Gone Girl: 15. Nick Dunne, Three Days Gone Summary & Analysis

The next morning, after hours of search parties at many locations around town, authorities have turned up no clues or leads. There is an air of defeat hanging over the volunteer center, and as Nick picks listlessly at a Danish, he overhears two men discussing how Amy could have been chopped into pieces and thrown in the river—if so, her body would be “all the way to the Gulf” by now. Nick feels his disposable phone vibrate in his pocket, but he silences the call.

Marybeth and Rand are frustrated by the police’s refusal to look into one of Amy’s old stalkers, Hilary Handy, who lives five hours away in Tennessee. Marybeth pleads with Nick to drive there himself and check things out. He agrees, and even volunteers to stop at Desi Collings’s place in St. Louis on the way back. When Stucks approaches Nick and tells him that the police having searched the mall in broad daylight was the wrong move—the place is only active at night—Nick suggests the two of them go down there themselves later. Rand gets word of their plan, and asks to come along—Nick tells him that he’d be a welcome help.

The police return Nick’s car to him. A volunteer takes him to the police station to pick it up, and he is privately grateful to have “a good ten unscheduled hours to work with.” Nick gets into his car, where he removes Amy’s second clue from his pocket and reads it. It makes reference to his “boyhood adventures” in Hannibal, where he dressed up like Huck Finn for tourists. The two of them took a trip there a couple years ago, and Nick now drives the twenty minutes to get there to hunt for the next of Amy’s clues.

As Nick arrives in Hannibal and looks around the depressing Main Street, full of closed storefronts and depressing tourist traps, he laments that he has “brought Amy to the end of everything.” The end of their jobs and print journalism in general, the end of Carthage’s way of life as well, even the end of their marriage.

Nick arrives at one of the spots referenced in Amy’s clue and goes inside—it is an old courthouse where Mark Twain’s father once worked. Nick gets down on his hands and knees and looks beneath the benches—he eventually finds the clue, in a blue envelope. There is a long note inside, in which Amy writes about how this year, she has chosen not to make the treasure hunt a “test”—but rather a celebration of their marriage. She thanks Nick for always being so funny and full of wit. Nick feels his soul deflate over his and Amy’s poor timing.

The next clue attached to the note tells Nick exactly where to go, but he’s not ready to go there yet. Instead, he drives back to Go’s, where the two of them watch television and commiserate. Go asks Nick if he’s okay—she thinks he’s being “weird” about everything concerning Amy’s disappearance. He admits that he knows hasn’t been acting or even feeling upset enough—Go says she understands, but warns Nick to be careful how he expresses himself around other people.

At 11:00 p.m., Nick goes back to the Days Inn to meet up with Stucks and Rand. As Stucks tells Rand how sorry he is about Amy, and tells nice stories about her, Nick realizes that everything his friend is saying is false. He’s angry—“facts [are] facts,” he feels, and is mad that everyone is turning Amy into someone she wasn’t. The Hillsam brothers, Joe and Mikey, also join the expedition to the mall, and on the way warn Stucks, Nick, and Rand that the mall is truly a dangerous place.

The group walks through the mall looking for vagrants, and eventually, they come across a man and a woman huddled on blankets, looking sweaty and emaciated. They points the group in the direction of “the Hole,” an old department store at the far end of the mall. Nick and the others make their way to the Hole, where junkies are sprawled out all over the floor. Nick and the Hillsam brothers begin asking questions about Amy, insisting that it’s not her drug use they’re worried about, but rather the idea that a junkie kidnapped her. When Nick shows one man, Lonnie, a picture of Amy, he recognizes her—and says that she came in not too long ago, wanting to purchase a gun.