The Cousins

In 1996, Allison and Archer hang out together at a party on Cutty Beach. Archer confesses that he has a drinking problem and that he “want[s] to see if [he] can have a good time without [alcohol]” (416). Allison looks for Matt in hopes of finally talking to him about what happened with the baby. Matt, however, is very drunk and soon disappears, along with Adam and Anders. Allison finds her two older brothers discussing how they can’t see anything in the water, “not with this undertow” (418). Adam laughs and tells Anders to “remind [him] never to piss [Anders] off” (418), implying that Anders has just done something terrible out of anger. Allison approaches her brothers and asks what they are doing. Anders replies that they are “taking care of a problem” (419).

Aubrey sneaks into Catmint House and ends up in her father’s old bedroom. Mildred, who reveals herself to be the real Theresa, appears in the doorway wielding a pistol. She muses that “[she] took everything [she] could from Adam, and for all these years, it’s never felt like enough. Maybe taking his only child would be” (427). Archer storms the house in an attempt to rescue Aubrey, and Theresa reveals the whole story as she holds them both at gunpoint: Back in the summer of 1996, Anders and Adam tricked a drunk Matt into getting into the water at Cutty Beach by telling him that Kayla was sucked into the undertow. Matt drowned, and Allison sounded the alarm but ultimately covered for her brothers. Kayla found out, but after she told Theresa, Donald drugged Kayla and killed her to silence her. After the real Mildred “died of natural causes twenty-four years ago” (426), Theresa and Donald devised a plan to keep the Story children from their family fortune. Theresa posed as Mildred, cutting off her children so no one would ever find out that the real Mildred was dead. Archer realizes that if Donald killed Kayla to keep her quiet, he must have killed Dr. Baxter, too. Aubrey and Theresa fight for the gun, and it goes off, shooting Theresa in the leg. Theresa’s assistant sets fire to the house, and Aubrey and Archer barely manage to escape. Archer goes back to help Theresa, but she is dead by the time he gets her to safety. 

Catmint House is destroyed in the fire. Aubrey and Archer sustain minor injuries. Theresa’s cause of death is credited to smoke inhalation, and her assistant who started the fire is missing in action. Donald, “who didn’t have the benefit of a head start” (442), is arrested. The media comes after Anders and Adam when Kayla’s posthumous allegations come to light, and the two are deemed guilty in the court of public opinion, although Adam’s book sales momentarily spike him to the bestseller list. Aubrey decides to live with her mother and rejoin the swim team, which will have a new coach. Milly is going to stay with her father and stepmother while her mom “act[s] as liaison with police, medical examiners, reporters, and lawyers trying to untangle more than two decades of fraud” (443). Milly and Jonah make plans to continue seeing each other when she is back in New York and he is in Rhode Island. Milly’s mother admits that she feels guilty for everything that happened to Matt and Kayla, and she starts to come to terms with how traumatic that summer of 1996 was for her and how it affected all of her relationships throughout her adult life. She tells Milly “how impressed [she] [is] with the way [Milly] pieced the truth together” and tells her daughter that she has “a sharp mind [...]. And a good heart” (457). Archer gets a call from an associate at Donald’s office, who tells him that Theresa and Donald allowed the insurance policies to lapse on all of the properties (including the policy on the now-destroyed Catmint House) and spent “every last penny” (458) of the Story estate.

Five months later, Jonah and Milly are still dating, and she is visiting him in Rhode Island. Jonah’s family business, Empire Billiards, is doing well, and Aubrey has a new half-brother whom she adores. Her father and old swim coach have a rocky relationship, and there is a “Story sibling showdown” (462) over the remaining scraps of the Story family estate. Archer went to rehab, Adam’s book sales have dropped off, and Anders has announced a new financial venture. Jonah still wonders about what happened to Theresa’s assistant Paula, who burned down Catmint House and was never found. The cousins, bonded by the bizarre summer they endured together, still keep in touch regularly. One day while Jonah, Milly, and Aubrey are on FaceTime together, Jonah receives a postcard from Paula, who warns him to “keep [his] parents far away from Anders’s new venture” because she suspects that it will “go up in flames” (470).