The Couple Next Door

“This leaving the monitor on, checking every half hour while they dined next door, the disabled motion detector, the open front door, it could all simply be an elaborate fiction, a carefully constructed fabrication of the parents, to provide them with an alibi, to throw authorities off the scent.”

Detective Rasbach introduces honesty into a novel filled with pretense. Early on, he sees the evidence of the kidnapping and understands that this could not be a random act. Within the genre of the police procedural, this passage aligns the reader with the detective and introduces the disturbing possibility that the parents might be responsible for the kidnapping.

“She climbed on, and they roared away, manicured gravel spitting up in their wake. That was the moment she’d decided she was in love.”

Anne’s marriage to the charismatic Marco upsets her straight-laced, conservative parents. Marco becomes another manifestation of her self-loathing—her love for him is based in her frustration with the world she grew up in. 

“Even now he can see Anne’s father looking off over the heads of Anne and her mother, his brow furrowed, concentrating on the problem—the problem Marco created—and how he might solve it.”

From the moment he steps into the novel, Richard seems straightforwardly eager to resolve his granddaughter’s kidnapping, much like he would close a major business deal. Marco’s observation is ironic, as it is later revealed that Richard created the problem in the first place, and that he is eager to offer millions because he plans to pocket the money himself. 

“The tension he had picked up on immediately after their daughter was reported missing has already blossomed into something more—blame. The united front they had shown in the first minutes and hours of the investigation is starting to erode.” 

Rasbach reveals here what the reader has begun to suspect. The behavior of Anne and Marco suggests how quickly the two supposedly loving parents turn their emotions on each other. They are not in this dilemma together, Rasbach notices—rather the crime has managed to expose the weaknesses in their marriage. 

“Or maybe he’s a sociopath…Maybe he handed the baby off to an accomplice and it didn’t bother him at all.”

This observation by Rasbach’s assistant introduces a new level of danger about Marco and raises serious questions over the sincerity of his commitment to be the father and the husband his family needs. He uses others with casual disregard for their humanity and regrets such callous actions only as part of a survival strategy.

“As broken as she feels—what kind of mother feels depressed after the gift of a perfect baby—Anne loves her daughter desperately.”

In exploring the compelling logic of postpartum depression, the novel here reveals the contradictory emotion at the heart of the psychological experience. Anne both loves and cannot love Cora. Alone of the characters in the novel, Anne in her own way truly loves her daughter; her tragedy is that she cannot feel this love as fulfilling.

“It’s not that late…We can tell them we had a camera on the backyard. We don’t have to say any more than that.”

In a novel with no shortage of villains, the mild-mannered academic Graham Stillwell can seem the least dangerous with his milquetoast demeanor. Here, however, he reveals the problem with his passivity. He knows the video recording can help the police and help the distraught Anne—giving it to the police would be an act of compassion. However, Graham is too weak to stand up to his wife who sees the recording as an opportunity for blackmail. 

“Graham had hoped she would be able to give Marco a proper blow job, or that he would lift up her skirt and fuck her from behind. Cynthia knew exactly how the camera was positioned to get the best angle.”

The methodical Graham describes filming his wife with an assortment of lovers indicates how complicit he is in Cynthia’s schemes. Both Graham and Cynthia take pleasure in violating the agency of others by secretly filming Cynthia’s sexual partners without their consent.

“She watches the familiar city pass by the window—the produce stand on the corner, the park where she and Cora sit on a blanket in the shade and watch children splash in the wading pool. They cross the city—now they are not far from the art gallery where she used to work, close to the river.”

Anne’s description of the city on the way to her interrogation reveals her inclination to disassociate from intense moments of emotional stress. She remembers a picnic with her daughter and how much fun they had—the memory unclouded by the reality that the baby is now missing. The monotone delivery, the stately cadence of the sentences, reflects a mind able to coolly disconnect from trauma, a foreshadowing of the end of the novel.

“Marco went out back with her for a cigarette. He was just as much to blame. They both denied they were having an affair, but she doesn’t know what to believe.”

Anne’s reaction to the disappearance (and she presumes killing) of her daughter directs her mind ultimately to her fear that her husband is cheating on her, a validation of her own sense of unworthiness and her lurking fears that Marco never loved her but was always enamored by her family’s fortune. Here she is convincing herself that Marco, the night of the kidnapping, was somehow more culpable than she was because he was distracted by the attentions of his mistress.

“It was all hushed up. But I’m betting Anne had had enough.”

The events at Anne’s prep school reflect society’s willingness to shroud psychological disorders in the stigma of secrecy. Had Anne been treated for dissociative disorder rather than the school orchestrating a tidy cover-up that allowed Anne to complete high school and go on to Cornell, she might be better able to confront her emotions, as dark and as troubling as they are.

“They all know it’s mostly Anne’s mother’s money. But he has to act like it’s all his. Like he earned it all himself. What a jerk.”

Richard the initial take-charge executive is now revealed to only be pretending to be in charge because his money is, in fact, his wife’s money. The lengths to which his sense of emasculation will drive him are revealed only as Rasbach puts together the evidence to suggest that Richard, not Marco, was ultimately in charge of the kidnapping. Through Rasbach’s disdain, Lapena critiques Richard’s misogyny. 

“If there was an easier way to raise a couple million dollars quickly, he couldn’t think of it. God knows he’d tried.”

Marco rationalizes the kidnapping scheme. The pettiness of the enterprise reveals how shallow Marco’s self-awareness is and raises questions about his later epiphany in which he promises this same God that he will change.

“He is a fool. He gives a bellow of pain and sinks to the ground.”

At this point, the reader experiences the same sudden shock that Marco undergoes when he is ambushed from behind. The bellow of pain seems authentic, the very real lamentation of a father desperate to find his daughter. Only at the second reading does the reader understand the nature of the bellow and the reality of Marco’s self-recrimination. He is a fool not because the kidnappers took advantage of his naïveté, but because his foolproof plan has suddenly gone wrong.

“It was supposed to be a victimless crime.”

The rationalization here evinces Marco’s willingness to put his needs ahead of his innocent and helpless daughter; Cora is victimized whether or not the plan succeeds. Marco’s belief that he can commit a crime with impunity reveals his arrogance and lack of consideration for others. 

“She doesn’t know why she clings to him, but she does…Perhaps she clings to him because no one can share or understand her pain. Or perhaps because he, at least believes her.” 

At the dark emotional core of the novel is Anne’s complex psyche. She loves and hates her mother. She loves and hates her daughter. She loves and hates that she loves Marco. Alone among a vast number of characters who each could benefit from such therapy, Anne is actually under the care of psychiatrist. Her inability to conceive of herself as worthy of love compels her to remain with Marco even as she finds growing evidence growing of his crimes. Her belief that Marco alone understands her turmoil unintentionally reveals the truth: Marco understands the depth of her emotional traumas because he is the root cause of so many of them. 

“They questioned me too…They didn’t get anything from me either…I mean, what can I possibly tell them?”

Richard is still playing the macho bully unintimidated by the criminal investigation. This protestation raises questions about whether Richard might be trying a bit too hard to deflect police queries. Read in the light of the revelations in the closing chapter, Richard’s question here is anything but rhetorical. 

“You’re living a lie, aren’t you, Marco?” 

Cynthia only half understands how she is taunting Marco. When she says this, Marco has no idea about the video recording. In his guilt, he has the momentary fear that somehow Cynthia knows more than she does.

“Her eyes glitter, and he can see her breasts rising and falling rapidly as she breathes. Perhaps it’s danger she wants, more than anything. The thrill. Maybe she wants him to throw her on top of the bed they’re both standing beside.”

Marco is caught, and this revelation arouses him. The video recording lays out his culpability in the kidnapping. He is done—and yet he imagines Cynthia, now in charge, enjoys this as if it were some kind of sexual game. Marco fantasizes that all Cynthia really wants is him, revealing his narcissistic nature.

“He will live for Cora, and for Anne. He will make sure he gives them as happy a life as possible. He owes them that…he has forfeited any right to happiness.” 

Marco’s sudden change of heart is motivated by the realization that his daughter is in real danger. Given his consistent interest in only his happiness, this promise to care for his family reads more desperate than sincere. At this point, Marco has no idea what has happened to the baby and suddenly his clever scheme for duping his in-laws out of $7 million seems dangerously reckless. The ending of the novel, the reunion of Marco and Cora, hinges on how this epiphany is read. 

“Better that Cora be killed quickly by her own mother in her bedroom with the familiar lambs looking on, than that she be taken by some monster and molested, tortured, and terrified.”

This quasi-prayer of Anne’s reflects a moment of rare genuine emotion for the baby. Anne’s wish for her baby’s gentle death marks the nadir of her self-laceration over a death she is certain she caused, an captures the complex psychology of her difficult adjustment to motherhood. 

“Anne is stunned, horrified, and cannot answer.”

Anne struggles to accept the video of Marco carrying Cora to the garage. Anne can now begin the thankless work of coming to terms with the venality of her own family. The movement to honesty is temporary—she will kill this same Cynthia just hours later in a moment of black out. 

“Richard was going to relieve her of seven million dollars under the guise of getting her only grandchild back from kidnappers. The son of a bitch.”

Late in the novel, it is Alice who provides the key piece to complete the puzzle of Cora’s abduction. In a novel full of those eager to keep secrets, Alice hires the private detective because she really wants to know the truth.