No One Can Know: A Novel

Hadley, in his police car, intercepts JJ and Emma on their way back home. He tells Emma there is a warrant for her arrest and orders her out of the car. Emma gets out, telling Hadley about Chris’s arrangement for her to surrender herself. She asks what Hadley really wants from her. She knows all about the flash drive and Randolph’s robbery ring. Hadley, startled, asks Emma to give him the drive. Emma realizes she should not have told him about the drive. He threatens to kill her. Just then, JJ starts up the car and drives toward them.

In the car while Emma spoke with Hadley, JJ got a call from Logan, who says he wants to come clean. He admits that, months before the Palmer murders, Hadley confiscated his gun. JJ realizes Hadley is dangerous and drives toward him, screaming for Emma to get in the car. Hadley gets out of her way just in time. JJ speeds away, but is unable to control the car on the steep turn of the bridge and crashes into the river. JJ and Emma manage to escape the car into the fast-moving water. As JJ struggles to save Emma, the water brings up buried memories.

The night of her parents’ murders, JJ comes home from Saracen House and goes to her bedroom with the yellow wallpaper. She hears a gunshot. When she goes downstairs, she finds her mother in the hallway, holding a gun to her chest. Irene pulls the trigger, and JJ picks up the gun. After Daphne comes in, JJ flees to the river to wash off the blood. She dumps her Doc Martens in the water, confirming that the footprints at the murder scene were hers, after all. JJ walks away from the river bank, and Nina and Logan find her barefoot and disoriented.

In the present day, Emma chokes on river water as JJ pulls her to the bank. Hadley arrives and points his gun at them, demanding the flash drive. Emma realizes Hadley was the third man working with her father in the photo. Randolph and Hadley took Kenneth to the quarry and killed him. No one reported him missing because Lorelei believed Kenneth had secretly returned to leave her money. Emma accuses Hadley of killing her parents, but Hadley denies it, saying that he loved Irene, with whom he was having an affair. He gave Logan’s gun to Irene for her protection because she was afraid Randolph would harm her when she told him she was leaving. Emma is unsure whether Hadley is telling the truth.

Daphne, having tracked Emma’s location on her phone, arrives, distracting Hadley. Emma takes the opportunity to hurl herself into him, and JJ disarms him. Hadley tries to strangle Emma, but Daphne brings a rock on his head, nearly killing him. JJ says that Hadley must have killed Nathan after Chief Ellis told him Nathan had the flash drive. Privately, however, Emma is not sure; if Hadley murdered Nathan, he would have taken the drive. Daphne whispers the same words to Emma she did the night of her parents’ murder: “No one can know” (306).

The police search Hadley’s house and find the gun with the white grip, cleaned of prints, and the flash drive. The contents of the flash drive are enough to link Hadley with all three murders. Although Hadley’s face is obscured in the photo with Kenneth, the presence of his blue car in the background makes it clear he was at the scene of Kenneth’s murder. The police believe Hadley found out one of the Palmer girls saw the flash drive. He went to the Palmer house and shot Randolph dead. When he tried to shoot the girls, Irene stopped him and, in the tussle, Hadley inadvertently shot her. He tried to pin the blame on Emma, and after the investigation fizzled out, he sent the sisters anonymous letters to keep them apart. When Nathan discovered the drive, he told Chief Ellis, who told Hadley, leading Hadley to kill Nathan and take the drive. Emma, however, thinks the police’s theory is plausible but incorrect.

The Palmer sisters return to the house, absolved, with Hadley the prime suspect in both murder cases. JJ knows the police’s story is at best only partially true because she knows Irene shot herself. She theorizes that Irene did it because Randolph caught Daphne with the flash drive and planned to hurt her. Irene found out and killed Randolph, then herself. JJ knows this is speculation and decides to leave the past behind.

Emma and her sisters discuss whether they should tell the police the truth—that Hadley probably did not kill their parents. Daphne says it is pointless, and the matter should be left alone. Emma asks Daphne not to keep any more secrets and tell them the complete truth.

Daphne reveals that she killed Nathan, though she didn’t plan on it. She went to the carriage house for the gun and flash drive and found Nathan on his knees, having just recovered them. He pointed the gun at her, and she recalled overhearing a phone conversation in which Nathan told his girlfriend he would get full custody of the baby because Emma was a criminal. He would take her money and run. Daphne lunged at him, wrestling the gun from his hands and shooting him. She took the gun and flash drive. Aware Nathan’s murder would be pinned on Emma, Daphne decided to frame Hadley. She contacted Hadley’s wife under a fake name, offering to walk their dog. Mrs. Hadley agreed, giving Daphne access to their house. Daphne hid the revolver and drive in Hadley’s garage, hoping suspicion would eventually fall on Hadley.

Emma meets Gabriel by the river. She tells him she is not sure Hadley is guilty of all four murder charges: her parents, Nathan, and Kenneth Mahoney. Gabriel tells her to let it go because Hadley is not a good man. Emma does not tell Gabriel about Daphne’s confession. She believes Daphne about Nathan’s conversation with Addison and confesses to Gabriel that she did not love Nathan. Gabriel and Emma kiss. When Emma returns to the Palmer House, she tells JJ and Daphne that they should not go to the police. The sisters no longer need to lock the gates to the Palmer House, because it was never the outside world that threatened them; it was the world indoors.

Emma lives at the Palmer House with her six-month-old daughter, Wren. Daphne, Vic, and JJ visit often. Emma sees Gabriel every day, and it is only a matter of time before they officially become a couple. Playing with Wren, Daphne thinks that Wren is the only good thing Nathan did in his life. She is happy to have taken care of things, just as she did that night her parents died.

Daphne remembers telling Irene about the flash drive and Randolph’s phone call. She feared her father planned to kill the family to protect his secrets. Irene, not sensing the urgency of the danger, told Daphne she would talk to Randolph. Daphne took the gun Hadley gave her mother and shot Randolph in the head. When Irene saw what Daphne did, she ordered Daphne to give her the gun and leave immediately. Daphne obeyed her mother, but returned when she heard the second shot. Around the same time, JJ must have come downstairs and seen her mother shoot herself. Perhaps Irene meant to frame herself for Randolph’s murder to protect Daphne. Daphne knows that Hadley, in a coma, will not wake up to disprove his guilt. If he starts getting better, she will put him out of his misery.

Emma watches Daphne and Wren together. She knows Daphne is still keeping secrets but has made her peace with the fact that she will never know Daphne. It is enough that the sisters are together in their home.