Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussions of rape.

Ariel Pryce is a small business owner and single mother. When the novel opens, she is on a rare vacation to Lisbon with her new husband, John Wright. John works in New York City and Ariel resides in a small village upstate. When the reader first encounters her, Ariel is defined by anxiety and absence: She wakes in a city she does not know to find her husband missing. She rushes to the embassy and the police after less than a day and spends much of her time begging for support and assistance.

Through subtle clues and observations, however, Pavone hints that Ariel is sharper and more observant than she appears and is driven by more than devotion to her spouse. In the US Embassy, she notices the security cameras and thinks “we’re all being observed by some lens or another” (31), and she reflects on her path as an actress. Despite her outward anxiety, she is adamant, inwardly, that speaking to a journalist who offers his help is “out of the question. But that doesn’t mean he can’t be useful somehow” (34). This sharp, cynical observance and calculation, characteristic of Ariel’, hint at her true personality.