It’s all fun and games until a body washes up…. Beth Monroe just wants to make it through the summer baseball season without being the constant target of her brother Shane’s jokes, but he is relentless, and she’s ready to lock herself in her room and hide. Until the new girl shows up. Halley appears in small town Barryville like a ghost. No one knows where she came from or anything about her past, not even her last name. When she gives Beth a piece of unsolicited advice that, “It’s what’s on the outside that counts,” Beth changes everything about herself. By the time Beth realizes she’s becoming a monster, it might be too late, and Halley has already sunk her claws into Beth’s best friend Ryan—who might’ve been something more if Beth had opened her eyes a little earlier. As Halley’s past catches up to her, Beth realizes there’s more to this mysterious girl than she realized. Can she stop Halley from revealing her true, monstrous nature to Ryan before it’s too late?
View MoreThe first baseball game of the season was always memorable, though this summer it would be mundane compared to what the rest of the hottest months of the year had to hold. Later, as they pulled the body out of the lagoon on the east side of the ball park, Beth Monroe would remember back to that first game, when everyone was innocent and her worst worry was whether or not her shorts made her thighs look big. By then, Beth would long for the simplicity of life in small town Barryville 1993, before everything came unraveled.
Before the new girl appeared, out of thin air, out of the shadows near the parking lot, out of a nightmare, Beth Monroe had thought her biggest problem was the fact that her older brother Shane, a senior, captain of the football team, and the shortstop on the Babe Ruth baseball team their dad coached, was an asshole who did everything he could to humiliate Beth to the point that not a single guy in their entire high school would ever dare ask her out because she was such a loser. But once this apparition appeared out of the shadows, the menial problems of high school life burned off like fog under a midday sun, and Beth longed for the days when avoiding ridicule was her priority instead of simply staying alive and accounting for all of her friends.
“Was that a ball or a strike?” Lexy Ellis adjusted her glasses and stared at the machine in front of her as if she’d never kept score before. Beth Monroe tried not to let out the harsh words crowding her tongue. It had been nearly a year since Lexy had operated the scoreboard for her while she kept score in the official scorebook, and it was bound to take a little time for the rust to shake off. Still, it wasn’t that complicated. If she’d just stop talking to Andi Jones and pay attention.
“It was a ball,” Andi chimed in, reaching over and setting the scoreboard to match Beth’s book. “Pay attention or old man Cooper’s going to yell at us again.”
“Old man Cooper’s going to yell at us anyway,” Beth reminded them, keeping her voice down so that the ump didn’t hear her. The set up was different this year; they were perched in a scorekeeper’s room above the concession stand, which in theory sounded like a good idea, but it actually made it more difficult to see. Sure, she had a good view of the entire infield, but it wasn’t so easy to see through the window if the ball was hit into the outfield, and forget about trying to catch it if anything important was happening in the dugouts.
“Beth!”
She hopped to her feet, sticking her head out of the window, straining to reach over the table in front of her and look almost straight down. Her dad’s face was only about five feet below her, but at this angle, he wouldn’t be able to tell she’d heard him otherwise, and she wasn’t about to yell out the window at him. “Yeah?”
“We’re putting Michael in at left field next inning. Moving Robby to right, and Tom’s going to pitch.”
“Got it.” She smiled at her dad as he nodded and then resumed her seat as Richard Monroe headed off to give the scorekeeper for the other team the changes. Beth made note of them in the scorebook immediately and checked she hadn’t missed a pitch. “Strike, right?”
“Of course it was a strike,” Andi groaned, as if she had any stake whatsoever in the game. “Joe just stands there and watches them fly by.”
It was true—Joe was one of the worst players on the team, and Beth was surprised her dad hadn’t taken him out. But it was only the fourth inning, and they were up by six. She knew her dad tried to be as fair as possible with playing time without purposely putting the team in a situation where they might lose. And they were playing Silverton, which was good practice for some of the larger towns in the area, ones that might actually give her hometown of Barryville a run for it. Summer league had different rules for who could play, and her dad had recruited players from several other small towns that weren’t big enough to have their own summer league Babe Ruth teams. A lot of these kids would be back on the farm in the morning, and to her dad, that meant work ethic. And muscle. Beth was well aware that muscle was what had her friends volunteering to help her out with the score, even as Kyle watched strike three fly by and old man Cooper called him out, and Lexy reluctantly reached for the microphone to announce the next batter, a job all three of them hated.
Before she said anything to the crowd of thirty or so, she asked, “It’s Sammy, right?”
Beth nodded, trying not to make a big deal out of the fact that the most beautiful specimen known to humanity was about to take his turn at the plate. Lexy snickered, though. She was well aware of Beth’s three-year-long crush. As her friend flipped on the mic, Beth held her breath. Surely, Lexy wouldn’t say anything embarrassing.
“Now batting, number five, Sammy Burk.” She flipped the mic back off before she started giggling. Despite having no amplification, the space between themselves and home plate was relatively small, and Beth didn’t miss the inquisitive look Sammy flashed in their direction before her dad shouted at him to keep his eye on the ball. The batter adjusted his uniform and placed one foot in the batter’s box and turned to check with the third base coach, which ordinarily would’ve been her dad if they weren’t so far ahead, and he wasn’t making roster changes, and then Sammy turned to face the Silverton pitcher.
“Way to go, Lexy,” Beth muttered, recording the first pitch as a ball.
“What? I didn’t say what I wanted to say.” She had an evil grin on her face as she tossed her curly reddish-brown hair over her shoulder and pushed the switch for the first ball down on the machine before her.
“Don’t ask what that was,” Andi warned her, and Beth straightened her ponytail before returning her stare to the batter. Sammy caught the outside of the ball with the tip of his bat and sent it over the fence behind and to his left, and Fred Cooper stated the obvious, that it was a foul ball.
“He is cute.” Lexy’s voice was quiet—for once. “It’s just… come on, Beth. Aren’t you wasting your time?”
Beth pulled her eyes off of the blond with the bat, her mind lost in his hazel eyes. Not that she could see them right now as he was looking the other direction, staring down the pitcher, no doubt. But the memory of how they’d sparkled the last time she spoke to him was fresh in her mind. She could stare into them all day if only she could get him to look at her that long….
“How do you figure she’s wasting her time?” Andi asked, jumping to Beth’s defense. She had long brown hair, a few shades darker than Beth’s, and her bangs were still perfectly fanned into a flower shape, like Lexy’s, which Beth thought was crazy since it had to be over a hundred degrees even after the sun had set. Beth’s hairspray had given out long ago, leaving her hair a mess. While there was a small fan in the back of the booth, they couldn’t move it any closer without it drowning out the game. It was a typical Missouri summer—sweltering and full of mosquitos, and Beth felt like a sweaty blob with her hair a mess and her makeup practically melted off.
Lexy continued with her argument, and Beth tried not to get sucked into her negativity. “I mean, he’s one of the best looking boys in school. He’s a year older than you, Beth, and everyone knows he has asked Amber James out more times than one person can count. She’s… different than you.”
The sun was sweltering the day they put Hannah Day in the ground. It wasn’t a dreary, stormy morning like in the movies, but it seemed fitting that Hannah’s funeral wouldn’t quite fit the mold either. She certainly hadn’t.Beth and Ryan held onto each other as the preacher said a few words about the beautiful girl who had meant so much to so many. There was no mention of the fact that she’d drowned trying to commit murder, and that according to the journal she kept, this was her second such act. Unfortunately for Brock Hill, there’d been no one there to save him.As the preacher finished his remarks, Beth squeezed Ryan’s hand, and they gave the casket one last look as Hannah’s mother began to wail. Beth couldn’t blame her for being unable to accept what her daughter had done—or what her daughter had been through herself. The journals were full of secrets Hannah hadn’t con
“Damn,” Beth muttered, hoping she was okay. She might be batshit crazy, but the thought of anything permanently damaging happening to her made Beth sick to her stomach, especially since she’d been the one to push her.“What happened?” Michael asked. “You’re bloody, Beth.”Beth hadn’t realized her face was scratched up so badly until she dragged her hand across her cheek, and it came back pink. Halley had made contact quite a few times while they were under the water, but she had hardly felt it at the time. Now that her adrenaline was starting to die down, she was sure it would all come back to her.Sheriff Bill Jones ran up, flashlight in hand, before Beth could answer Michael. He snaked his way through the fence. “You kids all right?” he shouted, straightening his glasses and running his spread hand across his mustache.“No, we n
It wasn’t enough to scare her off, though, and Halley lunged at Beth as Ryan began to float away, still not conscious enough to help himself. Beth was aware that the creek meandered for about a quarter mile before a small, but powerful waterfall merged the creek with the lagoon. She couldn’t let him get away from her, but Halley was coming at her again, and this time, Beth was close enough for Halley to scratch her face.Beth pushed her back as hard as she could, balancing on one leg as she brought her other knee up and made contact with Halley’s gut. The smaller girl groaned, and Beth shoved her backward as hard as she could. Halley stumbled, regained her footing, and came at Beth again, but this time, Beth was out of the way, already moving toward Ryan. She dove into the water, reaching for his outstretched hand when she felt Halley latch on to her ponytail.Halley wasn’t pulling her up, though, she was pushing
There was no time. All of it seemed to speed up and slow down, to move backward and forward at once. Beth could hear a struggle, somewhere in the water, and she recognized Ryan’s voice even though it was strained and groggy. She couldn’t make out what he was saying as every word was clipped by the sounds of splashing and gurgling. Frantically, she hunted for the entrance in the fence and was just about to give up and climb over when she spotted it—and spotted them.Beth could see Halley in the water. It was deeper here than Beth had expected as it hit her above the waist. Either that, or the girl was on her hands and knees. Her face was lifted to the sky like she was praying, and though it was difficult to see, in the light reflected off the surface of the water that swirled past her, Beth could tell Halley’s eyes were closed.At first, she was confused, not understanding where Ryan might be, but then his hand ca
Rushing over to her friends, she pressed the lid back down on Ryan’s drink. “Lexy, hold onto this. Don’t let it spill, and don’t drink it. Brittany, can you drive Andi down to the pay phone? Call your uncle, the sheriff, and get him down here, okay? I’m not sure what’s going on, but we might need him.”“Do you think it’s that serious?” Lexy asked as the other two started to move.“Maybe. I don’t know.” Beth didn’t have any more time to talk about it. If Ryan really was in trouble, she should’ve already been moving.She took off running, not sure of where she was going, but instinctively, she thought the creek would be the most logical place for Halley to take him if she was really trying to injure him. She hadn’t given him enough of whatever it was floating in his drink to kil
“Hey, where’s Ryan?” she called when she was a few feet away from them. All three stood with their arms crossed, serious expressions on their faces.“We aren’t sure,” Lexy admitted. “He got up about ten, maybe fifteen minutes ago, and walked off, that way, into the park. With Halley.”Beth was confused. She peered off into the darkness. There were no lights at all in that section of the park. Across the street that circled the ball field, there was mostly just wide open space where people flew kites or lay on blankets in the shade. A few hundred yards away, off in the distance, she knew there was a chain link fence that separated the creek from the park so that no children accidentally ran into the water, but she couldn’t see it from here.“Why? Where were they going?” Beth asked, trying to keep her voice calm.“We don’t kno
The baseball game Thursday night was at home against Juniper, one of the smaller towns in the area, and there was a pretty good chance Barryville would win by the mercy rule. Beth climbed the ladder to the scorekeeper’s box alone since her friends decided they wanted to sit on the bleachers where they could keep a better eye on things. Beth remembered Ryan mentioning he wanted to go to this game back when he’d first won his freedom, and she thought there was a possibility he might show up with Halley. Since Beth wouldn’t be able to see the bleachers from her post, her friends had volunteered to observe, even though they had no idea of the potential threat.Beth hadn’t told them about the pills or all the details of Halley’s mysterious past. They only knew that there was a chance Halley wasn’t who she said she was and that Beth thought she might be up to something no good. Telling Andi, Lexy, and Brittany that she thoug
It must’ve been a day for cleaning because that’s what her mother was doing, too. “There you are. Your phone has been ringing nonstop since you left. I really wish it wasn’t so loud.”“Sorry,” Beth muttered wondering who was calling her now. She headed to the door to the stairs, her mother still talking behind her.“Dinner will be ready in a few minutes. Your dad just got home from work. You really should go out in the back yard and play with him and the girls. You never do that anymore.”“Okay,” Beth said, but her hand was on the door. How was she supposed to figure out who was calling so that they’d stop and also spend time outside with her family? Her mother continued to run a rag over the old piano in the corner of the room, the one no one knew how to play, and Beth headed upstairs, hoping whoever had been calling had good news.
Mrs. Wilson opened the door on the second knock. A surprised, yet pleasant, look crossed her face. “Beth! How nice to see you. How are you, dear?”“I’m good, Mrs. Wilson. Is Ryan here? I need to talk to him for a few minutes, if he’s not busy.”“Oh, uh, sure.” She looked worried, like she was afraid Ryan might be unduly stressed by having to talk to his unstable friend. “Come on in.” She gestured at the living room, and Beth walked in slowly. In all of the time she’d been neighbors with Ryan, she’d never come to his house before.The living room wasn’t what Beth had expected. It was clean, but the furniture looked much newer than the outside of the house would indicate. The television was small and built into a cabinet that sat on the floor, like the one Beth’s parents had had when she was little. She took a seat on a green and white ch
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