One of the central anxieties of No Exit is the worry over deciding who, out of a group of strangers, can or cannot be trusted when a life-and-death situation is unfolding. The main question of the early sections of the novel leads Darby to use clues to determine which of the strangers with whom she is stranded is likely to have been complicit in the plot to kidnap Jay. In Chapter 2, for example, Darby attempts to draw out each of the strangers in conversation to identify which driver arrived in which car, allowing her to narrow down who arrived in the van in which Jay is locked. Once she connects Lars to the car, she uses similar logical considerations to decide which of the remaining strangers to trust to help her free the little girl from confinement.

This “whodunit” structure is quickly abandoned, however, when Darby learns that Ashley, whom she has chosen as her potential ally, is actually another kidnapper and Lars’s brother. Darby is prevented from even potentially trusting Ed and Sandi for much of the novel, given Ashley’s ominous note: “IF YOU TELL THEM, I KILL THEM BOTH” (71). Soon after this prohibition is lifted by Jay’s appearance in the rest stop, but Darby receives another note, this time from Jay: “DON’T TRUST THEM” (110).