The Butcher Game

Jeremy and Philip watch Wren and Richard’s rental cottage from the tree line. The house has many windows, which makes Jeremy think that Richard booked the house since he doesn’t think Wren would willingly choose a place so open and vulnerable. Jeremy asks if Philip is sure that Richard is there, and Philip says yes. They then begin Jeremy’s plan.

Philip knocks on the front door under the guise of trying to sell Richard solar panels. At the same time, Jeremy breaks into the cottage through the back. When Richard gets the rental cottage owner’s card for Philip, Jeremy sneaks up and uses Charlie’s mace to spray Richard in the face. Richard fights back, managing to cut Jeremy’s face while calling him pathetic, but Philip uses a syringe to inject Richard with a paralytic. As Richard struggles to move, Jeremy taunts Richard by asking if Wren still runs marathons. Before he falls unconscious, Richard tells him that Wren does still run and that Jeremy doesn’t matter. Richard’s phone rings with Wren’s calls. Jeremy takes the phone and texts her back.

Wren receives more texts from Richard’s phone, stating that he is in the woods with a broken leg, at a place that Jeremy calls “Morgan’s grave” (296). Wren panics all the way to the police station and tells the officers that Richard never texts using punctuation, so she’s suspicious that these texts are not truly from Richard but instead from someone impersonating him and using his phone. The police tell Wren to keep calm while they come up with a plan to find Richard and apprehend Jeremy. Wren’s panic makes her want to jump into action—to put herself in harm’s way to save Richard—but Leroux refuses to let her. He tries to comfort her, but Wren is in agony.

The police decide to send out three groups: one to the woods, one to Wren’s rental house, and one to a location called in via anonymous tip. They feel confident in their ability to apprehend Jeremy, claiming that someone close to Jeremy has turned on him. Wren goes with a female officer to her rental house. There, they watch on a monitor with body cam footage as a detective named Warren bangs on a door.

Jeremy hears knocking as the police announce their presence. Jeremy has no idea how they found him. In his plan, they were supposed to go to the woods and find Morgan’s body with Philip’s school ID. He wonders if the police are there for Philip, but then he realizes that his gun is gone, taken out of his bag. That’s when Jeremy puts it together: Philip has played him.

Jeremy wonders if Wren has already seen Richard’s body in the woods. He imagines her pain and grief, which gives him a moment of joy as the police find him. The police order him to crawl out of his hiding hole and arrest him. As Jeremy is put into the police car, Philip approaches him and taunts him that he came to the wrong area. The Berkshires are his domain, as many of the police officers attend his church, his father was a judge, and the police department is corrupt. Philip quietly adds that he moved Morgan’s body long ago. Jeremy realizes that Philip grew to have his own depraved urges after they killed Morgan and that his regret of the incident has been feigned. Jeremy says that Philip will regret his betrayal, but Philip doesn’t care.

Officers find nothing at Wren’s rental house. She watches on the monitor as officers arrest Jeremy at Philip’s house. Philip tells them that Jeremy demanded to stay there, threatening to harm his family, so Philip let him in while making anonymous tip calls to the police. Wren then sees the police discover Richard’s body in the woods, right where Jeremy said it would be. Wren screams and sobs into her hands at the loss of her husband.

Weeks later, Wren receives Richard’s autopsy report. She takes the folder from the medical examiner and returns home, where a friend waits with pizza, cocktails, and The Craft. For weeks, friends and family have been making sure that Wren is never alone. When she gets home, Wren goes to the closet, smells Richard on his clothes, and begins to cry. Then, the shoe organizer he promised to fix before he died breaks and cuts Wren. As she laughs hysterically, her friend also begins to laugh.

They go downstairs for their dinner, and Leroux arrives. He asks if Wren has looked at the autopsy report yet, but Wren is not ready. Leroux believes that it’s imperative that she do so because he has something to share: Jeremy didn’t kill Richard alone but had Philip’s help. Wren is shocked. Leroux tells her that the only way to find the truth is to talk to Jeremy. In jail, Jeremy has put only two names on his approved visitor’s list: his lawyer and Wren. Wren agrees to see him.