During the six-hour drive to Vermont, Lowen listens to the audiobook of Verity Crawford’s first novel and is shaken by how talented Verity is. The experience makes Lowen feel even more unqualified to finish the series, especially because Verity’s books are bestselling, dark, and unlike Lowen’s own work. Even so, Lowen keeps driving because she needs the money, has nowhere stable to live, and knows self-doubt is part of her writing process.

When Lowen reaches the Crawford property, the isolated estate and gloomy house intensify her unease. She meets five-year-old Crew, Jeremy and Verity’s son, who first startles her and then shuts the front door in her face. Jeremy lets Lowen in, carries in her suitcase, and gives her the master bedroom because it is closest to Verity’s office, though Lowen is unsettled by the intimacy of staying in the couple’s room and notices the door does not lock.

Before taking Lowen upstairs, Jeremy asks what name she will use if she wants to stay anonymous, and together they improvise the pen name Laura Chase. Upstairs, Jeremy introduces Lowen to April, Verity’s nurse, and Lowen finally sees Verity. Verity is lying in bed with vacant eyes and no visible awareness of Jeremy, Crew, or her surroundings, which reveals that her condition is far worse than the public statements implied. After April leaves, Jeremy’s playful insistence that Crew go shower briefly lightens the atmosphere, and he explains that he and Crew now sleep upstairs because Crew is afraid at night.

Jeremy then shows Lowen Verity’s office, which is packed with books, files, boxes, and notes. He explains that Verity wrote constantly and on anything available, while also admitting he stopped reading her work because he did not like being inside her head. Lowen is overwhelmed by how much material she will have to sort through, and Jeremy encourages her to stay as long as necessary so she can understand Verity’s plans for the remaining books.

Once alone, Lowen begins by pulling a published book from the shelf and ends up reading for three straight hours, which confirms how twisted Verity’s fiction is. She next searches Verity’s computers and boxes for outlines or plans for the unfinished novels, but most of what she finds relates to books already published. In the sixth box, Lowen discovers a manuscript titled So Be It, realizes it is a personal autobiography that begins with Jeremy, and, driven by curiosity, settles onto the couch and starts reading it.