Jamie (Book 2)

Carrying on from my previous comments, in Book 2, we get to see Jamie’s viewpoint. Jamie is psychotic. She has auditory hallucinations of Marie telling her she has to get her hands on Marie’s daughter, Dani. Starting off, this is how we perceive the family relationships:

Initial family relationships

There are at least three mentions in the book that Jamie would slit someone’s throat if she thought she could get away with it. Jamie thinks that once and Logan thinks it twice. That counts as foreshadowing, I guess.

Everly was supposed to be Jamie’s mother, but in the last few pages, she reveals that she is Jamie’s grandmother, with Jamie being Marie’s child by rape at age eleven. The viewpoint had managed to be pretty consistent in other chapters, but in this one, it head-hopped back and forth between Jamie and Everly, switching at least four times. Pick a viewpoint and stay there! Or at least have section dividers making it clear when the viewpoint jumps.

So the actual family relationships look like this:

Actual family relationships

Everly is explicitly said not to be the maternal type. There’s nothing anywhere to indicate she’s religious, except that she sent both problem children — Marie and Jamie — to a Catholic school for wayward girls. So when Marie got pregnant at eleven, why didn’t Everly take her for an abortion? And when the baby was born, Marie tried to drown her, so it’s not like Marie wanted her. Why didn’t Everly just put her up for adoption? For that matter, how did Everly keep Marie from smothering the baby? And then later, why did Marie switch to defending Jamie all the time?

In this book, Logan learns that Jamie was suspected of arson, specifically setting the Catholic school for wayward girls on fire, killing some thirty people at the time and causing the later deaths of some thirty more from their injuries. But there was no proof that she actually did it. Logan goes off to interview a survivor of the fire, but before he ever goes to interview the survivor, he learns that Marie was present at the fire for no good reason. However, she was never questioned. Although accelerants were used to start the fire, Jamie was thoroughly investigated, and there were no traces of accelerants anywhere on her.

I thought it was extremely obvious at that point that Marie started the fire, not Jamie. Logan was quite shocked when the survivor says she saw Marie go into the school library and come back out with the fire already burning behind her. So why on Earth didn’t the police follow up on Marie? In investigating a fatal arson, I’d be a lot more suspicious of a woman of twenty-four hanging around where she had no business than of a twelve-year-old girl who was supposed to be there. Especially with a witness who saw her in close proximity to the flames.

I suppose conceivably Marie felt guilty about trying to burn Jamie alive (Jamie was obviously the target), and that’s why Marie supported and defended the child that she’d tried to drown at birth. Or, since Jamie realized she was the target, Marie had to keep Jamie pacified so she didn’t go to the police.

Anyway, twice in this book and once in the following book, Logan is specifically warned that Jamie is a threat to Dani. Warnings to Logan from his lawyer:

“If anything else happens or she [Jamie] shows up, call the police and then call me. If someone comes here and tries to take her, call me and then the police. Understand?”

“I feel obligated to warn you.” He took a deep breath. “I don’t think you’ll lose custody of Dani, but after the mediation… the way Jamie acted… she’s dangerous. I don’t know for sure if she started the fire when she was a kid, but if she did, I can’t imagine what she would do now. Don’t let Dani out of your sight. I honestly don’t think you’ve seen the last of her.”

Warning to Logan from a social worker:

“The person who made the complaint is someone you need to watch out for. I can’t get into particulars.”

“But?” I watched her for a long moment.

Her face twisted, and her mouth opened and closed several times before any words came out. “Keep Dani close. Just keep her close, and don’t let her out of your sight.”

This book ends on a cliffhanger, as psycho Jamie brutally murders Everly:

In one swift, practiced motion, the knife slid across Everly’s throat.

A practiced motion. I wonder how many people Jamie has practiced this on.