The Likeness

Cassie enjoys her first week at Whitethorn. The group spends the mornings at college and the afternoons restoring the house. Cassie thoroughly enjoys being back at Trinity College, but Abby warns her there are wild rumors about the incident circulating at school. She learns Lexie was working on her thesis about Charlotte Brontë, but she worries she will not be able to fool the professor since Lexie was quite smart. Fortunately, the professor is dumbstruck by the accident and has no real academic expectations of her for the time being. Cassie observes the housemates as they take great care in the restoration of the home.

She also notices the way the group acts like a family, though “[i]t was stranger and more powerful than that; they didn’t have boundaries, not among themselves, not the way most people do” (156) and they touch each other often. She notes everything in the house is shared communally but does not reveal this to Frank. As Cassie pays attention to their movements, she understands they all share one common thread: the lack of a family. As an orphan herself, Cassie understands why they are trying to recreate a family at Whitethorn.

In light of the “N” notation in the journal, Cassie reconsiders the cottage as a possible meeting place for Lexie. On her call with Frank, she asks about Daniel’s great uncle Simon, and he tells her there was a delay in the probate proceedings after Simon’s death, making Cassie wonder, given the roommates’ strong attachment to the house, if there may be something important to note about that situation. Frank agrees to check into it then tells her about the FBI’s match on the victim’s fingerprints. They matched to a May-Ruth Thibodeaux, one year younger than Cassie, from North Carolina, who was reported missing in October of 2000 by her fiancé Chad. The fiancé is not a suspect, and there are no other leads in that case.

The roommates often play cards in the evening, and one night during a poker game Rafe takes a call from his father offering him a job. When Rafe turns down the offer, his father gets angry and shouts where everyone can hear him through the phone, calling Rafe a failure and saying he despises the way Rafe and the other roommates live. The roommates continue their game, and Daniel and Justin go into a long speech explaining and defending the way they live. Daniel believes the world Rafe’s father lives in is a disillusionment and puts people in an endless cycle of discontentment. The group is not concerned with making money and upward mobility, and Justin calls them “revolutionaries” (163).

Cassie feels like she’s in a whole different world when she talks to Sam, and he rarely asks her about the roommates or what goes on inside the house. Sometimes Cassie puts a sock over her mic so Frank can hear only small parts of her conversations. Her anxiety increases, especially during her nightly walks because she often thinks someone might be following her. One night, Sam asks her if any of the roommates go to Regan’s pub, and she says no, which Sam finds odd considering frequenting pubs is an important part of Irish social life. Because they are English, there might be tension between the housemates and the villagers. That same night Cassie strategically made her way back to Whitethorn convinced she is being followed.

Later that night, Abby comes to Cassie’s room and asks about the baby. She had guessed about the pregnancy, but the other roommates do not know. Cassie tells her the baby died and probes to see if Abby will give any clues to who the father is. Abby does not say, and Cassie is left alone thinking about what Lexie was planning to do about the pregnancy since she knows it is an important clue in solving the case.

On another evening while sorting through clutter in a spare room, Cassie and Abby find a 1920s style blue dress. Abby insists Cassie try it on, and the two girls join the guys downstairs for a dance party. Cassie dances with Justin, and it reminds her of the last dance she shared with Rob.

Frank is pleased Cassie has made it one week at Whitethorn without blowing her cover. They review the information she has so far, but she still does not tell him about the journal. Frank asks if she has any theories, and she just says she feels as though they are missing something. There is no new information about May-Ruth, and he tells her the hunch she had about Simon was a dead end, but he mentions there was one other relative called Eddie that could have inherited the house. Eddie was angry when he was passed over and the house was given to Daniel, so he protested the will, which explains the delay in probate. They argue over whether anyone in the house is capable of murder, then Frank gives her two directives for the second week. First, she should try to discover whatever they are hiding, and second, she needs to intensify her questioning in hopes someone will crack.

Over breakfast one morning Cassie is attempting to slowly be more energetic and chattier as she pretends to heal and become more like Lexie. She talks about her childhood briefly before she is interrupted by what seems to be standard household chatter but will later turn out to be a deliberate diversion from the topic of Lexie’s past. Later, the guys find an antique gun in a spare room. Justin begins to share a story about his father teaching him to shoot, and Daniel breaks in preventing him from completing the story. Cassie notices a pattern of these interruptions and tests it later by attempting to tell Abby about her love of dolls as a child. Rafe goads her to continue, but Daniel stops them saying, “No pasts” (183), and Cassie realizes they are not allowed to speak about their individual histories. Cassie sees this as the first crack in their unified front, noting that “[i]t was only over that first week that they had turned real to me, come into focus as separate individuals with their own little quirks and weaknesses” (180).

Meanwhile, Frank has revelatory news of his own. After the FBI tracked down May-Ruth’s parents, they discover she died as a child many years ago, and the name was just another false identity used by the victim. Cassie is stunned at how skilled Lexie was at going undercover. Frank is on high alert thinking Lexie was on the run from someone who might now be after Cassie. He gives her the option to pull out immediately but knows she will refuse.

Later, the roommates tease each other about their sex lives. They all agree Rafe keeps his hidden from them. From some of his comments, Cassie wonders if Justin is gay. On the ride to Trinity, Abby says Sam questioned her after her class about why they never go into the village, and Abby told him they went to the pub once, but the villagers were cold and unwelcoming, so they never went back. Daniel asks Cassie if she had told Sam anything about the village, and she says she hasn’t. Then Daniel asks if Sam inquired about the vandalism, which is new information for Cassie, so she listens intently and brings up the topic with Sam later. He is already aware of the story, having deeply researched Whitethorn in the previous days, and he tells her that the house has a long history of break-ins and vandalism. The phrase “baby killers” was scrawled on the home among other things and Sam notes that all the attacks happened between 11 p.m. and 2 a.m., though the instances have slowed since Daniel and the others took up residence there. Sam also confirms the incident in Regan’s pub—the group went to the pub and were blatantly ignored by the barkeeper and everyone there, even when they tried to order drinks or talk to people. It appears no one in town cares for the five roommates, though Sam has found it difficult to get anyone in town to talk. Cassie helps Sam create a profile of the potential murderer based on the new information. They think it is likely a local man with an alcohol problem and a grudge against the house. On her return home, Cassie sees the house in a different light knowing more of its history.