Amy Elliott Dunne Timeline & Summary

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• Amy meets Nick at a gathering of fellow writers in New York City; she gives him her number, but he never calls.
• Amy gets involved with Tommy O'Hara. The relationship ends when she frames him for rape, and then drops the charges.
• Nick and Amy are reunited eight months later at an outdoor market.
• Amy marries Nick on the Nantucket Sound.
• Nick loses his job at his magazine, and shortly after, Amy loses her job as a quiz writer for another magazine.
• In spite of her objections, Amy moves to Missouri with Nick to care for his parents. She develops a relationship with Nick's mom, Maureen, that continues until Maureen's death.
• Amy discovers that Nick is having an affair with his student, Andie, and vows to get revenge. Simply put, she sees her drivin' 'round town with the guy she loves and she's like, "Forget you."
• The beginning stages of Amy's plot to frame Nick are put into place. She writes seven years' worth of diary entries, carefully composes the treasure hunt for their fifth anniversary, and begins a friendship with the pregnant Noelle Hawthorne, whose pee she uses to fake her own pregnancy.
• On the morning of the fifth wedding anniversary, Amy cooks Nick breakfast and tells him she still loves him—and after he leaves, she cuts her arm with a knife, cleans up her own blood, and trashes the living room just enough to make it look suspicious.
• Amy drives a car she purchased months ago on the Internet to a cabin complex in the Ozarks so she can watch Nick's undoing unfold on live television. While she at first intends on staying isolated, she eventually befriends Greta and Jeff, two other residents.
• Greta and Jeff rob Amy of the money she spent a year saving up, leaving her penniless.
• In desperation, Amy contacts her ex-high school boyfriend, Desi, who invites her to come live with him. The possessiveness that plagued their relationship back in high school kicks in though, and he refuses to let her leave the house.
• Amy sees Nick's interview with Sharon Schieber, including his emotional pleas for her to return home. Seduced by the control she thinks she has over him, she plots to frame Desi for rape, then murder him and escape.
• Amy returns home and tells the cops a phony story that Desi was her captor all along. She reveals the truth to Nick, in the shower with water running, so he can't get any of it on tape.
• With the case of her disappearance closed, Amy begins a new plot to get control over Nick. She gets a book deal and takes a "precaution" as insurance to keep him around (58.3): she has herself impregnated with his sperm sample from a fertility clinic they went to years ago.
• Amy reveals to Nick that she is pregnant and that he must cooperate with her Desi-kidnapping story and delete his own memoirs of the case.
• The night before her baby is due, Amy reflects on how "A year ago today, I was undoing my husband. Now I am almost done reassembling him" (64.3).