The Inmate

“There was an age when Mommy coming home was followed by the scrambling of little feet and a warm body hurling itself at my knees. Those kinds of greetings are less common now that Josh has turned ten years old. He still loves me, don’t get me wrong, just not so emphatically.”

Brooke is an attentive mother who has noted the differences between the greetings of toddlers, preschoolers, and older children. Brooke’s relationship with Josh is affectionate; even if he has outgrown running to her, there is still a caring response to her return home.

“If they knew I was sitting in a car a block away from my house with Shane Nelson, it would be bad. And if they knew it will actually be Shane’s house where I’ll be spending the night tonight…well, I don’t even want to know what they would do. For starters, I would be grounded. And not the kind of grounded where I don’t get to play video games or get deprived of an extra serving of dessert. I would be yanked out of high school, probably homeschooled, and never allowed to leave my bedroom ever again. That kind of grounded.”

Brooke’s description of how her parents would respond to her sleeping with Shane seems typical of a teenager’s overreaction to her parents’ protective behavior. However, as the novel progresses and more is revealed about Brooke’s parents, readers learn that Brooke’s parents are wary of Shane and his family for a different reason. They know more about Shane Nelson and his mother than Brooke does, and they are worried about the extremes Pamela could go to for revenge.

“I have felt twinges of fear around some of the inmates, but I don’t feel it right now. Despite what I know he’s capable of.”

Despite knowing that this is the man who tried to strangle her 11 years ago, Brooke has no fear when she is alone with Shane—her attraction to him can’t help but color her opinion even after everything that’s happened. This moment foreshadows Brooke’s waffling on her memory of the night she was attacked and Shane’s eventual release from prison.

“The farmhouse where Shane lives looks like it has seen better days. It might have once been a brilliant red, but now the paint has worn away to practically white in some places and just bare wood in others. The roof is crooked and covered in moss, and it looks like one powerful storm could easily rip it right off. The window frames all look a little crooked as well, like whoever built the farmhouse wasn’t quite sure how to put everything together properly but they were giving it their best college try.”

Brooke’s harsh description of Shane’s home pulls no punches. However, after criticizing her parents for disliking Shane for being poor, it is surprising to see that she has clearly internalized their class-biased view. While Brooke tries to separate herself from her parents because she dislikes their judgmental attitude, she proves she isn’t all that different from them.

“Tracy Gifford it the girl who was found dead over the summer. Obviously, none of us have been on a date with her.

But then Tim raises his cup. And he takes a drink.”

The novel’s first mention of murder is in connection with Tracy Gifford—a young woman connected to Tim. McFadden casts doubt on Tim’s innocence by having Tim dismiss his relationship with Tracy, pointing out they only went out once or twice—the same response he gives when Brooke questions whether he went out with Kelli Underwood. Tim’s awkward refusal to admit that he finds women other than Brooke attractive allows Brooke to believe Tim capable of murder.

“Anyway, I’m not surprised she’s defending Shane. This is nothing new—plenty of people in Raker, especially people who knew Shane well, were furious at me for testifying against him. Shane was a football star, and everyone loved him.”

This statement reflects how public opinion can sometimes have an impact on true crime cases. In this case, Brooke was harassed for telling her truth just because people believed they knew Shane based on his local celebrity. This complicates the fair application of Justice, making it difficult to understand when justice has been served and leading Brooke to doubt her own convictions.

“No, I didn’t kill anyone. But I understand you don’t want to hear that you got it wrong.”

Shane often proclaims his innocence to Brooke during visits to the clinic. The tone of this particular statement exposes Shane’s reliance on Manipulation and Lies: Here, he implies that Brooke is to blame for what has happened. This tendency to victim blame should be a clue to Brooke that something isn’t quite right.

“For a split second, our eyes lock together. And it occurs to me that we’re the only two people in this room. There’s a guard, and if there were a problem, he would be here in an instant, but he wouldn’t hear something quiet.

Like if Shane leaned in and kissed me.”

Despite the fact that Brooke still believes Shane tried to kill her, she can’t help but be sexually attracted to him. The novel leaves several paths forward open at this point: It is possible that Shane indeed was wrongfully convicted and will now become Brooke’s romantic partner, or we could be witnessing another example of Brooke’s unreliable memory and her desire to make a normal nuclear family with Shane. This scene foreshadows Brooke’s recanting of her testimony and Shane’s release.

“They chose to sever our ties completely rather than be humiliated by having me parade around in front of their friends with my fatherless son.”

Brooke mentions multiple times how Josh has been bullied for being born out of wedlock and how her parents were ashamed of her for having a child on her own. This feels somewhat unbelievable given the novel’s modern setting—in the 21st century, single women having children is not the scandal that it might have been in the 1950s. While it is conceivable that conservative parents might be embarrassed by their teenage daughter becoming pregnant, it is much more likely that something else was a factor in her parents’ decisions. When Brooke learns the truth about Pamela, readers see that most of the shame was Brooke’s own.

“Chelsea is on her knees next to Brandon, who is lying on the damp porch on his back, his chest a mess of dark red blood. The same dark red material is dripping out of his mouth, and his eyes are cracked open, staring at nothing.”

The discovery of Brandon’s body begins the bloody nightmare that takes place in the farmhouse. Brooke’s description of Brandon’s body is full of detail. If she can so clearly see his body in the dark, the question arises why she can’t see other pieces of evidence: footprints from the muddy rain that would reveal whether the killer is coming in from outside, blood on the killer’s body from the vicious stabbings, or broken or forced locks. The novel brushes over these details, but readers may find the many plot holes to be hard to overlook.

“The smell of sandalwood has embedded itself in my nostrils. Every time I inhale, I feel the chains of that necklace tightening around my throat.”

Brooke has an intense reaction to Tim wearing sandalwood aftershave because it reminds her of the night Shane attempted to strangle her. This thoughtlessness shows that Tim either forgot her testimony against Shane or is using this scent to try to trigger her in some way. This is the beginning of Brooke’s doubts in Tim, leading to his arrest later in the novel.

“Tim hates Shane. He thinks I should break up with him. But what he’s accusing Shane of is a step beyond that. He’s accusing my boyfriend of murder.”

After the discovery of Brandon’s body, Brooke balks at the idea that either Tim or Shane might be capable of murder. Despite the evidence, she relies only on her sense of them as people—something she is not very good at figuring out. Her opinion will shift multiple times over the years: At one time or another, she will believe that one or the other, or both, are guilty.

“And suddenly, it all makes sense. Why Hunt hates Shane so much. Why he’s made it his mission to torture him.”

Marcus Hunt, whom Shane and Brandon beat up so badly that he went to the hospital, has been lying to Brooke. However, it never occurs to her that Shane might have lied as well: If Marcus remembers Shane, it seems to follow that Shane also remembers Marcus. This is another example of Brooke taking Shane at face value rather than questioning his motives.

“When I testified against Shane, I felt so certain he was the one tightening that necklace chain around my neck, trying to kill me. But the more I think about it, the less certain I feel. There was something that happened that night I am missing. One little detail that has escaped me.”

Full of pity for how Marcus has been treating Shane in prison, Brooke doubts that Shane is the one who tried to kill her. This shows how prone Brooke is to mistrusting her memories—she doesn’t have the self-confidence to stand her ground in the face of Shane’s charm offensive. For now, her doubts don’t seem based on anything other than her desire to rekindle a romance with Shane or possibly form a family with him.

“It’s the same kind of snowflake necklace that I used to wear years ago. The same kind of snowflake necklace that Shane tried to strangle me with a decade earlier.”

Brooke’s reaction to the snowflake necklace underscores her new sense that Shane isn’t a murderer, but Tim must be. We never really understand why Tim would give her the same necklace she was strangled with; his oddly thoughtless excuse, just as with the aftershave, is simply a shorthand way to pile suspicion onto Tim.

“The only person who testified with absolute certainty that they saw Shane with a knife was Tim. Even though my testimony was damning, Tim was the one who put the final nail in his coffin.

What if Tim was lying about everything.”

Brooke reflects on the trial as she contemplates the necklace. Her doubts about Tim are growing as her desire to trust Shane grows. The idea that the legal system would rely only on witness testimony and not on any kind of physical evidence in a triple homicide trial is one of the ways this novel shows its lack of research.

“Tim was looking for the knife while Chelsea and I were in the house. He didn’t find it, but that was information he told to me alone. So how could she know the killer has a knife stashed away? Unless….”

Brooke asserts that Chelsea has information only the killer would know. However, Brooke is clearly upset by the stress of the situation because her logic is deeply flawed. Chelsea found Brandon and was practically draped over him when everyone came downstairs, so if there had been a knife, she would know it. Also, it only makes sense that the killer has a knife—it was used to murder Kayla after Brandon’s death. Chelsea’s reasoning is sound, so Brooke’s response is a sign of her panic, foreshadowing her decision to leave the locked room and rejoin Shane and Tim, clearly the only suspects in these murders.

“It’s not Tim after all. Tim is the one lying dead on the floor. Shane is the one holding me down, trying to choke me to death. Shane is the one who had the opportunity to plan this. To get rid of all the knives and weapons in this house except for the knife used to stab Brandon and Kayla—and now Tim—to death.”

Brooke realizes this while being strangled when she smells sandalwood aftershave. This leap of logic leads Brooke to testify against Shane in the original trial. However, Brooke later conveniently forgets about the body she trips over on her way down the stairs—an omission that allows her to accuse Shane and Tim of being in on the murders together.

“Everything makes sense in a horrible sort of way. He’s been toying with me all this time. That sandalwood aftershave—he must have known how I felt about it. What if he was the one who splashed it on that night at the farmhouse, so I would think he was Shane? And then, of course, that damn snowflake necklace. He’s the one who gave it to me. He knew that was the necklace used to choke me that night—because he was the one who did it. He kept it all these years, and he gave it to me just to freak me out.”

Brooke finds Kelli’s body and believes that Tim was behind everything. The aftershave and the necklace have completely upended Brooke’s opinion of Tim: His thoughtlessness makes her believe him capable of anything.

“Today, after eleven years, Shane Nelson is being released from prison.

And I am picking him up.”

Brooke’s ability to go from one extreme to another when it comes to the truth makes her character flat—she never really learns or changes during the course of the novel. She starts and ends the novel easily manipulated; the naivety she displayed as a teenager remains a part of her personality. The novel uses a different kind of red herring: a seemingly happy ending for Shane, Brooke, and Josh. Readers know that this can’t really be the resolution because there is still so much of the novel left to go, however.

“‘She knows the truth. How could she not know? She raised him, after all.’ He takes a drink. ‘Don’t you think if Josh were a killer, you would know it?’”

Shane’s comment is important on two levels. First, it foreshadows the plot twist in the Epilogue in which Josh admits that he killed Shane for being mean to his mother. Second, it shows a small crack in Shane’s façade by foreshadowing the moment his own mother admits that she knew her son was a murderer—and that Shane and his mother murdered together.

“There was another killer in the house that night. Out of the three survivors, there was only one other person it could have been.

Oh my God.

Time and Shane did it together.”

Brooke’s accusations run the gamut. First, she thought Shane was guilty because of the scent of his aftershave. Then, she thought Tim was guilty because of the body in his basement. Now, she remembers everything about that night, including Chelsea’s scream from upstairs—but forgets the body she tripped over and the blood on the floor—and decides that Tim and Shane did it together. This again shows that Brooke’s trauma colors everything she believes, showing why witness testimony is not always reliable when pursuing Justice.

“’You really think that goody two shoes Tim Reese would have done that?’ She snorts. ‘He was just our patsy, starting with that girl he dated…Tracy Gifford.’”

Margie/Pamela Nelson’s confession once and for all proves that Tim is a kind man who isn’t capable of murder, something Brooke believed wholeheartedly the night the murders happened but waffled on because of the manipulation of Margie and Shane. Pamela’s exposition is the novel’s attempt to tie up its plot threads, though it leaves many loose ends unanswered. For example, why would Pamela want to kill three teenagers who have nothing to do with her desire for revenge on Brooke’s family?