The Good Girl

Colin ties Mia up so he can go to the store to get supplies. He thinks about his childhood, and how he didn’t have it in him to shoot a buck. His friend Jack Gorsky shot a fawn between the eyes and ended up in a juvenile detention center a few years later. He thinks about running but can’t stand the thought of Mia starving to death, lost until tourists return in spring. When he comes back, he unties Mia. She is raging. He hands her the gun, forcing it into her hands. She shakes, uncertain. He tells her to shoot him if she wants. He shows her how. She points the gun at him, and then turns and walks away.

Mia has a recurring nightmare she shares with Eve. In it, she watches herself sleep in a chair in the living room of the cabin. She feels apprehension: “Fear. Terror. Foreboding” (138). She has a gun in her lap. Colin wakes her, and she looks in his eyes. She thinks about killing him but doesn’t. He tells her he has made eggs. Eve researches the symbolism of eggs in the dream and begins to sob; eggs symbolize new life. She thinks about her own morning sickness, and the lethargy and fatigue she felt for months with Grace.

Colin goes fishing and Mia joins him outside. Colin worries about someone (his mother) back home—whether she has enough money, has fallen and broken a hip, or whether he set the heater to the right temperature before he left. Colin catches a fish and watches it die. Mia is disgusted. He challenges her to catch her own. He asks her about her father, and she is hesitant to answer. Finally, she explains that her father is old money, corrupt, and greedy. He gives everything to Grace and calls Mia and her mother “deluded” (145). Colin doesn’t feel sorry for Mia. She’s never known difficulty. Mia is enraged at this response and goes inside. Colin calls back at her, asking if her father would have paid her ransom. Mia replies that they’ll never know for sure.

Gabe drives through the neighborhood and parks in the Dennett’s driveway. It is Halloween, and Mia’s birthday. Inside, Eve makes lasagna. The house is full of balloons. Eve begins crying as she thinks about Mia coming home on her birthday to an empty house. In her anger, she drops a saltshaker and it spills. Gabe helps her clean up and they bump heads—he admires her beauty and wonders if James has reassured her even once since Mia disappeared. Gabe begins to ask Eve questions, all the while admiring the photos of Mia that keep appearing around the house, more each time he visits.

Colin gives Mia a sketchbook for her birthday. She is shocked but pleased. She doesn’t say thank you—“words like that—please, thank you, I’m sorry—are signs of peace” (154). Mia hugs the notebook to her chest.

Eve plans a birthday party for Mia. She makes lasagna, buys gifts, and orders balloons. Grace doesn’t come, and James cancels the party without telling Eve. When he comes home at eight o’clock in the evening, she is sitting in the house alone. James recalls Mia’s sixth birthday party, when he refused to get her a Tibetan Mastiff and bought her a life-sized stuffed one instead. In her rush to plan a party, Eve forgot to buy candy, and all night she gives away birthday cake to trick-or-treaters.

Mia sketches outside, and Colin watches her. He thinks about how the sketchbook is a way of atoning for his sins. He remembers his childhood—his dad leaving when Colin was six years old; teachers who told him he’d go nowhere; poverty. He got involved in crime after he couldn’t pay back a high-interest loan to support him and his mother. He and Mia walk around the lake, barely speaking. She asks him about himself, but he avoids her questions. One day, Mia brings in a mangy cat from outside. She wants to keep it. Colin threatens to shoot the cat, saying, “I’m not in the mood to be a Good Samaritan” (164).

Gabe gets a tip from a woman who thinks John Doe is her neighbor. They enter the apartment with the help of a landlord who keeps horrible records. They find Mia’s purse on the floor and mail made out to Michael Collins. The walls are concrete, too thick to hear anything. Gabe demands phone records and security footage.