Chapter summary
Chapter 6
Jet sits in her dark bedroom, laptop on her knees, replaying the Ring doorbell video for the third time. The first clip (10:39 p.m.) shows Jet herself walking up the drive in a black outfit, pausing at the door, and muttering “Don’t go in.” She watches herself open the door, the frame freezing as the video ends, noting that no killer ever crosses the frame or triggers the motion sensor. She flips to her notebook, where the left page is filled with crossed‑out dog‑walking‑app ideas and the right page bears the underlined question “Who murdered me?” along with transferred Apple‑Watch timestamps and a note about the Ring camera.
She hears her parents’ muffled footsteps, overhears a brief exchange (“She’s asleep, Dianne… Let her sleep”), and recalls why she stayed up alone—to log into her parents’ Ring account using the password her dad gave her.
Jet then plays the next motion‑detector alert (11:05 p.m.). The video shows Billy rushing toward the front door, calling for “Mr and Mrs. Mason,” trying the mail slot, and eventually kicking the door open to find Jet on the floor, head bleeding. Billy’s frantic shouts, the sound of Reggie the dog howling, and the door’s splintering are captured before the feed cuts. A subsequent clip shows paramedics arriving, a police chief stumbling inside, the stretcher being loaded, and Billy’s repeated cries of “She can’t be alone!” Jet pauses, writes “DNA probably fucked from the rescue” in her notebook, and notes the repetition of the scene.
She reviews an earlier motion alert from 8:33 p.m. at the Halloween fair. Five costumed teenagers—a witch, a werewolf, a skeleton, plus others—approach the house, joking about its size and owners. The skeleton asks about the house’s wealth; the witch mentions “my mom doesn’t like them.” Jet laughs, then the clip is interrupted by a sudden, distorted face (Ghostface) that flashes on screen, causing Jet to jump and slam her head into the bed’s headboard. She curses the prank and the teens afterward mock the camera, fleeing down the drive.
Next, Jet examines a series of daytime videos documenting Sophia’s two trips to the house with baby Cameron and a plate of Halloween cookies. She notes the timeline: 3:24 p.m. (Sophia arrives with baby, keys, and cookies), 3:42 p.m. (Jet leaves after a walk), 2:21 p.m. and 2:14 p.m. (Sophia’s earlier visits, the mystery of the missing cookies). She scribbles “Cookies???”. Jet puzzles over why Sophia returned an hour later, realizing the plate of cookies was indeed in Sophia’s hands during the first visit, resolving the mystery but still questioning Sophia’s motives.
After cataloguing all timestamps, Jet returns to the live Ring view, watching the empty driveway under a sickly orange porch light. She briefly Googles “symptoms of a brain aneurysm,” then slams her laptop shut, refusing to read more. She lies down, pressing her forehead into the pillow, trying to sleep despite the pain from the suspected skull injury.
The chapter ends with Jet cataloguing all observed footage, noting that the killer never appears on camera, that she suspects someone she knows brought the weapon, and that she will continue to piece together the timeline while battling the looming threat of a possible aneurysm.