Keep It in the Family

The narrative shifts to Dave’s perspective in the present as he secretly follows Mia. Having eavesdropped on a conversation between Mia and Finn, Dave suspects that Mia is close to uncovering family secrets that Dave wants to keep hidden. So, he follows Mia as she drives out of town to attend the funeral of a little girl named Abigail, whose body was discovered in the attic. As Mia enters the church, Dave watches her from his car.

The narrative shifts to Mia’s perspective as she attends the funeral. She has not noticed Dave watching her, but she tortures herself by scanning the faces of the other mourners and wondering if the little girl’s killer is among them. Although she has no connection to Abigail or her family, Mia hopes that attending the funeral will bring her a sense of closure. While there, she meets Jasmine Johnson and her disabled daughter, Precious. Mia learns that Precious and Abigail were classmates and that both of them were kidnapped at the same time, but while Abigail’s body was undiscovered for more than 30 years, Precious was found in the road with severe head injuries. Police tried to downplay Precious’s accident, insisting that her case was unrelated to Abigail’s, but Jasmine has always believed that the two children were taken by the same person. Jasmine shows Mia a class photo of Abigail and Precious as children, and Mia realizes that her father-in-law, Dave, was their classmate. When Mia mentions that she knows Dave, Precious begins screaming. Although Precious is unable to communicate why she is upset, Mia suspects that Dave may have been involved in Precious’s accident and might even be connected to Abigail’s murder.

The narrative shifts to Debbie’s perspective on the following day. Debbie notices that Mia is in a better mood and is more mentally engaged with her family. When Debbie offers to look after Sonny for the day, Mia replies that she wants to spend more time with him. Although Debbie has harbored doubts about Mia’s fitness as a mother, she is strangely angry now that Mia wants to connect with her son. Instead of being pleased that Mia is recovering, Debbie feels that Mia is stealing Sonny from her and begins thinking of ways to drive a wedge between Mia and Sonny so that she can have him all to herself.

The narrative shifts back in time to the stalker’s perspective, 24 years earlier. Sitting in a school parking lot, the stalker is reading a newspaper article about the notorious British serial killer, Fred West. They are alarmed to think that others might identify similarities between their murders and Fred West’s, and the narrator feels angry and misunderstood. As the stalker reflects on how different other serial killers are from them, the school bell rings, and they join the queue of parents waiting to collect their children. When a certain child approaches them, the stalker takes their hand and, together, they head home.

The narrative shifts to Mia as she nervously attempts to confront Dave about his connection to Precious and Abigail. She produces the class photo that Jasmine Johnson gave her and presents him with irrefutable evidence that he went to school with one of the murdered children. Faced with the proof, Dave admits to knowing Precious and Abigail but shrugs it off, implying that this fact has no bearing on the case. Mia pushes him for answers, arguing that he should have shared this connection with her and Finn, and that not mentioning it is suspicious. She and Dave argue until Sonny’s cries pull Mia away from the conversation.