Tag Line: "Don't call for help. He may just kill you."
From The Back of the Book: "A summer of sun, sand - and murder. Kelsey's summer should have been paradise: An invitation to rich and famous Beverly Island, complete with sun-drenched beaches and three gorgeous lifeguards on duty. But Kelsey's summer is the opposite of paradise. It starts with the note under her pillow from a girl who's missing. Then there's the crazy man in the lighthouse who won't leave Kelsey alone. And there have been a number of suspicious drownings... At least she has the lifeguards around to protect her...Poor Kelsey. Someone forgot to tell her that lifeguards don't always like to save lives."
You've probably already noticed the...interesting punctuation...in the back blurb. Cusick...is famous...for this. If you're not a fan of the dots, you should skip all things Cusick. There are plenty of other reasons to skip all things Cusick, but we'll get into those as we go.
This book was published in 1988. I didn't read it during my Point Horror phase. I'm starting to realize I read a lot fewer of these books than I thought I did. I guess I had more sense as a teen than I thought. I think it's hilarious that the life guard on the cover looks like Dexter.
We start with a bad guy prologue which is my least favorite way to start a book ever. In this case the bad guy is referred to as "The Lifeguard". He's all bummed out because he had to kill someone he liked but it was all her fault because she figured out who he was. Boo hoo. Seriously, this prologue did nothing to set up the story or the mood and it could have been chopped off without losing anything. Then again, 90% of this book could have been chopped without losing anything so maybe it was setting an unintentional tone after all.
Chapter one begins with our protagonist having a bad dream about drowning. She's with her father in the dream and he keeps telling her not to struggle because that will only make things worse. I'm not sure if Cusick intended us to think that the father was trying to kill his daughter but that's what I came away with. Our protagonist is Kelsey Tanner and she's on a ferry on the way to the exclusive Beverly Island. Her mom's boyfriend and his three kids are spending the summer there and her mom has insisted that they go visit. Kelsey is all pissy about it because this is Point Horror and their heroines are often spoiled brats.
She meets a cute boy named Skip Rochford on the ferry. He's a lifeguard and he knows the family she's going to stay with. He gets a little ominous on us and we can tell that something's up but Kelsey's mom conveniently interrupts before we find out what's going on. Kelsey and her mom have a conversation about the dream and about Kelsey not liking being near the water and her mom tells her that she'd hoped that Kelsey could just forget. At this point, we're not entirely sure what Kelsey's supposed to forget. Is she supposed to forget that her dad tried to kill her? Or forget that she almost drowned with her dad? Is her dad dead? This is Point Horror, so I'm going to go ahead and assume he is. Either that, or he's in Europe. But, whatever happened, it seems pretty insensitive of her mom to tell her to just forget it.
Mom fills in some helpful information for us. Her boyfriend's name is Eric and he has two sons and a daughter. Their mom is dead. Naturally. Both of the sons are lifeguards. Neale is the oldest, then Justin and then Beth. Eric raves about Beth and Justin all the time but rarely mentions Neale. I feel sorry for Neale alreay. Plus, his name is spelled stupid. This poor guy clearly has crosses to bear. Eric is there to meet the ferry and he tells them that Beth is missing. Dun dun dun.
In the next chapter we learn that Beth is 13 and she's been missing for 3 days. Her sandals and beach towel were found covered in blood but there's been no sign of her. No one seems to know how she spent her last day except that she was supposed to be going out with Skip that night. Wait. Skip from the ferry? He was like 16 or 17. What is he doing going out with a 13 year old girl? Does this bother anyone else?
Eric has two neighboring cottages. I'm not real clear on where Eric and Marjorie (K's mom) are sleeping but I do know all the kids are in one cottage. Justin and Neale share one room and Kelsey and Beth were to share the other. Justin is a hottie, of course. He seems shy and quiet. Kelsey finds a little envelope in her room and it has a note from Beth in it welcoming her to the island. Beth has been missing for 3 effing days and NO ONE bothered to open this envelope before now? Did they search her room at all for clues?
Justin and Kelsey talk about Beth some more. We learn that she liked to walk around by herself and she'd come home with fantastical stories that probably weren't true. Her things were found at a cove and Justin tells Kelsey it's really dangerous there because the tide comes in quickly and fills the place up.
Neale shows up and he's all tall, dark and brawny. He's brooding too. It's clear that Cusick wants us to suspect Neale which means he's going to be a total asshole and fly into inexplicable rages and act like a total dick to Kelsey for 99% of the book and then be magically transformed into Prince Charming after the bad guy is revealed to be someone else. It's Cusick's favorite shtick. He thinks Beth is dead and he's not too happy about Marjorie and Kelsey being there during this time. I gotta say, I think he's got a point on this one. Beth is missing at best and dead at worst and it's really not the time to be entertaining house guests.
The boys discuss Skip. Neale thinks Skip might be behind this which shows that Neale has an actual functioning brain. Even if he's innocent, I still think it's creepy that Skip was dating Beth in the first place. Skip has been questioned and he says he came to pick Beth up and she wasn't there. Everyone believes him of course.
Kelsey goes back up to her room to try escape the weird situation she's landed in and proceeds to find little notes from Beth all over the place. It's all cute until she finds one that says "Kelsey, I think someone is going to kill me." It's not signed like the others. At this point, any reasonable person would take the note straight to Eric or turn it over to the police or something, but Kelsey shows us that she's not a reasonable person by hiding the note in her robe. A 13 year old girl is missing and here's a note that seems to indicate that she was fearful for her life before she disappeared and Kelsey hides it. Oy. She decides that it must have been a joke or one of those stories that Justin told her Beth makes up and she doesn't want to upset everyone more so she hides it. Point Horror heroines always do dumb things but I think this one might have just topped them all.
Kelsey decides her best course of action is to call her best friend Jenny because Jenny will know what to do!!! But she can't find a phone so she goes to sleep instead. She has the dad drowning dream and again it comes off like her dad was trying to kill her. It's hella creepy. She wakes up screaming to see someone standing outside her room on the deck. Justin comes running and it turns out the person on the deck was just Neale. He was using the deck to get back to his own room and stopped outside hers because he heard her scream. He and Justin have this bizarre disagreement about how to properly handle a house guest screaming in the middle of the night and everyone goes back to bed.
The next morning Kelsey explores the island some. She comes across a run-down lighthouse. The road to it is gated but the gate is open so she goes on through. There's a man at the lighthouse. He's tall and gaunt and dressed like a homeless fisherman. He has a wrinkled face and an eye patch and looking at him fills Kelsey with "loathing". It actually says that. She's filled with loathing because the guy has old clothes, wrinkles and an eye patch. What a bitch. I don't even care anymore. It's only chapter three or something and I'm hoping The Lifeguard gets Kelsey next.
The guy identifies himself as Isaac and he says a lot of semi-creepy things about how funny things happen to girls who swim in the area. Kelsey tells him she hates the water and won't be swimming all the while thinking about how she wishes he wouldn't look at her with "that eye". Seriously, Kelsey, way to be a bitch. I know I've called her that twice in the span of two paragraphs but the way she's reacting to this guy's eye patch is really pissing me off for some reason. Isaac asks her if she's ever heard of the 9th day. After 9 days a body that's drowned will float but he tells her that this body won't float. Kelsey freaks out and threatens to report him. I'm not sure for what. For wearing an eye patch and speaking in weird riddles? She'll tell the cops that, but she won't show them the effing note she found where Beth feared for her life????? I need a drink.
Kelsey runs away from Isaac and almost plummets to her death over a cliff. Neale saves the day and then yells at her for being so stupid. This is formulaic for Cusick. Neale has to yell and be mean so we think he's the bad guy. You know, Cusick's probably going to end up making Neale the bad guy which will make me look like an idiot. Eh, I'll risk it. Kelsey tells him she's been up at the lighthouse and he gets overly angry and drags her back to the gate. It's now locked and there's a sign with Danger and No Trespassing on it. She insists that the sign wasn't there before and the gate was unlocked but Neale doesn't believe her. Hell, I know she's telling the truth and I still don't believe her. He tells her that only the lifeguards have keys to the gate.
I just realized I forgot to mention that there's three beaches on the island and three lifeguards: Skip, Justin and Neale.
Neale wants to scare her or something so he takes her to the cove where Beth's things were found. They end up running into Skip and some girl named Donna. Skip and Neale get into it. Neale really seems to dislike Skip which makes sense because he thinks Skip might be involved in Beth's disappearance. He orders everyone to stay away from the lighthouse and the coves. Skip yells back that they can go wherever they want because he owns the beach. He actually kind of does. His grandmother was the Beverly in Beverly Island.
Donna and Kelsey go off together and Kelsey asks why the press isn't all over this. Eric is an author or something and pretty well known and even if he wasn't, the press usually covers a missing white girl. Okay, it doesn't actually SAY that in the book but the implication is there. Donna tells her that Eric didn't want to mess with the press so Skip's dad took care of it for him. This sounds all kinds of suspicious to me. Usually a parent wants to get their missing child's face out there so people can be on the lookout and there's an actual chance the child might be found. Are we supposed to think that Eric might have been involved in this, Cusick? Because I do. I really think the unintentional suspense is better than the actual suspense in this book.
Donna gives Kelsey all the deets on everyone. Neale, Justin and Beth grew up in boarding schools and with separate relatives because their dad didn't want to deal with them. Nice. They haven't spent a lot of time together. Neale and Justin have always attended different schools. Skip and Justin have been roommates and friends for awhile but no one ever talked about Neale until he suddenly showed up the summer before. Last year a lifeguard named Rebecca drowned and Neale ended up taking over her job. I guess we're supposed to think that Neale killed Rebecca so he can be a lifeguard but it isn't done well enough to produce that result.
Kelsey goes back home and her mom tells her that Beth is now presumed dead because search teams have failed to find her. We learn that the same phone rings in both of the cabins that Eric has taken for the summer. This seems like a random fact but it might be important later so I'm making a note of it. It smells like a plot device to me.
Donna shows up to take Kelsey sightseeing. We learn that she's crushing on Skip but he doesn't seem to notice her except to fight with her. She tells Kelsey that Beth was really sweet but she was slow to understand things. Neale was always really good with her and really patient and sweet but like everyone else, Beth always preferred Justin and trailed after him all the time. Just a few paragraphs ago Cuisick told us that they rarely saw each other and Donna didn't even know Neale existed until he showed up the summer before. I hate crap like this. Pick a backstory and stick to it.
Skip is on duty and we get treated to the full force of his personality. He's obnoxious. He's your stereotypical rich, cocky kid. He invites them over for a party that evening because the servants will be away. It's hard not to hate Skip. As soon as they're away from Skip, Donna tells Kelsey that Skip is a problem child. He's been kicked out of a lot of schools and the only reason the current one is keeping him is because his dad bribed the place. She also tells Kelsey that there have been 2 drownings already that summer and they were both teenage girls. I guess the boys aren't that great at this life guarding thing.
They end up at the locked gate and decide to climb the fence. Donna tells her that people think the lighthouse is haunted. Have you noticed how often I've used the word 'tell'? It's because that's all this book does. One character tells another character something. It's lazy writing, y'all. Cusick has obviously never heard of the edict 'show don't tell'. They are walking through the grass around the lighthouse when Kelsey falls and grabs a hand that doesn't belong to Donna. There's a body lying there. She only sees the eyes before she runs away.
The girls go get Skip from his post and he drives them back up the road to the lighthouse. He unlocks the gate and goes to look for the body alone. I don't know why Kelsey didn't go to show him where it was but she doesn't. He comes back and reports there's nothing there. I guess we'll take his word for it. He's super pissed that they've taken him away from his job for this nonsense and tells them they can walk the hell back. Kelsey goes back over the fence to check and sure enough the body is gone. Donna wonders if it was Beth but Kelsey didn't get a good enough look to be sure.
On the way back, Donna tells Kelsey that there was a series of murders at the school Justin and Skip attended. They were all young girls and they were never found so I think technically they are probably disappearances and not murders. She mentions that Skip dated some of the girls. At this point I start to get suspicious of Donna. Maybe she's killing off all the competition for Skip's affections. You can see that I want this book to be better than it actually is. Again, I maintain that Cusick's accidental suspects are better than the intentional ones.
The next chapter is another bad guy chapter and he's all messed up over the fact that he killed that girl and then forgot he did it and left the body for Kelsey to fall over. He's an awful serial killer, guys. He really is. But we learn that the body wasn't Beth. It was some random runaway and he's glad he was able to get back and move it in time.
Back at the house, Neale and Justin are arguing and Kelsey arrives home in the middle of it. Awkward. Justin says that Neale doesn't give a damn about Beth which seems to wound Neale. Later Justin tells Kelsey that Neale is keeping secrets and Cusick really tries to make it seem nefarious but I still don't buy it. Justin insists that there's no way Neale could be so sure that Beth's dead unless he knows something.
Kelsey finally decides to make that phone call to Jenny. Jenny is headed out the door and doesn't have time to talk. She tells Kelsey that the line sounds funny like it's a party line or something. Kelsey ignores Jenny's repeated attempts to get off the phone and tells her all about the note and then tells Jenny that it's hidden in her robe. Oh, for Pete's sake. I bet you can't figure out what's going to happen next. Anyway, Jenny doesn't hear a word of it and tells Kelsey she'll just call her back at some point. It hasn't dawned on Kelsey yet that someone was probably listening in from the other phone because she's a complete idiot.
Kelsey goes up to take a shower and hears someone moving around in her room. When she comes out, her robe is on the floor and there are wet footprints on the rug. So she does the logical thing and runs outside. Isaac grabs her and says some weird things and then takes off when Neale comes outside.
Neale tells Kelsey that there was a drowning at the beach but it wasn't Beth. She tells the boys about the person she heard moving around in her room and they go to look. After they find nothing, Skip spends some time convincing her that she's crazy and imagining it all because that's how they deal with girls in Point Horror Land. Neale says maybe she accidentally made them herself. Justin just keeps looking at the floor.
This line is actually in the book: "Kelsey regarded him primly." Doesn't that just give you a good visual? She probably has those half-spectacles perched at the end of her nose, her hair's in a bun and she's wearing a cardigan buttoned all the way up to her neck. Next thing we know she's going to be hitting him with her cane.
Guys, we're almost half way through this book and absolutely nothing has happened. WTF???
They all go to Skip's house for the party. I think they're the only ones there. What kind of a party is this? Eventually Justin and Kelsey end up going for a walk on the beach. He asks her if she wants to swim and she makes it pretty clear she doesn't. Despite her saying no in several different ways, he walks her deeper and deeper into the water. This is so not okay. You hear me, Cusick? NOT OKAY. Kelsey feels safe in his manly arms or whatever and starts to relax but then a wave separates them. She washes up on shore but he's nowhere to be found. She walks a little back into the water and something bumps up against her. She's convinced it's a shark. She freaks out and runs up the beach and straight into Neale. He's worried about Justin and tells her to take the phone off the hook at the life guard station because that will sound the alarm. Before she does, though, she finds Justin on the beach and yells for Neale. Justin seems stunned and just keeps asking where Neale was when they went in the water. I guess we're supposed to assume that Justin is accusing Neale of pulling him under or something and maybe that would be a good teaser except for the fact that it's never pointed out to us that Neale's wet or anything. I'm assuming he's dry since it's never mentioned. So he couldn't have been in the water.
After everyone is back at the house, Kelsey continues to insist that there was a shark in the water with them. Neale points out that a shark's skin is rough like sandpaper and if one bumped against her like that her skin would be scraped. Kelsey just thinks he's being a big jerk. He asks her not to tell anyone else about the shark because there's no use causing a panic when she's just an idiot. Donna tells Kelsey to ignore him because he makes everyone uneasy. Kelsey looks out the window and sees Isaac trying to break into Skip's yard. Of course no one else sees him and no one believes her.
Kelsey decides it's time to go home. She's left her purse upstairs and heads up to get it. Skip joins her and shows her his "trophy" room. Basically it's full of animals he's killed. He goes on and on about how he likes tracking helpless animals and smelling their fear. It's supposed to be ominous but it's so obvious and contrived that there's no way he's the bad guy. That means it has to be Justin, y'all. The other two are too obvious. Although, I'm still holding out for Donna.
Kelsey tells Skip he's drunk but then a few paragraphs later Skip drives them all home. Not cool, Cusick. Seriously. Although if he'd rolled the jeep and killed them all the book would have been over. Damn.
When they're alone in her room, Justin tells her that he's sure someone pulled him under the water. He leaves and Kelsey finally discovers the note in the robe is missing. Man, she's slow. It's the first thing I would have checked after coming out of the shower and finding my robe on the floor.
The next morning Kelsey tracks down Neale to talk about Beth. He says he's sure she's dead but he doesn't think it was an accident. He thinks someone killed her. Then he gets all ridiculous and tells her to drop it or she'll end up hurt. Donna comes by with a picnic.
NOTHING HAS HAPPENED IN THIS BOOK. Even Beth's disappearance happened before the book started.
Kelsey and Donna review all the nothings that have happened so far. Kelsey thinks Isaac is the bad guy. Unless it's Neale. Maybe it's Neale. No, it's definitely Isaac. He has the eye patch and all. But it could be Neale. Except it's Isaac. It's effing Justin, Kelsey. Jeez.
Another bad guy chapter. It's useless too. We hear again how he didn't want to hurt Beth but he had to. Oh, and he left the note for Kelsey to find and then stole it back again. Wow, I'm glad I read that chapter. It was brand. new. information.
Donna has to go to work so Kelsey bums around town. She runs into Justin and he tells her that their parents have headed to the mainland. I forgot they even had parents. But they're out of the picture now in true Point Horror style. Kelsey sees Isaac come out of a houseboat and decides to break in and snoop. She finds a long knife and a red scarf. Oh noes, y'all. BETH was wearing a RED SCARF in a picture Kelsey saw. This has to be her scarf!!! It's like the highlander scarf. There can be ONLY ONE!!! Kelsey just KNEW Isaac was the bad guy. Unless it's Neale.
Later that night there's a beach party. Skip and Donna have been fighting again. Kelsey tells Donna about her discovery on Isaac's boat. She wants to tell Neale because she believes he's the only one who will believe her. The boys overhear, though, and Neale doesn't believe her. Skip makes fun of her and Justin keeps quiet. Neale points out that there might be more than one red scarf in the town. It's perfectly reasonable until he gets more angry than the situation calls for because Cusick isn't good at writing normal male characters.
Another bad guy chapter. He's all bummed because now he has to kill Isaac and Kelsey. And he has to do it tonight.
Kelsey thinks she hears someone drowning and ruins the party but no one was drowning and now everyone's mad at her. She runs off alone to scream at the ocean. She tells the ocean how much she hates it and then she just screams and sobs for a bit. Someone joins her and just sits beside her quietly. It's Neale. He offers her a hankie. He can tell she's more upset than she should be so he asks her what's going on. She tells him that she was involved in a boating accident with her father and he died saving her. Oh, so he wasn't trying to kill her after all. Sorry, Kelsey's dad. She starts crying again and he just lets her for awhile before remembering he's supposed to be an asshole and telling her that she's feeling too sorry for herself and getting all mean on her.
Everyone else joins them and Skip and Donna fight again. I don't even care about what. He's obnoxious and she could do better. She decides she's going to walk home and asks to borrow Kelsey's jacket. Mercy, I have no idea how this is going to play into the story. Sigh. It's like Cusick is putting giant neon signs in this book. Kelsey and Justin go up to her room and kiss for awhile before saying goodnight.
Bad guy chapter again. It's the next morning and he's pissed because he killed the wrong girl. He thought Donna was Kelsey because she was wearing Kelsey's jacket. Bet you didn't see that one coming. {sarcasm, manager, it's sarcasm} He pushed poor Donna off a cliff.
Kelsey is cold and she doesn't even have her jacket so she searches Beth's closet for something warm to wear. She knocks over a box of papers and finds a letter written on mental hospital stationery from Neale to Beth. Neale's clearly been institutionalized at some point and DAMN IT CUSICK. Really? You're going to make it Neale when it's effing Justin? Argggh.
The power and phones go out because of the storm. She goes downstairs to find that Skip stayed over. He's missing the key to the light house gate that he usually wears around his neck. Justin's is gone too. Curious. Skip seems agitated and wants to go check on Donna because no one has heard from her. He insists that Kelsey join him. She doesn't want to but Justin kind of pushes her to. Effing Justin.
It starts pouring before they get very far and they end up rolling the jeep on the beach. Kelsey gets thrown from the jeep and when she gets back to it and sees that Skip is missing, she assumes he's the killer again. Because it's just not reasonable for her to assume he also got thrown from the jeep. She wasn't in it either and she's not the killer. Sigh.
She finds Isaac dead on the beach and he's holding a key to the lighthouse gate in his hand. That seals it for her. It's definitely Skip. Even though it's effing Justin. She sees Skip in the distance heading her way and runs. As she's fleeing she tells us all the reasons Skip is the bad guy. I still don't believe her. She's pretty convinced though. She heads into the lighthouse and thinks she hears Donna calling for help from below. There's a staircase that leads under the lighthouse into the coves and she heads down it to help Donna. If she had only watched more horror movies in her lifetime she would have known this was a bad idea.
The lighthouse is pretty rotted and she takes a tumble down the stairs and hurts her leg. She realizes the voice she heard wasn't Donna. She still thinks it's Skip and she scrambles to get away from him as he tells her how mad he is that he killed Donna by mistake. Kelsey falls into something and realizes it's Beth bound, gagged and bleeding. She thinks Beth might be alive. The tide starts to come in and she realizes she's only going to get away if she swims. Someone is pushing her under and she's sure it's Skip.
She hears Neale's voice though. Now she's sure it's Neale.
Except Skip is there too so she thinks it's Skip.
Guy, I'm dizzy. This is ridiculous. IT'S EFFING JUSTIN.
She feels arms around her and hears Justin's voice. She's grateful he's saved her until she notices that he's trying to strangle her. I TOLD YOU.
The chapter ends with the sounds of Skip yelling and the sound of Neale crying. Poor Neale. Come here. I'll give you a hug.
Kelsey comes to in a clinic. Neale's beside her holding her hand but he moves away when he realizes she's awake. Something about him holding her hand while she's unconscious almost makes this book worth it. But not really.
Neale tells her Justin is presumed drowned. Beth is still alive. So far. Donna is alive too. Wow, guys, Justin kind of sucks as a serial killer and NOTHING happened in this book. Even the things we thought happened didn't happen.
Neale is kind of hurt that she suspected him. She tells him she suspected everyone except Justin. Because she's an idiot. She asks about the mental hospital and he tells her he was so depressed because of his father not spending any time with him and everyone loving Justin more that he tried to kill himself. But he's all better now.
And since the bad guy has been revealed and there's only one page left, he's been miraculously cured of all his assholery too!! It's a miracle.
The end isn't completely clear. It sounds like they're going to cover up the Justin thing and tell people some kind of story. I hope someone told Beth because she could blow the whole thing out of the water if she tells people who kept her hostage in the cave for days and days. This bothers me mostly because Justin actually DID kill some girls and their families deserve to know what happened to them.
This book was beyond useless. I'm exhausted. You can read it if you want to waste all your time because nothing really happens. It's like that season of Dallas that ended up being just a dream. It was all just useless.
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