All the Missing Girls

Corinne died 10 years prior to the novel’s narrative present; she exists in the book through people’s memories and discussions. She was the best friend of Nic and Bailey, and was Jackson’s girlfriend. She has a monolithic presence in the town of Cooley Ridge both during and after her life. Nic reflects: “How could I not love Corinne Prescott back then? How could anyone not?” (156) Her personality was full of extremes. She would love someone fiercely then push him or her away, only to pull that person back. She burned down a barn for Nic after Nic’s mother died. She cut her own back. She dared her friends to push their limits and was an unparalleled beauty and bewitching presence.

Despite how elusive Corinne seemed to all, Nic believes she was “the realest person” Nic knew (248). She threw her heart into everything, whether good or bad. Boldness and deliberateness marked her actions, which is something that helps Nic comes to terms with Corinne’s death, as Nic grows to accept that Corinne threw herself in front of the car Nic was driving. 

During several points in the story, Corinne appears as a body, wrapped in a quilt, with hair flowing past the quilt’s edge. This image appears first when Patrick mentions having seen her. He says, “She was on the back porch, but it was just for a moment” (30). She is dug up from under the garage by Nic, Daniel, and Tyler.

Annaleise goes missing upon Nic’s return to Cooley Ridge, which sets the book’s plot in motion. Annaleise was younger than Nic and her friends and harbored a strange obsession with them, and particularly with Corinne. Annaleise kept close tabs on them and was witness to some of their darkest moments.  When Nic breaks into her studio, she realizes that Annaleise had drawn a handful of sketches of Corinne, based off of photographs taken by Bailey. Annaleise was blackmailing Nic’s father for years with photographs of Corinne’s body on the Farrell’s porch; she had been bleeding the family dry, prior to her death.

The community has a perception of Annaleise being a nice, quiet girl, although some of her classmates know otherwise. During the search for her, one of them sarcastically says that if Annaleise had drowned in the river, “She’d think that was fitting […] Very Ophelia. Very art. Very significant” (263). Despite her great impulse for creativity, she was known at her high school for being arrogant and self-serving. This distanced her from her peers. Her solitude is something that Nic already suspected. It is an aspect of Annaleise that interests her, as Nic and her friend group had also been outsiders. Her life ends in a field, when Laura shoots her. The secret of her involvement with Nic and the other members of the friend group remains hidden from the public.

Daniel is Nic’s brother. Daniel is married to a girl they all went to high school with named Laura, and is expecting a child. As a teenager, he coped with anger issues. On the night that Corinne disappeared, he hit Nic so hard in the face that she fell to the floor. Despite his best efforts to be apologetic, he scarred their relationship forever, and Nic believes that “ten years later […] that moment hangs between us in every interaction” (25). Despite how complicated their dynamic might be, it is important to note that Nic still calls Daniel in moments of panic. For example, he is her lifeline when she is running through the woods from a stranger.

Daniel would oftentimes fall prey to Corinne’s bewitching ways. His eyes would go “dark and hazy, under a spell,” as she would seduce him (190). Nic saw them embrace at the fair after he struck her. His romantic involvement with her, however, remained a secret. There are similar rumors about him and Annaleise that surface only after Annaleise’s disappearance, but they are never confirmed.

Tyler was Nic’s high school sweetheart. He was also her fiancé, for a moment, before she left Cooley Ridge after Corinne’s disappearance. Tyler has blue eyes and brown hair “curled into submission” (21). When he first appears in the book, he is visiting the Farrell house on his way to a date with Annaleise. 

Tyler is a highly suspect character for much of the book. At the beginning, before we begin moving back in time, it seems that he is the one who has just killed Annaleise. His human decency is something that is revealed slowly. His arguments with Nic during her return to Cooley Ridge make him seem harsh, but this is before we know that she abandoned him after their engagement. Nic learns early on during her visit that Tyler came to Patrick to tell Patrick of his intentions to marry Nic ten years ago. 

Tyler’s relationship to Nic unfurls as we move back in time and realize that they became intimate almost the moment she stepped back into Cooley Ridge. Despite their arguments and their momentary jealousy over what new romances have transpired in the past 10 years, they have an unspoken bond to one another. On her fourth day in town, after staying over at Tyler’s, Nic reflects on how “maybe there was nothing more intimate than someone knowing all your secrets, every one of them, and sitting beside you anyway” (282).

Jackson was Corinne’s boyfriend at the time of her disappearance. He has a “strong jaw and defined cheekbones, broad shoulders, [and a] lean frame” and works at the local pub (194). The general perception of his relationship with Corinne was that it was troubled, and perhaps even abusive. When Nic comes back to Cooley Ridge, she really has a chance to get his take on what happened 10 years ago, and is surprised to learn that the two were not physically intimate. Jackson loved her and wanted the best for her: it was Corinne who was intent on pushing and pulling him until his breaking point.

Bailey was Corinne and Nic’s best friend growing up. Nic lost contact with her after she moved away and sees her for the first time again when she revisits the fairgrounds. This is the only time the two encounter each other. She sees Bailey in the distance, and upon speaking with her, learns that she now has a daughter and an ex-husband. Bailey has not forgiven anyone for what happened before, and wants nothing to do with Nic. She says that Corinne “was the monster” and that they are all “better off without her now” (232). This harshness is a response to how manipulated Bailey felt, and how unresolved her emotions have remained.  

Patrick is Nic and Daniel’s father. He lives at a care facility called Grand Pines. He was a professor for much of his life, and remains interested in philosophy and literature. His wife passed away a number of years ago, when Nic and Daniel were still teenagers, and he became dependent on alcohol in order to cope with the loss. He is “like an older version of Daniel but softer, from age and lifelong appreciation for fast food and liquor” (27). He often loses track of time, forgetting that his wife has passed away or mistaking Everett for Tyler. Nic does everything she can to keep from letting his cryptic messages be overheard by the nurses and doctors at Grand Pines, as he often says things that might implicate him in Corinne and Annaleise’s murder. 

Annaleise has blackmailed Patrick for years. He’s given her tens of thousands of dollars in order for her to remain silent about the photos of Corinne on the Farrell porch. Patrick had found her body after she was hit by the car Nic was driving and, in his confusion, had buried Corinne below the garage and covered the corpse with a new layer of concrete. At the end of the book, he finally gets to return home, and although he still has tendencies to wander, the people of the town look after him.