Before the Fall

Nine-year-old Rachel doesn’t remember much about her kidnapping, but she knows it’s the reason why she must have a security detail. Her parents and a child psychiatrist have assured her that the kidnapping was the work of a single man, killed in the shootout with the authorities. During the vacation with her mom and JJ on Martha’s Vineyard, Rachel stays close to the house and reads. She enjoys stories about heroines like Katniss Everdeen of The Hunger Games and Harry Potter’s Hermione Granger, but she doesn’t always want to worry about them in the moment. Sometimes, she’ll ask her mother to read to the end of a scene for her, in order to assure her that the heroine survives.

Rachel had barely turned two years old when she was kidnapped. Maggie was vacationing with her on Long Island, accompanied by Frankie, a nursing student working as Rachel’s nanny. David visited on weekends. Maggie enjoyed Frankie’s company, as the two were close in age. Frankie’s presence reminds Maggie of how, just a few years earlier, she was a preschool teacher struggling to make ends meet in New York City; now, Maggie realizes, she has settled into the privilege of being married to a millionaire.