The Drowning Woman

Walking toward Jesse’s apartment, Lee passes Trader Joe’s and is surprised to see her car there as Hazel had agreed. She finds the keys where Hazel said she’d leave them, but the netsuke and her knife are gone. She wonders if she’ll be framed for Jesse’s murder. Lee sneaks into Jesse’s apartment to search for clues about who he was.

In Jesse’s apartment, Lee finds a facial cleanser from Hazel’s spa and realizes that she and Jesse were lovers. In a container of protein powder, she finds a social security card for Carter Douglas Sumner. She tries to guess Jesse’s computer password to search for the name. When she hears a knock at the door, she climbs out the window.

Lee goes to an Internet cafe and searches the Seattle police blotter. The murder hasn’t yet been reported. She searches for Carter’s name and finds an article about his conviction in a violent home invasion with his brother, Sean. She finds a photo and realizes that Jesse is really Carter Sumner. She decides that Sean probably has the answers she needs.

Lee goes to a hotel for the night with the cash that Hazel left her. She opens a notebook that she took from Jesse’s apartment and finds a phone number. She calls it after blocking her number. A man answers and asks, “Lee, is that you?” (193), and then says to tell him where she is. She hangs up.

The next morning, Lee drives north to the halfway house where Sean lives, having found the address online. When Sean comes out of the house, she tells him that his brother is dead. She offers to buy him a coffee and tell him what she knows.

Lee and Sean talk. He tells her that they both made bad choices, but Carter loved violence. When they were arrested, Carter concocted a story about his brother dragging him into criminality. When she asks Sean if he hates his brother, he tells her that the person he really hates is Carter’s lawyer: Benjamin Laval.

Lee decides to go to the airport. First, she calls Teresa to apologize again, having decided after hearing Sean’s story that what she did is forgivable by comparison. However, Teresa hasn’t changed her stance and remains cold. Lee’s phone rings, and the caller ID lists Hazel. Lee answers. Benjamin is on the line, saying that he has the answers Lee needs. She names a park and agrees to meet him there.

Benjamin tells Lee about representing Carter. He says that he helped Carter get the trainer job after being released from prison. Benjamin knew the owner of the gym and asked him to keep an eye on Jesse and Hazel. He tells Lee that he learned of their murder plan and that they planned to implicate her. He says that Jesse’s body and the murder weapon have been disposed of. He tells her to disappear and gives her $25,000 and a plane ticket to Austin, where a restauranteur friend has agreed to hire her as a sous chef.

Lee feels overwhelmed and wonders whether to trust Hazel and go to Panama or trust Benjamin and go to Austin. She returns to the Internet cafe to research her options. She drops her pen, which belonged to Jesse, and it opens to reveal a USB drive. The files are labeled tape 1 and tape 2, and she listens to them. She realizes that the files are Carter’s insurance against the other voice in the recordings (which the novel later reveals is Benjamin hiring Jesse to murder Hazel).