76 pages • 2 hours read
Harlan CobenNo Second Chance
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2003A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 8-14Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 8 Summary
Eighteen months have passed since Stacy’s death. This chapter opens with a third person omniscient narrator, rather than Marc’s usual first-person narration.
We meet Lydia, a former child star who is now a beautiful and ruthless criminal with a deceptively “warm smile” (61). Lydia is extorting a recent widow in order to collect on her dead husband’s gambling debts. Lydia approaches the widow, Wendy Burnet, at a Starbucks and expresses sympathy for the death of Wendy’s husband, Jimmy. She tells Wendy that she was “the last person to see Jimmy alive” (63) and confesses to killing him. When Wendy asks Lydia who she is, Lydia puts her finger to Wendy’s lips. Lydia then chastises Wendy for not understanding that Lydia is a credible threat: “That would be really narrow and sexist on your part, don’t you think? This is the twenty-first century. Women can be whatever they want” (64).
Lydia explains that Jimmy was tortured before his death by Heshy, the huge man waiting for her outside the Starbucks. Jimmy confessed under torture that his life insurance policy would cover his gambling debts to one of Lydia’s employers. Lydia expects full repayment, with 40% interest when the insurance payouts begin in a week. When Wendy protests, Lydia puts her finger to Wendy’s lips again and tells her she is lucky to have “the rare opportunity to get out from under” (66). If Wendy delays payment or contacts the police, Lydia promises to kill all three of her children and still force Wendy to pay. Lydia follows up this horrifying threat by saying, “I really enjoyed our little girl chat, Wendy. We should get together soon. Say, your house at noon on Friday the sixteenth?” (66). Wendy understands the implicit threat and agrees to pay.
Lydia insincerely expresses her sympathies again, before leaving the Starbucks to converse with Heshy outside. She asks if he has found “our man” and if “the package is already out” (66), with Heshy responding affirmatively to both questions. She then tells Heshy she has “a funny feeling,” but still doesn’t want to back out of their plan. She wants to “just see how Dr. Seidman reacts” (67). This is the only mention of Marc in the chapter.
Chapter 9 Summary
Marc is at a youth soccer game with Lenny’s family, serving as assistant coach to Lenny. Marc’s grief over losing Tara is mixed with hope because her body was never found. Marc thinks she may be alive and narrates, “Like grief, hope hides and pounces and taunts and never leaves. I am not sure which of the two is the crueler mistress” (73). After their team wins, Lenny reminds Marc that Monica’s estate has nearly been settled and that Marc needs to sign off on his own will. Reminded of his case, Marc narrates that a drug dealer in an unrelated case confessed to selling Stacy a firearm matching the caliber that shot Marc and Monica. Marc also mentions that he was considering divorcing Monica before the shooting. Both Regan and Tickner have were reassigned to other cases after all police theories proved fruitless, and Marc hasn’t “heard a word from either in nearly six months” (74).
Marc accompanies Lenny’s soccer team to get ice cream, but he struggles with seeing children and their fathers. He leaves to prep for a surgery with his partner Zia. The surgery is a success, as Marc narrates his surgical fellowship experience during the civil war in Sierra Leone that cemented his desire to work in plastic surgery internationally.
As Zia and Marc purchase groceries after the surgery, Zia spots Marc’s ex-girlfriend, Rachel. Zia urges Marc to approach her, and the conversation with Rachel begins with awkward flirtation. Rachel claims to be visiting her mother, who just moved nearby. She learned of Monica’s death and Tara’s disappearance, but she felt awkward reaching out to Marc. She is no longer married and is a former FBI agent, but she does not disclose why her marriage or career ended. Rachel moves to leave, but Marc asks if she would like to “get together” (82). She tearfully tells him that she must return to her life in Washington, to which Marc responds immediately that he would move there for her. Both Marc and Rachel know that this is an empty promise. Marc explains from his perspective: “I couldn’t just leave my parents or dump my business with Zia or—or abandon my ghosts” (83). Rachel, whom Marc calls the love of his live, leaves the supermarket without looking back.
Chapter 10 Summary
Marc drinks and reminisces about Rachel. She is a distant cousin of Cheryl’s, and they met over the summer in college. The relationship ended in their senior year when Rachel studied abroad in Italy and Marc had a one night stand that Rachel found out about. Marc looks at an old picture from a formal dance of himself with Rachel, Lenny, and Cheryl that he has hidden away in a locked desk drawer, thinking about how he loved Rachel more than Monica. Lenny and Cheryl have this same photo on display in their house and it infuriated Monica. He remembers Cheryl telling him that Rachel joined the FBI, and how crushed he felt when Cheryl told him three years before that Rachel married an older FBI agent.
Lenny comes over to hang out because of Marc’s encounter with Rachel, and he brings Monica’s estate paperwork with him. He weirdly asks if Marc has pornography to watch and switches on college basketball when Marc responds that he does not have any. Lenny has knowledge of Rachel’s recent history, but he will not discuss her with Marc, only intimating that “Rachel has been through some tough times,” and that Marc has “to stop living in the past” (87). Marc had not seen Rachel for 14 years before that evening.
Narration switches to third person omniscient, featuring Edgar about to walk his prize bull mastiff, Bruno. A new package has arrived after 18 months, but he is afraid to open it. He takes Bruno out to the family burial plot to visit the graves of his children. Carson finds the package and comes out to meet Edgar, telling him it’s likely a hoax. Edgar waits to notify Marc, but he is having the package tested in the meanwhile.
Marc returns as narrator. He is about to watch a movie when the neighbor’s dog barks, and he looks out the window. The same mystery woman is standing outside his house, but she sees Marc and runs. Marc chases after her, finally catching up with her in a shortcut that only kids who grew up in the neighborhood know about. The mystery woman is Dina Levinsky.
Chapter 11 Summary
Marc and Dina proceed to talk in the house over tea. She tells Marc that she is “a graphic designer and artist” with “a show in the Village next month” (98). She reveals that the rumors about her father abusing her were true, but he has been dead for six years, and she is going to therapy with Dr. Stanley Radio. She says that therapy has allowed her to get over the issues created by the abuse, so she is now happily married to a good man and doesn’t have sexual hang-ups. However, much of her purported recovery is a lie, as Lenny reveals in Chapter 30.
Dina reveals that she has been coming by occasionally “to face down this house. I had to confront the past in order to defeat it” (98). She reveals the existence of her diary, which is hidden in the basement of the house, and that she met Monica before she died, although she does not reveal under what circumstances they met. She starts to panic as they keep talking and needs to leave. Marc kindly tells her that she can come back for her mental health whenever she needs to, but Dina responds by asking if Marc loved Monica. When he is taken aback, she then asks him, “You know who shot you, don’t you, Marc?” before leaving (100).
Marc descends into the basement, unsure why Monica never mentioned meeting Dina. Marc finds Dina’s diary, but he keeps searching the hiding spot on instinct. Monica’s planner is there as well along with a mysterious CD zipped into it. Marc decides to investigate the CD.
Chapter 12 Summary
When Marc attempts to open the CD on his computer, he finds that it is password encrypted, and he cannot crack Monica’s code. The CD’s password screen mentions “MVD Newark, NJ” (104), which Marc researches online. The initials stand for “Most Valuable Detection” and the company is a private detective agency. While Marc does not know why Monica hired private detectives, he does know that payment for their services did not come from his joint finances with Monica, which both he and the police have already reviewed thoroughly for clues.
Edgar receives a call at 4:30 in the morning. Early results have come back on the infant hair enclosed in the new ransom demand showing a match and indicating that Tara is still alive.
Chapter 13 Summary
In the morning, Marc goes to his childhood home around the corner to take his father on their weekly walk together. As they pass the train station, Marc narrates that he admires the people who sacrifice their own happiness for the wellbeing of their families. He compares himself to the commuters who hate their jobs and have to travel every day to New York City under the shadow of the recent 9/11 terrorist attacks. In contrast, he would find more lucrative work boring, even though it would improve the lives of his parents. As Marc puts it, “so, really, which one of us is to be admired?” (108).
Marc reminisces that his father once told him in high school that he could still understand things despite the damage from his strokes. Even though additional strokes have occurred since, Marc still talks to him as though he is cognitively normal. Marc tells him all the details he has uncovered as he pushes his father’s wheelchair around the local park. While there, Marc sees Edgar waiting for him at a bench. Marc brings his father over to Edgar, who tells him about the second ransom request, along with the matching hair samples from Tara.
Edgar tells Marc that the kidnappers want another $2 million, and they claim to have an informant who will notify them if Marc or Edgar go to the police again. Edgar has brought the money and the new cell phone provided by the kidnappers. As Edgar is explaining that he does not have much liquid cash left after the second $2 million ransom, Marc notices his father staring across the park at a man. The man waves at Marc as Marc runs towards him, then escapes in a white van before Marc can reach him.
Chapter 14 Summary
Marc decides to compartmentalize his emotions like the surgeon that he is, as he is starting to panic: “To get emotional, to allow myself to wallow in doubt...it would paralyze me. That was probably what the kidnappers wanted. They wanted me to come apart. But I work well under pressure. I am at my best” (114). Edgar gives Marc the ransom money as Marc decides not to call the police and formulates his own plan.
Marc tries to contact Cheryl, Lenny’s wife. After not reaching her at home, he drives to the school of one of her kids and finds her dropping off her son. He asks Cheryl right away for Rachel’s phone number, and Cheryl tells him to get into her SUV to continue the conversation, as she has other kids to drop off. Marc climbs into the vehicle.
Cheryl is initially reluctant to give Marc Rachel’s phone number because of Marc and Rachel’s history. She then confesses the reason that she and Lenny did not told Marc that Rachel was single again: Rachel’s husband was also shot dead. Cheryl tells Marc Rachel’s husband was also in the FBI, and she resigned after his death. She indicates that Rachel has changed. She gives him Rachel’s number anyhow, and Marc calls her.
Chapters 8-14 Analysis
The novel makes its first narrational switch as the action restarts after an 18-month gap. Instead of Marc narrating in first person, the perspective switches to a third person omniscient narrator that focuses on Lydia extorting a widow in a vignette that is nearly wholly removed from the larger narrative. Chapter 8 serves to establish the major antagonist of the novel, illustrating Lydia’s almost playful malevolence and the joy she takes in the suffering of others. By switching narration away from Marc’s voice, the novel further illustrates Marc’s loss of control. Marc is not even in control of his own narrative; the first instance in the novel of a switch in narration focuses on a major antagonist performing unrelated activities. Other switches happen throughout the novel, with an omniscient narrator following Rachel and Tickner, among others, as the plot progresses. However, this first instance is significant because it sets the example that Lydia can derail Marc’s narrative.
When Marc does pick up his narrative again, he is clearly dealing with the pain of being around so many children and parents while helping to coach Lenny’s team. He touches on the theme of hope versus grief in dealing with Tara’s absence, noting that grief catches him unawares often. However, the hope he derives from Tara’s body never having been found is also difficult to bear: “Like grief, hope hides and pounces and taunts and never leaves. I am not sure which of the two is the crueler mistress” (73). The sight of intact families is difficult for Marc, so it is interesting that the surgery he performs is necessary because the patient’s father has been a neglectful parent who drove drunk without buckling his son’s seatbelt. Marc is essentially correcting the consequences of another example in the novel of poor parenting.
Marc’s reaction after seeing Rachel for the first time in years is to foolishly offer to move to DC for her, then drink alone at home while reminiscing over the picture of him with Rachel, Lenny, and Cheryl that he kept locked away from Monica. This picture continues to have significance later in the narrative, as Lenny and Cheryl have the same picture hanging in their house, but for now it reveals that Marc kept his still-ongoing feelings for Rachel a secret from Monica. His narration openly asks, “Am I saying that I never loved my wife?” (86). Just as Monica has secrets from Marc, such as her friendship with Dina, psychiatrist appointments, surveillance photos from private detectives and a gun procured from Marc’s own sister, Marc’s hidden photo of Rachel indicates that Monica develops her secrets in direct response to sensing Marc’s own secret love for Rachel.
Dina Levinsky’s proper introduction is an important moment in the novel. She is a victim of sexual abuse at the hands of her father, embodying yet another example of failed parenthood. While some of the details she reveals about herself at this moment are false, there are many clues that she tries to drop for Marc that he does not yet understand. For instance, her mention of Stanley Radio as her psychiatrist connects to Edgar telling Marc that Monica had a secret psychiatrist in Chapter 2. Dina also mentions that she and Monica had known each other before pointing Marc towards her diary in the basement that was hidden next to Monica’s planner. Even her anecdote about her bully, Cindy McGovern, can be interpreted as a clue. Dina relates a story about Cindy coming to Dina’s art exhibition: “She’s all smiles and I swear, Marc, she didn’t remember what she’d been like. She wasn’t pretending either. […] No one remembers being the bully” (97). While this story is later exposed as a likely fiction because Dina has not been having art exhibitions, Dina’s point is to make Marc consider that his actions may have had consequences he has not realized; like Cindy with Dina, perhaps Marc has been crueler to Monica than he realizes.
Dina is more direct just before she leaves, asking, “Monica. Did you love her? Or was there someone else?” before then asking, “You know who shot you, don’t you, Marc?” (100). These are both significant clues that Monica shot Marc, especially when juxtaposed next to each other, but Marc is unable to decipher these clues yet, and Dina is unsure how much to openly tell Marc. This final question, inferring that Marc already knows the answer to his mystery, will haunt Marc until the end of the novel.
Chapter 13 briefly references 9/11/2001 when Marc takes his father on their weekly walk. This is one of only two concrete references to 9/11, which is surprising, given that the novel is from 2003 and takes place around New Jersey and New York. The novel focuses much more on the aftermath of the conflict in Kosovo that took place from 1998-1999, as Kosovo and the Balkans are where Bacard sources the pregnant sex workers for his adoption racket. However, the national sense of being hit by an unforeseen tragedy on 9/11 echoes Marc’s personal loss of Tara. Coben develops the motif when Marc speaks of the banal heroism of the dutiful commuters heading into downtown Manhattan to return to work after the attacks (108). He contrasts this with his own selfish desire to handle interesting cases overseas, which he feels is less heroic than sacrificing his own happiness to be better able to provide for his ill father and aging mother (108).
Marc’s practice of compartmentalizing his emotions is first discussed as Chapter 14 begins. This practice simultaneously allows him to push his fears away while focusing on what needs to be done. It allows him to avoid paralysis, but it also prevents him from later opening up and communicating properly with Rachel. This focus drives Marc to approach Cheryl for Rachel’s number while she is dropping off her children, instead of waiting to contact Lenny. Marc does not want to make the same mistake of trusting the police as he did during the first ransom exchange, but Rachel has FBI expertise and no official law enforcement status. However, Marc does not explain why he is asking for Rachel’s number, so Cheryl cannot tell Lenny that there has been a second ransom note. This partly explains why Lenny is later upset to discover Marc didn’t tell him about the second ransom exchange until later.
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