Good Bad Girl: A Novel

Clio opens the envelope she received from Frankie and finds a silver ladybug ring inside. She’s joined by Jude at the hospital, and the two reflect on how their mother treated them as children—sometimes well, but most often with disdain. Clio remembers the first child she ever became pregnant with—years before the second child was stolen, back when she was a teenager—and how her mother forced her to give the baby up.

The siblings are then joined by Charlotte, who accuses Jude of conspiring with Joy to have his mother killed. Charlotte explains that she believes that Joy was routinely killing the home’s residents—going back to Edith’s friend, May Chapman, who was also Charlotte’s grandmother. Clio immediately recognizes the name because May was the detective who worked on the case of her missing daughter. Charlotte says that she’s solved the murder thanks to information from Edith and arrests Jude for conspiring to murder his mother.

DCI May Chapman questions Clio about the abduction, telling her that children are most often kidnapped by people they know. When Clio tells May that no one wishes her or her family ill, May asks, to Clio’s horror, where she was when her own child was taken.

Frankie, sitting in the hospital’s café, watches Jude get taken out in handcuffs. She’s planning to see Edith before she dies so she can say what she wanted to say to Edith when Frankie went to the home and impersonated Clio. As she’s going to Edith’s hospital bed, she gets a phone call from Liberty, who tells her over voicemail that she knows where Frankie’s daughter is.

With Jude gone, Charlotte questions Clio about a toy bear that she sent to her mother while Edith was in the home. The bear had a camera inside of it, which recorded Joy sneaking into Edith’s room and holding a pillow over her face. The bear was knocked down while recording, so the rest of the footage is useless. Clio admits to having sent her mother the spying toy to keep an eye on her. Charlotte tells her that Edith confessed to killing Joy, so Clio is no longer a suspect. While Charlotte tells Clio this, her eyes never leave Clio’s red trainers.

Patience tells Liberty that Frankie is not her biological mother. Liberty responds that Patience has a maternal figure who loves her, which is more than some people get.

Charlotte gives the spy toy to Clio and leaves. Clio sits with her mother, who tells Clio that she’s dying. She also tells Clio that she changed her will not to punish Clio, but so Clio would be forced to find her daughter—Patience. Clio initially rejects the idea that Patience is her kidnapped daughter, but then she shows Edith the ladybug ring. Edith had three of these rings made when Clio’s second daughter was born: one for the child, one for Clio, and one for herself. She confirms that the ring that Frankie gave Clio was the original. Edith dies.

After listening to Liberty’s voicemail, Frankie gets in her van and heads to the prison. As she’s getting out of the vehicle, she finds that Clio is stowed away in the back seat.

Clio questions Frankie about why Frankie stole her child, and Frankie only responds that “all children deserve to be loved” (271). Frankie explains that the ladybug ring was on a necklace around the child’s neck the day of the kidnapping; that detail never made it to reporters, so the fact that Frankie knew about and had it proves she took the child. Frankie goes into the prison, and Clio tells her she will wait outside.

When Frankie finds Liberty inside, Liberty tells her that Patience was in her cell earlier but was just released from prison.

Patience, released from prison, sees her mother’s van outside and runs to it. Inside, she finds Clio rather than Frankie. Clio tells Patience that she wants to apologize.

Frankie rushes outside and finds that her van is missing and her daughter is nowhere to be found.

Clio drives Patience back to Frankie’s houseboat. Clio questions Patience about her childhood, and Patience reveals that her real name is Nellie. This name, short for Eleanor, finally convinces Clio that this girl is her daughter. Clio tells Patience that Edith is dead, and Patience is devastated. Patience says that she never should have trusted Clio when she paid her to look after Edith and eventually smuggle Edith out of the home.

A distraught Frankie, having searched for Patience, returns to the houseboat and is shocked to find Patience there. Patience, now ready to return to her identity as Nellie after her heart-to-heart with Liberty, sits with Frankie and listens to the story of how her mother abducted her. Frankie reveals that she is actually Patience/Nellie’s sister.

Clio returns home to find a letter from Edith on the dresser. In it, she explains that while she was looking after the infant Eleanor, she received a visit from a much younger Frankie, who was looking to get back in contact with her birth mother: Clio, who had given birth to Frankie as a teenager and was convinced by Edith to give the child up. Frankie had already visited Jude to try to get information about Clio; this is why Patience/Nellie, years later, would discover information about Jude among her mother’s possessions. Edith refused to allow Frankie to see Clio because she thought that Frankie’s presence would harm Clio’s mental health. While having this conversation, Frankie overheard Patience/Nellie screaming while no one attended to her. Later that day, Frankie stole the child she perceived to be unhappy, believing that she could give Patience/Nellie a better life.

Edith also admits that she did not commit Joy’s murder but felt that confessing to the murder would be the only way she could atone for her sins against Clio, Frankie, and Patience/Nellie. Clio gets the spy toy from her bag and watches the footage. The film shows Joy trying to suffocate Edith with a pillow, and then the camera falls. From that vantage, it shows a pair of red trainers rushing toward Joy and Edith.

In the moments after Joy catches Patience stealing and fires her, Patience heads downstairs and robs Joy’s office. She then returns to Edith’s room to get the bag she left there. In the doorway of Edith’s room, she sees Joy trying to suffocate Edith with a pillow while Clio, whom she doesn’t recognize, rushes toward them. As Joy and Clio fight, they knock a stuffed animal from the dresser as well as a metal statue. While Clio holds Joy back, Patience picks up the metal statue and bludgeons Joy.

The women figure out a plan and put Joy’s body in the out-of-order elevator. Clio will return to her apartment, where she has a client, while Patience will return to her apartment, where Jude will come looking for her. On the way out, Clio makes a deal with Patience that she’ll pay Patience to get Edith out of the dangerous home and care for her for a few days before delivering her to Clio’s house. Patience agrees.

A year later, Patience/Nellie and Frankie live together in the houseboat again. Frankie works for an independent bookshop, Patience/Nellie gets into art school, and Jude goes to prison for conspiracy to murder. Patience/Nellie, finally happy, reflects on how Charlotte Chapman seems to have let them all go even though the evidence of the spy toy’s footage didn’t incriminate Edith. She decides that good people must sometimes do bad things.