The Reappearance of Rachel Price

Bel visits Jeff at work and plays him the recording of him asking Grandpa, “Where was she? Where did you find her?” (227). Evasively, Jeff dismisses the recording by claiming that he was trying to get more information from Grandpa about Rachel. He will not elaborate. Jeff’s phone rings and the phone indicates that the caller is “Bob.” Bel infers that this must be the Robert Meyer whom Charlie allegedly called. Bel grabs the phone and answers it, asking Bob about her father’s whereabouts. Bob insists that Charlie didn’t say anything on the call; it was silent.

Yordan lets Bel into Grandpa’s house. Bel tries to ask him about Rachel, but Grandpa is unresponsive and confused. Yordan tells Bel that Rachel visited the day before but left Grandpa alone to look around the living room. Bel suggests that Yordan could take Grandpa to the state park on his birthday; she pretends that this is a family tradition.

At home, Bel tells Rachel about Yordan and Grandpa’s trip. Rachel says that she might go with them but then says that she has a doctor’s appointment. Bel has expected her to make an excuse like this; she believes that Rachel will want to look around Grandpa’s house when he and Yordan are out. Bel texts Ash, asking if he has a small video camera.

Ash and Bel hide in Grandpa’s garden until Yordan has driven away with Grandpa. Then they enter the house and plant the small video camera between books, connecting it to Wi-Fi. They kiss, but Ash reminds them that they should stay focused. Bel reminds herself that Ash will be returning to London soon and goes back to being intentionally unpleasant. As they hide in the garden, they see Rachel enter the house. She then enters the room with the camera. As Bel and Carter watch the real-time footage on Ash’s iPad, Rachel looks around and then makes a beeline straight to the camera, picking it up.

Bel peers into the window of Grandpa’s living room. Rachel sees her and beckons her in. Silently cursing, Bel goes to the front door. Bel asks Rachel why she isn’t at her doctor’s appointment, and Rachel claims that she got the day wrong. Rachel asks why Bel was outside the window. Bel says that the spare key wasn’t there. Rachel points out the camera, and Bel says it is meant to allow Charlie to monitor Grandpa.

Dave Winters tells Bel that Charlie’s credit card was found in Vermont at the How Now Café. Charlie’s his passport and phone were found near an airfield on the Canadian border. The police deduce that Charlie voluntarily left the country. At home, Bel feels forlorn and frustrated. She doesn’t believe that Charlie would have left her, and she believes that Rachel has orchestrated Charlie’s disappearance just as she once orchestrated her own. Bel remembers seeing something related to How Now Café in their trash in the kitchen; she goes out to check the trash can, but the trash has already been collected.

In the street, the neighbor, Ms. Nelson, tells Bel that a man has been watching their house at night. Angrily, Bel tells her that everyone on the street knows her as Ms. Nosy. Bel resolves not to let Rachel out of her sight. She is convinced that unraveling the mystery of Rachel’s reappearance will help her to understand Charlie’s disappearance.

Bel wakes up suddenly at 2:40 am, hearing movement downstairs. Believing that it’s Rachel, she creeps downstairs and watches the figure holding a photograph of herself and her father. Bel realizes that the figure is Phillip Alves, the man who kidnapped Rachel when Rachel was eight years old. Bel calls for Rachel, but Phillip tells her that Rachel is out of the house. He also says that he saw Charlie leaving with a bag and demands to know what Rachel told Bel about her time being imprisoned.

Phillip continues to talk to Bel about the case. She surreptitiously dials 911, but Phillip sees what she is doing and dives for her hand. She convinces him that she is just looking for evidence on her phone but then aggressively pushes him away and runs for the door. He drags her back by her hair, and she elbows him in the nose. Bel manages to escape into the garden, but Phillip grabs her again. Suddenly, Rachel appears and pulls Phillip away from Bel, then attacks him with a rake. Phillip runs into the woods. Rachel calls the police and tells them that Phillip attacked Bel. She claims that Phillip was the one who locked her up for 16 years.

Ash arrives. Bel explains that Phillip broke into their house and attacked her. Ash seems skeptical that Phillip was the one who imprisoned Rachel; he suggests that he thought the answer was “closer to home,” which upsets Bel. She believes that Ash is insinuating that her father was responsible. Bel yells at Ash for using her for the documentary and tells him that their relationship is over.

Deciding to make a truce with Rachel, Bel goes to return the baby sock to Rachel’s drawer, but her suspicions are reignited when she finds her father’s wedding band there. She runs to Rachel with the ring, demanding to know the truth and asking what Rachel has done with Charlie.

Bel yells at Rachel that she doesn’t want to hear any more lies. She suggests that Rachel had never seen Phillip Alves before last night, and Rachel admits that this is true. Devastated, Bel states that she knows about Rachel’s lies and says that the 3,000 dollars that Rachel borrowed from Julian Tripp proves that she planned to leave Bel 16 years ago. Rachel insists that she never chose to leave, but Bel wishes that Rachel had remained “disappeared.”

The rest of the Price family arrives, including Grandpa with Jordan and Carter and her parents. They have dinner together to celebrate Grandpa’s 85th birthday. Bel marvels at Rachel’s ability to act normally after their argument. Rachel gives Grandpa a copy of The Memory Thief, and Grandpa asks where Charlie is. Bel learns from Jeff that Charlie had left Bel alone in the car outside Taco Bell for three hours while he had a sexual encounter with a woman he met in line. Bel remembers Charlie assuring her that that three-hour period was really only a few minutes. She feels betrayed by Charlie and wonders what else he has lied about.

Bel abruptly leaves the table. She looks for and finds the Santa mug that Charlie accused her and Rachel of breaking; it is unbroken. She thinks of her so-called clumsy mistakes, which Charlie always claimed that he had to fix. She realizes that none of these mistakes have been happening in Charlie’s absence, and she wonders whether Charlie pretended that these things happened in order to make Bel and Rachel feel more reliant on him.

Bel examines her copy of The Memory Thief and notices that it was published after Rachel’s alleged disappearance, even though Rachel claimed that the book t was one of her favorites. Bel resolves to solve the mystery of her mother and father’s disappearances that night. She hides her Grandpa’s digestion pills and then suggests to Yordan that she ride her bike to Grandpa’s house to retrieve them. She texts Ash, apologizing and asking him to meet her at her Grandpa’s house with the camera.