51 pages • 1 hour read
Rachel CaineStillhouse Lake
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2017A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 3-5Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 3 Summary
Neither Connor nor Lanny had heard or seen anything they considered suspicious. Lanny heard a splash at night but assumed it was someone swimming. She had looked outside and seen a small, white fishing boat, which sped off shortly afterward. Gwen is afraid that Lanny’s police statement will jeopardize their secret identities.
Later, Gwen reads the news report about the dead body found in the lake and is disturbed to find similarities to Mel’s victims. The new victim is between 18-22 and unidentified. She’s been mutilated, with some of her skin removed, and her body was disposed of in the water. The article also mentions that Stillhouse Lake, Tennessee, used to be a peaceful community full of longtime residents until a recent financial crash and associated opioid epidemic caused a lot of people to sell their houses for extremely cheap prices, allowing lots of new and suspicious people to move into the area. Gwen receives a text from Absolom pointing out the similarities to Mel’s murders. Gwen still believes it could be a coincidence but is concerned and prepares to move on if necessary. She searches for vans for sale nearby so they can move quickly.
Gwen finds a van for sale. The person selling the van is Javier from the gun range. He agrees to trade Gwen for her Jeep, but he’s suspicious about why she would rather have the van, which is inferior and less valuable. She explains she wants to be prepared in case she needs to run, because she has a dangerous ex-husband. Javier has no issue with this because Gwen passed his gun-owner background check and seems to follow laws and be a good person. Lanny calls Gwen to say that Connor skipped school, so Gwen and Javi drive to help Lanny find Connor. They arrive home, and soon Sam Cade arrives with Connor, who has been in a fight. Sam explains he found Connor sitting on a dock, cleaned his injuries, and then brought him home. Connor won’t share who beat him up except that it was children from their school. It turns out that Javi and Sam are both army veterans. Sam is new to the area; he moved there to finish writing his novel. He is also good at working on houses and offers his paid services to Gwen to fix her roof.
Chapter 4 Summary
Gwen researches Sam Cade online to see if she can trust him to fix her roof. He is a veteran and has a clean record, a good credit score, and harmless social media posts. However, Sam moved to town after Gwen, which is abnormal—most people have been here longer than she has. Gwen asks Javi about Sam, and Javi vouches for him to the extent that he knows him. He does confirm that he is good at fixing roofs. Gwen goes to Sam’s house and pushes him for more information on why he really moved to town, but he still says he’s working on a book. She says he can fix her roof starting the next day.
There’s only one week left of school. Sam stops by to check out the roof, then leaves to buy supplies. Gwen does freelance web-design work while he’s gone. The children return from school and Connor is excited to help Sam on the roof. Sam stays for dinner, which Lanny cooks, and Connor asks if he can help Sam after school is out for summer. Sam can tell Gwen has trouble trusting strangers but is not too surprised by that, and they seem to get along, sharing drinks after dinner.
Gwen thinks about how Sam is different from Mel. Mel was always just pretending to be a good husband and father but was using his family as part of his cover. When Gwen found Mel’s storage unit she took a duffel bag with $200,000 cash in it that Mel inherited from his parents and had claimed to have invested. Gwen still uses this money, which she’s buried underground in various places, to fund her constant relocations and new fake identities.
Connor continues to help Sam fix up the house, and now wants to become an architect. Lanny makes friends with Dahlia, the girl she got in a fight with. Both children seem happy and seem like they want to stay in Stillhouse Lake. Gwen is allowing them to build a deck and investing in the house. She is developing romantic feelings for Sam but is extremely wary of relationships. Sam seems to be in a similar boat: He likes Gwen but also seems to have issues with romance and/or trust. After a while they kiss.
Gwen gets another threatening letter from Mel. This one seems to imply that he knows she’s living near a lake and has a new romantic interest. Gwen doesn’t know how he could know where they are or be watching them. She again considers running away and calls the number Absalom gave her to initiate arrangements for new identities. She also makes an appointment to visit Mel in prison.
Chapter 5 Summary
The children feel comfortable staying with Sam while she goes to visit Mel in prison in Kansas (although she doesn’t tell them that’s where she’s going). Gwen puts cameras up so she can check what they’re all doing.
When Gwen arrives at the prison, she is searched and her phone and other items are removed for the visit. Mel’s face is bruised. Gwen paid someone in prison to hurt Mel, orchestrated with Absalom’s help. Gwen tells Mel she’s warning him and that she will kill him if he does anything else to mess with her or the children. For a while Mel acts friendly, until Gwen says she knows it’s an act. He then switches to threatening her while masturbating. He says if he is murdered, his knowledge about Gwen and the children’s identities will be posted on the internet due to arrangements he made. He taunts Gwen and says she’s going to keep running. She leaves.
Gwen goes to visit the place where her old house used to be, which has been turned into a park memorializing the women who were murdered. There’s a name plaque, flowers, a bench, and a fountain. She checks the cameras and sees that her children and Sam are fine. She considers her situation. She doesn’t know how Mel is getting his information and feels she can’t trust anyone. She also knows that, while she could afford to have Mel murdered, it would take all of her cash and still wouldn’t guarantee their safety anyway. She catches a flight back home, feeling increasingly uneasy.
Chapters 3-5 Analysis
This section demonstrates the differences between Gina and Gwen and the extent to which Gwen has lost her naivety and sense of trust. Mel has a large web of accomplices, and his deception runs deep, pervading Gwen’s life. These chapters show the pitfalls of a new life for someone in Gwen’s situation: While she is a survivor, she was not long ago an ordinary housewife and mother, and she is having to learn skills fast. Caine sets up dramatic irony by leaving hints throughout the narrative that Mel is orchestrating some of Gwen’s decisions and she is unwittingly walking into his trap. For instance, Gina was not financially literate and so Gwen doesn’t understand all the realities of life. As a result, she doesn’t think it’s suspicious that she could find a large lakefront house with a safe room for $20,000 and doesn’t suspect that this is Mel luring her into a certain community. Absalom, a hacker she doesn’t know, keeps suggesting new “safe” places for Gwen to move to; shortly after she moves to each one, her pursuers find her. The narrative also exposes Gwen’s fallacy that visiting Mel in prison will bring her peace of mind instead of making her anxiety worse. Despite all of this, Gwen is trying her best to protect her children to the best of her ability. In many ways, her mistakes make her seem more human and invite empathy. The way she behaves is plausible for a woman who previously lived a protected, comfortable life.
The newspaper article shows that the community of Stillhouse Lake is suspicious of newcomers, including Gwen, Sam Cade, and others who took advantage of cheap houses; the characters are living in a social context of mutual suspicion. This is also a strand of The Nature of Safety and Protection: The old community of Stillhouse Lake believes that their safety is threatened by incomers, whereas Gwen knows that danger can be in the heart of your family without you knowing it. The novel here exposes the idea of safety, especially society’s assumption of it, as a construct.
The suspense is heightened through this section because Gwen is still in danger of having her children harmed, but she’s also in danger of being framed again for crimes she didn’t commit. Detective Prester is shown as a mediocre police officer who can’t see the truth, again raising the theme of The Limits of Justice. Again, police activity puts the family’s new identities and safety at risk, raising the possibility that they may have to move on quickly. Simultaneously, these chapters set up an alternative, positive future for the Proctors, where they settle in Stillhouse Lake, make friends, and find a happy home. In presenting this ideal, the novel creates a juxtaposition between the life the family would like to have—and deserve—and the one that they are obliged to live.
