Author: Paula Stokes
Publisher: HarperTeen
Publication Date: August 28, 2018
Synopsis: Embry Woods has secrets. Small ones about her past. Bigger ones about her relationship with town hero Luke and her feelings for someone new. But the biggest secret she carries with her is about what happened that night at the Sea Cliff Inn. The fire. The homeless guy. Everyone thinks Embry is a hero, too, but that couldn’t be further from the truth.
Embry thinks she’ll have to take the secret to her grave, until she receives an anonymous note—someone else knows the truth. Next comes a series of threatening messages, asking Embry to make impossible choices, forcing her to put her loved ones at risk. Someone is playing a high stakes game where no one in Embry’s life is safe. And their last move...is murder.
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Trailer:
Excerpt:
I get dressed in like three seconds. Grabbing Betsy, I drag her toward the back door. Holden starts opening drawers and cabinets behind the registration counter, probably looking for a fire extinguisher. I put the dog outside. “Stay,” I tell her. She’s smart enough to stay away from the edge of the cliff.
I turn back to where Holden is now in the lobby again, trying to beat out the flames with his black wool coat. The fire has spread across the floor, possibly due to the spilled vodka, and he’s just making things worse. I cough from the smoke that’s starting to fill the room.
“I can’t find an extinguisher,” he says. “Can you look?”
I check the dining area and the kitchen and do a quick skim of the little office behind it, but I don’t see anything. The flames have moved from the carpet to the base of the coffee table. Holden has his shirt up covering his nose and mouth.
I grab a sofa cushion and beat at the fire, sending bits of ash swirling through the air. The bottom of the cushion starts to smolder. “Fuck.” I drop it back onto the frame.
Holden grabs my arm. “We need to get out of here and call 911.”
“We can’t.” I take a step back from the heat. “If this place burns down, they’re going to blame us. We’ll get arrested, or sued for a crapload of money, or—” A glowing ember arcs through the smoky air and lands dangerously close to my foot. I take another step back. The flames start to overtake the coffee table.
“No one needs to know we were in here,” he says. “Let’s just call it in like we were going for a walk and saw the place burning.”
I suddenly remember I left Betsy outside off her leash. I nod grimly and head for the back door.
Holden braves the flames long enough to grab the bottle of vodka and tuck it into his backpack. The two of us escape out into the night, the brisk air a welcome relief from the heat.
Betsy is pacing back and forth, barking and whining.
I put her back on her leash. “Shh, girl,” I say. “Everything is fine.”
I dial 911 as we hurry around to the front of the hotel. “There’s a fire,” I say. “At the Sea Cliff Inn.” I tell them my name and where I’m located.
The dispatcher advises me to move back from the building but not to leave the scene. “Fire and police rescue are en route,” he adds.
“Okay.” I hang up the phone and turn to Holden. “Cavalry is on its way. You should go. We both don’t need to be here.”
“No way. I’m not leaving you to deal with this.”
“Holden. They just need me to stay so I can give a statement. I’ll tell the cops I was walking Betsy and saw the smoke. Like you said, they don’t need to know either one of us was inside.”
I glance down at the ground. With a twinge of guilt I remember my words to Luke: I think that might be fraud. What Holden and I are doing is different, though. We’re not trying to scam money from the federal government via a sham marriage. We’re just trying to protect our families from having to pay out money we don’t have because I knocked over a candle. Hopefully the fire department will get here quickly and the damage won’t be too bad. Either way, insurance companies are always in the news for ripping people off and being generally evil, aren’t they? And they all make millions in profits. What’s a little extra to one of them? It’s basically a victimless crime.
But I still feel like shit about it. Mostly because I know how disappointed my mom would be if she found out.
I turn my attention back to Holden. “If your mom finds you here, she might put two and two together and realize you made yourself a key. That could be bad for both of us.”
“Good point,” Holden says reluctantly. “Okay, I’ll go . . . if you’re sure.” He reaches out and gives my hand a quick squeeze, his eyes locking onto mine with unasked questions.
“I’ll be fine,” I say firmly.
Holden turns and jogs away from the Sea Cliff, bits of charred ash fluttering to the ground from his burned winter coat as he heads down the hill. He disappears between two currently unoccupied hillside mansions, making use of a set of stairs that leads down to Three Rocks Beach. From there he’ll have to cut back to the main road that goes through the center of town and cross the highway to get back to our neighborhood.
Betsy barks once and tugs hard on the leash, pulling me back toward the burning building. “No, girl.” I pull back. “We have to stay here.”
The flames are lighting up the night now. Smoke pours from the roof, gray against the black of the sky. Tongues of fire dance behind the glass of the lobby’s big bay windows. For a moment, I’m mesmerized by the twisting and swirling of the bright orange flames. It seems wrong that destruction can be so beautiful. I pull out my phone, switch to the camera function, and snap a couple of pictures.
Betsy barks again, and again. “What is it?” I ask. And then I catch a glimpse of the second picture on my phone, and I realize what she’s been barking at. I look from my phone to the hotel. There’s a shadow in one of the third-floor windows. Someone else is inside.
Giveaway:
- 1 Winner will receive a $25 gift card to Amazon, B&N, Etsy, or Society6.
- 1 Winner will receive a Choice of any Paula Stokes YA Novel.
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-Kristen ♥
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