What Lies in the Woods

Naomi orders Ethan to leave. When her father comes home, he shows her the records of the money Jim Green transferred to her family; Naomi is confused because the records indicate that the money actually came from Marcus Barnes—Liv’s father, who detested Jim Green.

Naomi goes into the woods to the site where she was attacked. Near the skeleton, she finds a knife and wonders if it could have been the knife that was used to attack her. She recognizes it as a Japanese knife of the type that Liv’s mother owned and used. Naomi wonders if Liv was the one who attacked her; this would explain why Marcus Barnes paid off her father. Naomi concludes, “I couldn’t condemn my best friend based on the murky memories I could dredge up. I needed to be sure” (276).

Naomi goes to the home of Marcus and Kimiko Barnes and demands to know if Liv attacked her. Reluctantly, Kimiko concedes that her daughter did attack Naomi and that they covered it up: “We had to protect her. Telling the truth would not have helped anyone” (278). Since Cass was there during the attack, she also knew that Liv was the perpetrator, and Cass’s parents knew as well. According to Marcus, Jim proposed blaming the attack on Stahl to protect Liv. However, given what Naomi knows about Jessi, Jim, and the skeleton, she realizes that Jim had ulterior motives: He wanted to protect himself in case Jessi’s skeleton was found. Marcus and Kimiko admit that Liv was often haunted by guilt for misleading and tricking Naomi. Naomi leaves their home in shock.

Naomi concludes she needs to go to the police, but she is frightened by the prospect of accusing a man as powerful as Jim Green of killing Jessi. She calls Cody, asking if he can use his connections to help her find a lawyer. Cody can tell Naomi is upset and comes to meet with her. She confides to Cody about the skeleton in the woods, her conviction that the skeleton belongs to Jessi, and that Liv uncovered this information shortly before her death. Naomi also tells Cody that she believes either Jim or Oscar Green is responsible for killing for Jessi.

Cody promises to help Naomi. While he is preoccupied, she suddenly finds her phone, which was taken from her when she caught a man in her Seattle hotel room, in Cody’s car. Naomi is unsettled, especially when Cody asks her to take him to the spot where the skeleton is located. She agrees to go with him because “[she] still [can’t] bring [her]self to believe [she] need[s] protecting from Cody” (287). As they walk, Cody talks about his longstanding desire to protect Naomi; he admits that he was suspicious of Ethan and asked Jim Green to investigate Ethan, which is how they learned that Ethan is Stahl’s son, AJ.

Naomi asks Cody if he hired someone to follow her, which would explain how Cody ended up with her phone, but Cody is vague. He gets increasingly angry as she questions him. Finally, Cody begins to share new information about Jessi. He was in love with her and frustrated that she was in a relationship with another man. One night, after Jim and Jessi got into a furious argument and broke up, Cody drove Jessi home. Jessi was drunk and erratic; she made him pull over by the forest. The two argued. She eventually fell and hit her head; because he was so angry with her, Cody drove away and left her lying in the woods. When he relented and went back, he couldn’t find her. He never saw her again, so he assumed that she decided to leave town once she realized that her relationship with Jim was over. However, Naomi surmises that Jessi “stumbled around in the woods, bleeding into her brain […] she was so tired, and she just wanted to sleep. So she did. But she never woke up” (292).

Cody has always felt guilty about what happened but feared incriminating himself if he ever said anything. When Naomi questions Cody about Liv’s death, he confesses that he had the gun that night. He makes vague but incriminating comments; as Naomi grows increasingly alarmed, he forces her to stay with him. A few minutes later, Cass arrives.

Naomi can tell immediately that Cass and Cody have been working together. Naomi realizes that Cass could have played an important role in making Liv’s death look like a suicide by stealing the gun to put in the pond, faking a suicide note, and entering the alarm code to make it appear that Liv went home that night, obfuscating the timeline of events. Cass explains that she came to the woods because Cody called her, revealing that Naomi is right.

Cass tells Naomi additional information that brings all of the pieces together: Cass knew that her father was having an affair with Jessi. After Cody and Jessi argued in the woods, Cody went back to Jim’s house covered in blood, and Cass saw him. When she and the other girls found the skeleton two years later, Cass immediately knew that it belonged to Jessi, especially because Cody’s shirt was next to the body. However, she didn’t want to implicate her father by telling anyone that the skeleton belonged to Jessi. Years later, when Cass needed funds for her business, she blackmailed Cody into giving her the money by revealing that she knew the location of Jessi’s skeleton.

Cass intended to keep Cody’s secret, but when Liv told Cass and Naomi that she had uncovered the identity of the skeleton, Cass warned Cody what was coming. She claims she didn’t realize this would lead him to kill Liv, but afterward Cass helped him cover up the murder and make it appear to be a suicide. She feared that if she didn’t help, Cody would reveal that she had concealed the skeleton and lied about Stahl.

Cass coldly tells Cody that they need to kill Naomi: “From alive to a body, like it was a process they could have nothing to do with” (300). Cody is hesitant, so Cass offers to shoot Naomi. Seeing Cass’s true nature, Naomi accuses Cass of having goaded Liv into attacking her all those years ago. Cass admits that she was jealous of the bond between Liv and Naomi and wanted Liv to herself: “She did stab you, Naomi. She’s the one that stabbed you in the back, but she was too much of a fuckup to even get that right” (302). Cass argues that she deserves credit for managing the situation so that none of the girls got into trouble.

Cass hesitates to shoot Naomi, so Cody offers to do it. When she hands him the gun, however, he immediately shoots and kills Cass.

Stunned by Cody’s action, Naomi wonders if she can manipulate him and get out of the woods alive. She quickly proposes a cover story: “[Cass] could have killed Liv. And when I found out, she was going to kill me. But you stopped her” (307). However, Cody can’t take the risk of leaving Naomi alive. When she realizes that he still intends to kill her, she takes off running through the woods. Cody chases her, firing, and one of the bullets strikes Naomi. She collapses; when Cody bends over her to see if she is still alive, she lunges up, and the two of them struggle. The gun goes off, injuring Cody’s leg and Naomi’s fingers. Naomi takes advantage of the moment to run and hide in the cave where the skeleton is located. She can hear Cody moving through the woods and looking for her.

As Naomi begins to lose consciousness, she manages to call Ethan, begging him to tell everyone that it wasn’t Liv’s fault. Suddenly, police officers find Naomi and quickly begin tending to her injuries.

Naomi awakens in the hospital; she has suffered severe injuries, and several of her fingers have been amputated. Her father informs her that Cody has been arrested; even while Naomi was barely conscious, she kept naming Cody as her attacker. The police were able to find her because after she spoke with Marcus Barnes, he was worried that she might hurt herself and sent police to the woods to look for her. After the phone call, Ethan also rushed to the woods. Since Cody has recorded many of his conversations with Cass, there is substantial evidence to corroborate Naomi’s story. Jessi’s skeleton is located and finally removed from the woods.

Months after these events, Naomi is helping her father at his house when Ethan shows up. He admits that he didn’t visit her in the hospital because he wasn’t sure if she wanted to see him. He asks Naomi to consider trusting him, even though he has deceived her, and to potentially collaborate on telling their story. The novel ends with the possibility of a new trust and rapport between them.