette thinks Nina is cool, and the two girls kiss as a dare. When Juliette realizes she may have feelings for Nina, she panics and leaves.

In the present day, Nathan installs security cameras around the house. Emma dislikes the cameras, feeling that they give Nathan more opportunity to watch her. Meanwhile, JJ comes over with the keys to the carriage house, which Nathan requested unbeknownst to Emma. Emma is weak from morning sickness, and JJ helps Emma up when she swoons. The sisters discuss the scene of their parents’ murder: Randolph, shot in the back of the head, died instantly, his brain matter splattered the floor. Irene’s death was longer, as she bled out from a bullet wound in the chest. When Emma asks JJ if she ever went out with Logan, JJ grows evasive and leaves. Emma and Nathan fight because he contacted JJ without telling Emma and brought her father’s guns in from the carriage house, ostensibly for their protection. Emma asks Nathan to get the guns off her property.

Emma and Nathan spend the night apart. Emma reflects that she and Nathan usually do not fight because she avoids contentious issues or adapts to Nathan’s point of view. However, now she feels vestiges of her rebellious teenage self beginning to reappear and refuses to submit to Nathan. She finds a half-assembled gun on the dinner table. She cleans it, an expert at handling guns because Randolph taught all his daughters how to shoot and maintain them. When Emma tries to go outside for some air, Nathan grabs her arm hard. He lets go eventually.

Emma goes to the bar where Logan works to ask him about his relationship with the teenage JJ. Logan says that he really liked JJ. The night of the murders, JJ was at Saracen House for a while but ran away. To Emma’s surprise, Logan reveals that he sold Irene drugs for nearly five years. He suspects she dropped him when she began using harder drugs, such as heroin. Logan does not sell drugs anymore. Emma asks if Logan knows who sold her mother heroin, but he has no idea.