Verity
by Colleen Hoover
Contents
Chapter Twenty-Three
Overview
Jeremy reads Verity’s manuscript, confronts her, and confirms that she has been faking her condition, forcing the truth of her deception and Harper’s death into the open. Overcome by grief and fury, Jeremy attacks Verity, and Lowen first tries to stop him to protect his future with Crew.
Instead of turning to the police, Lowen helps Jeremy stage Verity’s death as an accident, crossing a moral line that binds them together in secrecy. The chapter radically shifts the story by ending Verity’s immediate threat while leaving Lowen and Jeremy trapped by what they have done.
Summary
Lowen waits anxiously in her bedroom while Jeremy reads Verity’s manuscript. Hearing a crash and then Jeremy’s voice over the office monitor, Lowen watches him confront Verity in her room. When Jeremy threatens to take the manuscript to the police, Verity finally opens her eyes and speaks, confirming that she has been faking her condition.
Jeremy is shattered by the proof that Verity deceived him and by the manuscript’s claim that she killed Harper. Verity tries to explain, but Jeremy’s grief and rage overtake him, and he attacks her. Lowen runs upstairs and pulls at him, warning that if he strangles Verity, the police will know he killed her and Crew will lose his father.
Jeremy stops choking Verity, but the pause does not end the danger. Seeing Jeremy’s desperation and believing Verity will escape justice and remain a threat to Jeremy and Crew, Lowen helps devise a cover story. Lowen tells Jeremy to make Verity’s death look accidental by forcing her to vomit and then blocking her breathing so it will appear she aspirated in her sleep, and Jeremy carries it out while Lowen turns away.
After Verity dies, both Lowen and Jeremy go into shock. Jeremy checks for a pulse, carries Lowen downstairs, and then calmly lays out the story they will tell: they went to bed normally, Jeremy found Verity unresponsive in the morning, and she died in her sleep. Jeremy hides the manuscript and straightens the room, then returns to hold Lowen as they lie awake, terrified of what will come next.
Who Appears
- Lowen Ashleighwaits for Jeremy’s reaction, intervenes in his attack, then helps plan Verity’s staged death.
- Jeremy Crawfordreads the manuscript, confronts Verity, confirms her deception, and kills her in grief and rage.
- Verity Crawfordreveals she has been conscious, tries to defend herself, and dies after Jeremy stages an accident.
- Crew Crawfordsleeping son whose future Lowen invokes to stop Jeremy from openly murdering Verity.