How It All Goes Down
Nick Dunne—Eight Days Gone
- Andie's bite did so much damage that hours later, Nick still has ice on it. He finally tries to call her and apologize, but keeps getting her voice mail. At first, he thinks this is a bad idea, but then remembers that he has sent her dozens of raunchy, inappropriate voice mails over the last year and she probably has them all saved on her phone. Whoops—this might turn out worse than he thought.
- Nick is sitting outside on Go's front steps when he gets a surprise visit from the exact person he wants to see right now—Boney. She's brought coffee, though, which was nice of her. She says she came over to check on how Nick was doing after the news about Amy's pregnancy. Then, she notices the bite on his face. Nick quickly says that he gets hives when he's stressed out, but she clearly doesn't believe him, trying to tell him yet again that she's on his side.
- Boney brings with her the news that they've located Amy's purse along the riverbanks. Their theory is that someone put it there to make it look like someone threw it out a car window as they skipped town. It wasn't fully submerged in the water and looked like it was carefully placed there to make sure it was found. Still, Boney's statement has guilt toward Nick written all over it, especially when she asks him if he's been to Hannibal recently.
- We know Nick has—it was a stop on the Amy Anniversary Tour of Vengeance—but Nick doesn't disclose this information. Instead he says Boney needs to talk to Tanner. In response, Boney refers to Tanner as "the guy guilty people call in," which clearly makes Nick think Tanner maybe wasn't the greatest idea after all. He agrees to "get together" with his lawyer and the cops when Tanner gets into town.
- Tanner arrives an hour later and instructs Nick to point him in the direction of the shed, to stay away from it while Tanner investigates it, and to never go near it ever again. When he comes back, he's clearly super ticked off and orders Nick to tell him why in the name of Punch and Judy he thinks Amy is framing him since things pretty much look like he did it.
- Nick tries to explain to Tanner that Amy is ridiculously intelligent and vindictive, and that this is an intensely bad combination in a situation like this. He then tries to walk him through her thought process with the treasure hunt, including the linkage of each clue location to his affair with Andie and the way the clues emotionally manipulate him into loving Amy again. He even suggests that Amy bought the panties in his office in a deliberately different size so it would look like something questionable went on there.
- Tanner brings up a disturbing point, however: Amy's left incriminating evidence at each location, from the panties in the office to her purse in Hannibal to the credit card purchase stash in the woodshed. This means something must be in Nick's dad's house, too.