Gone Girl: 11. Nick Dunne, One Day Gone (2) Summary & Analysis

After the disastrous press conference, Gilpin pulls Nick aside to tell him that there have been vagrants living in the Dunnes’ neighborhood—Nick is unsurprised, as the whole town is “overrun with pissed-off, unemployed people” let go from their jobs at a recently closed mall. To himself, Nick laments the strange and tough times he has found himself living in, and thinks about how between the recession, the inundation of media and advertising, and his increasing cynicism about the world, he has stopped feeling, over the last few years, like “a real person.” He would do anything, he thinks, to “feel real again.”

Gilpin brings Nick back to the interrogation room he’d been in the night before to show him, lying on the table, the silvery gift box from Amy. Inside, nestled in tissue paper, is an envelope bearing the words “FIRST CLUE.” Gilpin laughs, remarking how strange it was for them to open a box containing a “clue” before they realized it was a part of Nick and Amy’s anniversary treasure hunt. Gilpin allows Nick to open the envelope and read the clue. The clever rhyming poem contained within makes reference to a sexy game of student and teacher which Amy envisions. Nick tells Gilpin the clue must be leading him to his office at the nearby junior college, where he’s an adjunct professor of journalism. Gilpin and Nick decide to go over to his office together to find the next clue.

As Nick opens his office door, he sees two envelopes sitting on his desk. He is nervous about what they contain, but when he opens the envelope marked with a heart, he sees that it contains a gushing letter from Amy describing how “brilliant” Nick is. Nick finishes reading the note, confused and flattered, but continues staring at it—Gilpin, meanwhile, uses the tip of his pencil to pick up a pair of lacy red underwear that are hanging off a knob on the AC unit. Gilpin laughs at the “randy professor and naughty student” game Amy and Nick have apparently had going for quite some time. Nick reads the second clue, and so does Gilpin. Gilpin asks Nick what it means—Nick, lying, says he has “no idea.”

After separating from Gilpin, Nick drives aimlessly up and down the highway, trying to make a call on a disposable cell phone. When he fails to get the person on the other end to pick up, he drives to meet the Elliotts at the local Days Inn. He goes up to the Elliotts’ room and Marybeth lets him in; together, they watch the five o’clock news from St. Louis. Amy’s disappearance is the lead story. Rand asks Nick how he’s holding up, and they all commiserate over how sick and useless they feel.

Rand asks Nick if he’s given the police lists of his employees at The Bar, and then admits he’s given them lists of his own Amazing Amy employees. The books—which featured lessons for children and a quiz at the end of each chapter—are immensely popular throughout the country, and Rand admits that there are some people who’ve worked for him and Marybeth over the years who might be suspicious.

Nick asks Rand and Marybeth what the police have asked them about him—they console Nick and promise him that they know he’d never hurt Amy, and have told the police as much. Rand and Marybeth tell Nick that they love him like a son. Nick’s phone vibrates, but he silences the call, insisting it’s a number he recognizes as his college’s alumni fund. Marybeth tells Nick that “an Amy obsessive” could have kidnapped Amy—there have, over the years, been stalkers and strange fans, including one of Amy’s own high school classmates, Hilary Handy, who threatened to kill Amy and take her place as Rand and Marybeth’s daughter.

Another of Amy’s stalkers was her boarding-school boyfriend Desi Collings, a wealthy classmate who approached his relationship with Amy with too much intensity, and then tried to kill himself in her bed when she broke things off. Nick has heard a lot about Desi over the years—despite the macabre end to his relationship with Amy, Desi has continued phoning and writing letters over the years; he lives, now, in St. Louis, just forty minutes from Carthage. Despite the unsettling coincidence, Nick can’t imagine Desi, whom he pictures as a “slender dandy,” forcibly kidnapping Amy. However, when Nick mentions to the Elliotts that Desi is living in St. Louis, they insist on informing the police. Marybeth states that the authorities think the case is “close to home,” and “shiver[s]” as she looks at Nick for just a “beat too long.”