A Kiss Before Dying

The boy sits beside the tracks where Thor Carlsson's copper refinery operates trains. He watches the engines pass by daily, a quiet ritual that hints at the power and reach of the Carlsson family. This childhood memory foreshadows how the family’s world will influence later events.

Dorothy, a University of Pennsylvania student and heiress to the Carlsson fortune, doodles wedding images during a class. The sketches reveal her romantic dreams and the pressures of joining a powerful lineage. The moment underscored her desire for romance within a rigid social world.

Dorothy meets her secret boyfriend on the City Hall grounds and is taken to the rooftop to discuss a marriage license. Without warning, Jonathan pushes her to her death and steals her engraved lighter, even mailing a letter she had written. Her body crashes through a skylight into the lobby, turning a civic moment into a murder.

Dorothy's death shocks her father Thor and her twin sister Ellen. With Dorothy pregnant, Thor concludes it was suicide born of shame, while Ellen remains skeptical. Ellen's investigation begins to challenge the family narrative from this moment.

Jonathan returns to Pittsburgh to live with his mother and then travels to New York, where he assumes the alias Jay Faraday. He aims to reinvent himself and insert into the Carlsson world through deception. This marks the birth of his long, dangerous plan to marry into wealth.

Four months after Dorothy's death, Ellen works at Castle House in New York and begins a deeper probe into Dorothy's demise. She contacts Detective Dan Corelli in Philadelphia, presenting Dorothy's wedding sketch as possible evidence. Corelli remains unconvinced, but Ellen presses on with renewed resolve.

Ellen learns Dorothy had dated Tommy Roussell before her death and pursues the lead. As Tommy searches for the photo of the other man in an old yearbook, Jonathan stalks Ellen, strangles Tommy, and forges a suicide note to cover his crime. Ellen, unaware of the deception, suspects Tommy's killer.

Ellen grows close to Jay Faraday and they marry, with Jay joining Carlsson Copper. His apparent drive earns Thor's approval, further entrenching him in the Carlsson fortune. Behind the charm, Ellen begins to sense there is something dangerous about Jay.

Patricia hatches a plan to visit Ellen, but Jay intercepts the call. He murders Patricia in a hotel room, dismembers the body, and dumps it in the East River, all while maintaining the appearance of a normal evening with Ellen. The crime deepens the web of deceit surrounding the Carlsson family.

A detective investigating Patricia's disappearance informs Ellen that her contact information was found in Patricia's diary, complicating the case. Ellen confirms Tommy's institutionalization history and questions Dorothy's killer, but the investigation remains unresolved. The mystery becomes intensely personal for Ellen.

At a bar, an acquaintance recognizes Jay as Jonathan Corliss, stirring tension and fear. Jay denies it and attacks the man, but the confrontation unsettles Ellen. The incident fuels her suspicion that Jay is not who he seems.

Ellen consults a university yearbook and confirms the resemblance between Jay Faraday and Jonathan Corliss. She travels to Pittsburgh to confront Jonathan's mother, who insists her son died by suicide and has no body found. Ellen discovers a suitcase of newspaper clippings about Dorothy's lighter.

Jonathan confesses that he killed Faraday to steal his identity and marry into the Carlsson fortune. Dorothy's pregnancy had threatened his plan, so he killed her. Ellen escapes toward the train tracks as he pursues her, and a Carlsson Copper train fatally strikes him, ending his reign of deceit in the same spot where he once watched trains as a boy.