42 pages • 1 hour read
Gilly MacmillanWhat She Knew
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2015A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 5-6Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 5 Summary: “Day 5: Thursday, October 25, 2012”
In the early morning hours of the fifth day of the investigation, Rachel is disturbed by the sound of someone climbing over her backyard fence. It’s a journalist hoping to get a photo of activity inside the house. She yells to frighten him away while Nicky runs outside and accuses the rest of the reporters of vandalizing her family.
By mid-morning, Jim and Emma appear at Rachel’s place. They want to ask Nicky about two people named Andrew and Naomi Bowness. Rachel is confused because she doesn’t know what this line of questioning is about. Nicky resists talking about the Bowness couple until Jim forces her to disclose the truth.
Andrew and Naomi are Rachel and Nicky’s real parents. They had a son named Charlie who was afflicted with a rare degenerative disease. He bore an uncanny resemblance to Ben. To spare their child from future suffering, the parents took Charlie, and all three leaped to their deaths. Rachel was only a year old at the time and remembers none of these events. Nicky has carried the burden of protecting Rachel from the truth for her entire life.
Alice and Katy Bowness are the real names of Nicky and Rachel. Their aunt changed their identities as children to prevent the stigma of their family’s 
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