Sorry for the long absence, I have been dealing with some family issues over the past few months and they have taken priority over almost everything else in life (as they should!) I’m back with another spoiler post as well as a new category coming up for the blog that doesn’t focus solely on books.
Book Summary:
Lee Gulliver never thought she’d find herself living on the streets—no one ever does—but when her restaurant fails, and she falls deeper into debt, she leaves her old life behind with nothing but her clothes and her Toyota Corolla. In Seattle, she parks in a secluded spot by the beach to lay low and plan her next move—until early one morning, she sees a sobbing woman throw herself into the ocean. Lee hauls the woman back to the surface, but instead of appreciation, she is met with fury. The drowning woman, Hazel, tells her that she wanted to die, that she’s trapped in a toxic, abusive marriage, that she’s a prisoner in her own home. Lee has thwarted her one chance to escape her life.
Out of options, Hazel retreats to her gilded cage, and Lee thinks she’s seen the last of her, until her unexpected return the next morning. Bonded by disparate but difficult circumstances, the women soon strike up a close and unlikely friendship. And then one day, Hazel makes a shocking request: she wants Lee to help her disappear. It’ll be easy, Hazel assures her, but Lee soon learns that nothing is as it seems, and that Hazel may not be the friend Lee thought she was.
Spoilers Below!
First perspective is from Lee:
During the pandemic, Lee’s restaurant in NYC fails. She borrows money to try to keep things afloat, but borrows from a shady guy who threatens to break her fingers until she pays him back. In an attempt to get some money to pay that debt, she tries to blackmail her sister’s cheating husband, but that backfires as well. So she takes off in her car and ends up in Seattle.
Lee rescues Hazel who is trying to drown herself in the ocean. Hazel tells Lee that she has an abusive husband. They started off with a consensual dominant/submissive relationship but she ended up signing a Total Power Exchange contract making her the slave and her husband the master. She can’t leave the relationship because her mother has Alzheimer’s Disease and her husband is paying for her care, plus Benjamin is a high powered attorney.
Hazel and Lee start making plans for each of their escape from their lives, talking about getting new documents and where they would go.
Lee meets personal trainer Jesse and is very taken by how kind and caring he is to her. She shares what she and Hazel are planning with him and he says he will help because his mom was abused by his stepfather.
Hazel says she has found somewhere to get documents on the dark web and has sold some jewelry to pay for it. Hazel wants to go to Panama.
Lee sees Hazel out in the town with her friends and Hazel pretends like she doesn’t know Lee and gives her money like she is a panhandler. Lee gets mad and doesn’t go back to the beach. She spends the night with Jesse and they have sex.
Hazel makes an appointment for the two of them to go to a spa together, but when Lee arrives Hazel isn’t there. At the end they want her to pay and she doesn’t have money. After multiple frantic calls to Hazel, she finally shows up and pays for it. Hazel has a bruise on her face and says it’s important for her to leave Benjamin ASAP.
Passports have arrived. The big problem is that there are cameras in Hazel’s house where her husband watches her. She also has security people who follow her around. They come up with a plan–since Lee’s new haircut makes her look kind of like Hazel, Hazel will go to the gym and Lee will meet her there. They exchange clothes. Hazel will get a cab to the airport, Lee will drive Hazel’s car back to Hazel’s house. That way her husband will see “her” on camera so Hazel has time to get to the airport. Lee will then leave and get back to her own car and disappear.
She tells Jess her plans, he worries it’s not safe. At Jesse’s Lee can’t find her car keys and starts to panic. He goes outside and finds them.
Lee and Hazel put their plan in motion. Lee goes to Hazel’s house. She snoops a little and goes into Benjamin’s study. Where she finds a dead body in a pool of blood. Jesse.
Switch to Hazel’s Perspective:
We learn about the history of Benjamin and Hazel’s relationship. Everything in her life is controlled by him. Her only escape is exercise. She goes to the gym where she meets a trainer named Jesse.
They start sneaking out of the gym to go to his apartment for sex. They fall in love. Jesse proposes a plan. Hazel can leave her husband–because he will think she is dead. She will pretend to drown herself by suicide. Jesse will get her a new passport, she will leave a note and Jesse will borrow a boat from a friend. He’ll fish her out of the water and they will head to the airport and fly to Panama.
We know what happens next: when Hazel goes into the water, Lee saves her. Hazel is angry, but tries not to show it. Hazel tells Jesse they will try again soon.
Benjamin tells her she is spending too much time at the gym and can’t go so much anymore. She forgets to make a phone call he wanted her to, so he beats her back and leaves bruises. She shows Jesse. Jesse says he met Lee, and says that they can kill Benjamin with Lee’s knife and frame her for his murder. That way they can live in luxury. He swears to Hazel there is no physical relationship between him and Lee.
The encounter with Lee on the street works to Hazel’s advantage in this plan. She tells her friends that Lee has been hanging around her home, painting Lee as a stalker.
Lee reveals to Hazel that she and Jesse are having sex.
Jesse and Hazel make a plan to get the keys from Lee in order to get the knife from her car. He throws them out the window, then retrieves them when Lee finds them missing.
Hazel says she will hide the knife in the laundry room. Jesse will get it and stab Benjamin while Hazel sets Lee up with their pretend plan. While Lee is at the spa, Jesse hits Hazel in the face to make it look like Benjamin hit her.
The more Hazel thinks about it, she realizes that Jesse is lying to her about sleeping with Lee, so she doesn’t really trust him. She throws Lee’s knife into the ocean.
The next day, she goes to the gym to start the plan with Lee. Her hope is that when Jesse gets to the house and finds it locked, he will leave. She doesn’t want to set Lee up.
When Hazel arrives back home, she goes into the study. She finds Benjamin sitting there, and he wants to know where she has been.
Switch back to Lee:
She runs from the house, scrubs off the blood in the ocean. Finds a note from Lee to start over again and the cash and passport. She also finds her car exactly where Hazel says she left it. Lee searches Hazel’s apartment, finds a social security card in the name of Carter Douglas Sumner. She also finds a journal.
In an internet cafe, she finds that Carter Sumner and his brother Sean had faced charges for a home invasion that turned violent. She finds a photo and realizes that Carter Sumner is Jesse. Sean is in a halfway house after being released from prison.
Looking through Jesse’s journal, she finds a phone number. She calls the number. A man answers and says “Lee? Is that you?”
Lee meets with Sean who says his brother turned on him, Carter got a lesser sentence. Sean is mad that Carter’s lawyer convinced him to turn on his brother. That lawyer? Benjamin.
Lee gets a phone call from Hazel’s phone, but it is Benjamin, the same voice she heard when she called the number earlier. She agrees to meet Benjamin at a park.
Benjamin says he helped Jesse change his name and get the job at the gym. He knew Hazel and Jesse were seeing each other and knew they were planning to try to kill him. He tells Lee she needs to get out of town or he could set her up for Jesse’s murder because her fingerprints are all over everything. He gives her money and a plane ticket to Austin where his friend has a restaurant.
Lee goes back to the internet cafe and does some research about Panama. Jesse’s pen rolls off the counter and she discovers a USB drive inside. She listens to them and then tries to decide what to do.
Back to Hazel:
Right where we left off, in Benjamin’s study. Hazel is playing dumb, but Benjamin seems to know everything and says she will never see Jesse again. He tells her Jesse’s real name and that he was Jesse’s lawyer.
Time passes and Hazel is pretty much a captive. She decides to commit suicide and schedule a video to post later revealing everything about Benjamin’s abuse. Just when she starts to take alcohol and sleeping pills, the doorbell rings. The police are there to arrest Benjamin for conspiring to murder Hazel.
No one really believes her about the Total Power contract or the abuse, and she can’t seem to find a copy of it. Hazel decides to lie and not tell the police about Jesse. She also denies the affair to her own lawyer.
A friend tells Hazel that Benjamin had a first wife, Karolina, who eventually escaped from him and returned home to Poland. Hazel messages Karolina via Facebook and wants to talk to her. When Hazel gets the phone call, it is Karolina’s brother who said she died in a car accident. The brother blames Benjamin for the suicide.
Hazel goes to the bank and discovers that $50,000 has been taken in cash advances from her credit cards.
Hazel’s mother goes missing from her care facility, Hazel is convinced Benjamin is behind it.
Hazel goes to the prosecutor’s office to hear the evidence they have on Benjamin. It is an audio recording of him hiring a man to kill Hazel.
Benjamin hired Carter/Jesse to kill Hazel. He will pay him $50k to do it. Benjamin gets Jesse the job at the gym with the express purpose to seduce Hazel. He is to take her out on a boat, drug her, and toss her in the water to die.
Hazel realizes that the only reason she is alive is because of Lee. Lee saved her in the ocean, and Lee sent the thumb drive to the police.
The charges against Benjamin are dropped because they can’t find Carter/Jesse.
Hazel cuts and dyes her hair, buys a different car, and drives off. She gets a new cell phone and calls the nursing home. They have found her mother dead. Benjamin finds her by tracking her using that number.
He admits to everything, but also says he is going to have Hazel involuntarily committed to a mental institution. Hazel scratches him with a key and is able to get in her car and drive away. She realizes that there is no way she will be able to escape Benjamin’s clutches for long. She returns to the cove where Lee used to park. She gets a phone call from the police that they have found a jawbone to match Carter/Jesse.
Benjamin’s security guard is talking, implicates Benjamin in everything.
Epilogue:
Lee is now running a restaurant in Panama. Hazel shows up and volunteers to work for her.
