Dark Places Chapter 35 Summary

How It All Goes Down

Libby Day—Now

  • Diondra's baby isn't much of a baby anymore. She's a young woman, and she looks a lot like Libby.
  • The girl's name is Crystal, and she pretty much knows everything about the incident. Her mom told her all she knows.
  • Crystal hasn't met Ben, her father, though.
  • Diondra tells Libby they still need to keep everything a secret. She's worried the police will think she was an accomplice.
  • Diondra invites Libby to stay for dinner—pot roast—so Libby does.
  • It's a typical dinner with the secret girlfriend of your mass-murdering, imprisoned brother.
  • Libby excuses herself to the bathroom, and, being a klepto, she steals some lipstick while she's in there.
  • Over a few glasses of wine, the girls talk about family memories.
  • Crystal asks Libby if she has any photo albums, but Libby admits that she has a difficult time looking at them.
  • Libby talks about all the boxes of stuff she has. "Half of it was Michelle's junk" (34.40), she says. According to Libby, Michelle wrote everything down in a diary, like that one time she got in a fight with her best friend over a boy they both liked.
  • Weirdly, Crystal knows the boy's name. Todd Delhunt.
  • Libby asks if Diondra knew Michelle, and she says not at all. We guess strangling a person to death doesn't count as actually knowing them.
  • Crystal excuses herself to pee.
  • As Libby realizes that Crystal must have somehow read her dead sister's diary, Crystal clocks Libby on the head with an antique clothes iron and knocks her out.