Strange Sally Diamond

The narrative flashes back to Peter’s perspective in 2012. Peter dropped the baby off on the steps of a church and later learned from the news that the baby was adopted. However, Lindy is inconsolable over the loss of her daughter, and it takes her years to forgive Peter. Over the years, Peter works different menial jobs, and money is tight. Eventually, he finds a good job in banking.

By 2011, Lindy has become so accustomed to her captivity that when Peter takes her outside the barn for walks, he no longer needs to chain her up. He updates the barn and installs skylights so that Lindy can finally have some natural light. Peter stops locking the barn and invites Lindy to live in the house with him, but she is more comfortable in the barn. In 2012, Lindy gets sick, and it takes Peter a few days to figure out that she has appendicitis. He drives her to the hospital, not caring about how to explain who she is, but Lindy dies on the drive to the hospital, and Peter puts her body into the lake.

The narrative flashes forward to Peter’s perspective in 2019. After Lindy’s death, Peter falls into a depression because he can’t turn to anybody for help as he grieves Lindy. Peter takes the barn apart so to get rid of this visual reminder of her. When Lindy’s body is found, the story made the news. The connection between Lindy’s body and the mysterious missing girl from decades prior makes Peter sell his house and move to a different town. After some time, forensics definitively identify Lindy’s body.

Peter regularly checks in on Denise Norton’s case online. Back in 2017, he found the story about Sally Diamond attempting to burn Thomas’s body, and he felt “[a] spark” that compelled him to take the “chance to do something good. To right a wrong” (269). Consequently, he sent Toby to Sally, but this drew unexpected police attention to Conor Geary’s traces in New Zealand.

In 2019, Peter receives a message from a podcaster who is making a show about the disappearance of Lindy and the reappearance of her dead body 30 years later. The podcaster has connected Peter to the case due to his proximity to the lake and knows that his father was once a suspect in the Conor Geary case. The message informs Peter that Lindy’s daughter, Amanda, who was connected to Lindy through DNA tests, is also taking part in the podcast. Peter finds his daughter Amanda online. She is now 23 years old and has had a successful life. Peter refuses the podcaster’s request to participate. Peter takes time off from work and flies to Ireland to find his sister, Sally.

The narrative returns to Sally’s present-day perspective. All the DNA results confirm that Peter is Sally’s brother and Mark’s nephew. Sally and Mark also discover another relative: Peter’s daughter, Amanda Heron. Sally calls Peter and agrees to meet with him in person. Mark goes to Dublin to pick Peter up and bring him back to meet Sally.

The narrative shifts to Peter’s perspective. Peter meets Mark in Dublin. Mark peppers Peter with questions, but Peter is very quiet. He is surprised that Mark is only five years older than he is, but Mark explains that this is because Denise was only 12 years old when she gave birth to Peter.

The narrative turns to Sally’s perspective. Peter and Sally meet. Their conversations are stilted and awkward. Peter tells the story of his upbringing with Conor, including that Conor manipulated him into believing he had a fake disease. Peter defends Conor, believing that Connor cared about him despite perpetuating so many crimes and abuses on others. Mark and Sally have a difficult time accepting this perspective. Sally asks about Peter’s daughter, Amanda, but he insists that he doesn’t have a daughter. She shows him the DNA-based proof that Amanda Heron is his daughter and Peter dismisses it as a likely case of a one-night stand. Mark asks Peter if he was ever worried that Conor would steal another little girl. Mark finds it strange that an active pedophile would stop his activities voluntarily. Peter claims that Conor never targeted any other children.

Peter stays with Sally for weeks, and she notes that his behavior mirrors her own before she began going to therapy. She tells others that Peter is Mark’s second cousin from Australia because she wants to get to know her brother without dealing with other people’s input. Peter often becomes angry and frustrated with Sally whenever she plays the piano. Sally tells him about the sale of Conor’s house and offers Peter half of what she earned from the sale. She believes that this is his inheritance and that the money can help Peter start over in Ireland. Peter is angry that Sally sold the house because he wanted to move back into the home. He has Sally give him the money through cryptocurrency because he can’t open a bank account in Ireland. He decides to leave Sally for a while and travel around Ireland. He explains to Sally that when she plays the piano it triggers him because Conor was also an excellent piano player. When Peter leaves for his travels, he takes Toby with him. In the ensuing weeks, he doesn’t answer her phone calls. Finally, he sends her a text to tell her that he doesn’t feel that he belongs with her and Mark and that he’s returning to New Zealand. He believes that no therapy will help him and that he’s better off on his own. When Sally reads the message, she screams and grabs at her hair.

The narrative turns to Peter’s perspective about going to Ireland and meeting Sally and Mark. Peter likes Sally but is jealous that she grew up with two loving parents and that she has repressed her memories of Conor and Denise. He is nervous about her discovery of his connection to Amanda. The podcaster, Kate, reaches out again with alarming developments. She has figured out that James Armstrong’s papers were likely forged and that his real identity was probably Conor Geary. She also knows about Rangi’s drowning and is aware that Rangi was Peter’s next-door neighbor. She has found the DNA evidence connecting him to Amanda and once again invites him to participate in the podcast. She also asks him if he was abducted by Conor Geary.

Peter responds to Kate as Steven Armstrong and insists that James Armstrong was who he says he was and not Conor Geary. He acknowledges being Rangi’s neighbor but notes that Rangi was believed to have drowned after drinking too much. He tells Kate that he is on medical leave and won’t be able to speak to her for another month or so, if at all. Weeks later, Kate asks him where in New Zealand he was born. Peter researches how to get a forged birth certificate and discovers that it is extremely expensive. He asks Sally for a loan, and she gives him money from the sale of their father’s house. The money is more than enough for Peter to start a new life. Peter arranges a fake passport and a California driver’s license with the new name Dane Truskowski. He tells Sally that he is traveling around Ireland, but he actually flies to Heathrow with his new documents.

The narrative turns to Sally’s perspective. Sally visits Christine in Dublin and tells her all about Peter. Christine tells her that Jean suspected that there had been another child. When Sally asks Christine why these suspicions aren’t reflected in Thomas’s notes, Christine has a difficult conversation with Sally about Thomas. She explains that Thomas had many great qualities, but he was also sexist and didn’t take Jean’s ideas seriously. Christine believes that Thomas further isolated Sally from society, not for her own benefit, but because he wanted to conduct experiments on her with different therapeutic techniques and medications. Jean, on the other hand, had always wanted to integrate Sally more fully into society. Jean and Thomas often fought, and Jean considered leaving him. Hearing this, Sally is distressed and wonders if Thomas was also abusive to women.

The police visit Sally and Mark to ask about Peter. The police have figured out Peter’s connection to Lindy and Conor and need to bring him in for questioning. Sally tries to defend Peter, claiming that he is a victim of Conor’s as well. Sally confirms that Peter acknowledged that Amanda Heron is his daughter.

Peter lands in Chicago under the name of Dane. He travels around the United States and settles in New Mexico, where he builds a house and a barn that he outfits to one day house the woman he plans to abduct and keep until she submits to him. Peter comforts himself with the fact that he won’t kidnap a little girl because he is not a pedophile like his father.

The COVID-19 virus forces Ireland to go into lockdown. News of Conor Geary’s false identity in New Zealand and his connection to Lindy are broadcast. Sally helps to identify Peter through the CCTV footage of Heathrow Airport, but there is no record of Steven Armstrong or Peter Geary leaving the United Kingdom. A podcaster named Kate contacts Sally, but Sally doesn’t want to be part of the podcast. However, Sue does an interview with the podcast, which is a betrayal to Sally. Sally doesn’t want to meet Amanda because she feels that, so far, meeting her family members has been a disappointment. Sally has so many questions for Peter, especially about Lindy, and she wants to find a way to absolve him of responsibility for these events. Becoming depressed, Sally starts abusing alcohol and Vicodin and stops talking to her friends. Mark catches COVID and is hospitalized. Sally now believes that she was right not to trust people and feels that they have all betrayed her. She starts believing that everything she learned in her therapy sessions with Tina is false. Sally even avoids Abebi, who is now the same age that Denise was when Conor abducted her. Sally stops playing the piano and pulls at her hair.

Angela writes Sally a letter, encouraging her to return to therapy and to remember that her friends love her, even if they aren’t perfect. She tells Sally that Sally’s friends won’t take no for an answer and will gather in front of her cottage and sing to her until she comes out to take a socially distanced walk with them.

The narrative switches to Amanda’s perspective in the year 2022. Amanda is a musical composer and is preparing for a concert. She doesn’t want to be identified only with Conor and Peter Geary, so she pulls out of Kate’s podcast. All she wants to do is focus on her piano-playing and composing. She has recently received a worn-out teddy bear in the mail and considers it her lucky charm.