Gone Girl Chapter 23 Summary

How It All Goes Down

Nick Dunne—Five Days Gone

  • Obviously the meeting with Desi (and his mom) didn't go too well, but things are about to get worse—Gilpin left a message on Nick's phone giving him orders to meet him and Boney at his house at 3:00PM for a powwow.
  • Back at Nick's place, Nick shares his meeting with Desi with the detectives, and tries to convince them that he's a suspect. Boney shoots this idea down immediately. When Nick tries to bring up men who have called the tip line, she cuts him off and says they should get to their questions.
  • To begin with, nobody can still remember seeing Nick at the beach the morning of Amy's disappearance. What's more, people who know him have said outright that Nick isn't even the "go to the beach" type. Boney asks Nick where he bought the coffee he allegedly drank on the beach, and Nick says he made it at home. Here's the funny thing about that—when Boney searched the house, she found no coffee. None. Zero. For those of you keeping score at home, it's Cops: 2, Nick: 0.
  • Boney moves on to her next piece of suspicious evidence: that the furniture in the living room wasn't knocked over in a way that would be consistent with a struggle. Only one part of the room was disturbed, and even the books look like they were deliberately moved off the coffee table rather than falling forward when it was toppled. Plus some picture frames that fall over when Gilpin stomps on the floor stayed upright during the alleged attack. Sheesh.
  • Then they really pull out the smoking gun. During the investigation of Nick's house, the crime scene investigators did a Luminol sweep—a test that shows the residue of blood even after it's been cleaned up—of the kitchen floor and, according to Boney, the whole place lit up. Which means Amy evidently lost a massive amount of blood in the kitchen. If she wasn't killed there, the only other option is that she gave herself a serious wound on purpose. Nick claims that she is thick-skinned enough to handle the task, but chooses not to mention her fear of blood.
  • Boney, Gilpin, and Nick then discuss the issues in his and Amy's marriage, causing Nick to unload some serious emotions about Amy's passivity and unhappiness. He claims that she didn't do enough around the house and even if she didn't want to, she needed to "do something." He realizes he's probably a little too aggressive and angry with his tone of voice, but for the first time since he met these people, he's being totally honest. And it feels good.
  • The cops also bring up the financial problems in their marriage, including the decline of the Amazing Amy empire. And then they have another surprise for Nick: piles and piles of credit card bills in his name, totaling two hundred and twelve thousand dollars. Nick claims to know nothing about any of these purchases. We really want to believe him… but he did lie to the cops, and he definitely lied to us about Andie.
  • Next up is Noelle Hawthorne. The cops checked her out, just as Nick asked—but the results weren't what he wanted. Apparently, her claim of being Amy's best friend really does check out— her living room is filled with pictures of the two of them—and not only that, but Noelle also claims that Amy was afraid of Nick's temper.
  • Other incriminating facts Boney and Gilpin introduce include someone bumping up Amy's life insurance policy and someone doing a Google search on Nick's computer for the phrase "body float Mississippi River." Nick decides it's time to get a lawyer.