**This blog contains adult language.**
Warning: Spoilers Ahead!!! This is a recap blog which means I read the book and tell you everything that happens so you don't have to read it yourself. The story WILL be spoiled in every possible way imaginable. And mocked. Mercilessly.
From the Back of the Book: Babysitting can be fun but Alice is being framed. Someone's been breaking into homes all over town, stealing and wrecking things. The victims all have one thing in common – Alice babysits for them. The police have Alice down as a suspect and even her friends are beginning to wonder. Then Alice cancels a sitting job and the substitute sitter is murdered. Now Alice must find the killer before a deadly trap is set for her.
This book was published in 1992 and this is my first time reading it. I think. I don't remember it anyway. I had the 2nd (3rd???) book on my shelf and when I pulled it out, I realized it was part of a series. Tracking the series down proved extremely difficult and I'm not even really sure if any of the books I found are truly related to each other. I'm going to proceed and pretend like they are for my own sanity but here's your warning that they might not be in the correct order – or even a part of the series at all.
We begin with our protagonist Alice celebrating because she's won a Community Aid Scholarship. It's the end of the school day and the guidance counselor Mrs Komax tells Alice to just get ready to leave for the day rather than returning for the last 10 minutes of history class. Alice can barely contain herself. She needed the scholarship in order to attend college in the fall and she never thought she'd get it since only one is awarded per year. Apparently the city council still has to approve it but Mrs K tells Alice that's just a formality.
I can already see where this is going.
Odds that the city council does NOT approve the scholarship: 100% (at least temporarily)
The final bell rings and Alice is joined by her boyfriend Ryan. She tells him about the scholarship and he seems genuinely happy and excited for her. He asks her if she wants to go to dinner to celebrate but she tells him she has to babysit that evening. He grumbles and complains a bit, trying to convince her to bunk off the job and even to skip school the next day so they can stay out super late. She refuses to be irresponsible and he finally gives up.
Alice tells us that she and Ryan have been dating for a month and the intensity of her feeling for him scares her a little. She likes how in control he always seems. Ryan comes from money and he has this mix of sophistication and arrogance that Alice finds appealing. The downside is that he doesn't really understand why she has to work and he gets resentful of all the time she spends babysitting.
Alice is still riding the high from her scholarship and happily starts to imagine all the things they'll do when they're together at Colorado College. Ryan bursts her bubble a little by telling her he isn't sure he'll be going there after all. His grades kind of suck and apparently they're picky about GPA in admissions over there. Alice is crushed. There's still 8 months left of their senior year but it doesn't feel long enough to her.
Ryan starts to speed and Alice tells him to slow down. If he gets pulled over, she'll be late for her babysitting job. He tells her that his dad had a talk with the sheriff and he shouldn't be getting pulled over any more. She asks if his dad talked to them about the break-ins and I guess that's how we're going to get that plot point introduced. Feels a little clunky but whatever. Ryan says his dad isn't concerning himself with the break-ins because they have a really good security system. We don't learn much from this conversation except for the fact that the thieves are vandalizing things as well as stealing and not all the homes have belonged to well off people.
When they get to the house where Alice is babysitting, the kid runs out to tell Alice that their house has been robbed. Alice follows little Tyler Munson into the house where the police are still roaming about. No one stops her from entering this active crime scene. She tells us that the furniture has been slashed up and things have been smashed. A detective approaches and tells her not to touch anything. She offers to take Tyler for a walk or something but the detective tells her not to leave in case they need to ask her questions.
Alice goes to the window with Tyler and they watch the news crews gather on the front lawn. She can hear bits of the conversation between the detective and Mrs Munson. It sounds like they think someone who knew the Munsons did the robbery because no one else knew the Munsons weren't home at the time. Sounds like a stretch. Maybe the robbers just got lucky?
Tyler really wants to go outside so he can be on the news but Alice stops him from going. For some reason, he asks her if she's ever known anyone who got on the news for being robbed and she volunteers that she also babysits for the Olson and the Collins family. They were both robbed too. The detective hears this and is suddenly very interested in Alice. She tells him she babysits for most of the families in town because she's saving for college.
The detective asks Mrs Munson what's missing and she tells him her grandmother's necklace is gone. Alice replies something like “Oh, no! Not the pearls!” and the detective finds the fact she knew about the necklace interesting too. Alice really sucks at not making herself a suspect.
Eventually the police leave and Tyler goes to bed but Alice stays until Mr Munson arrives home. He offers her a ride home but she declines, knowing he wants to stay with his wife and son. She's walked home alone from their house dozens of times and never felt unsafe, even at night. She's walking along when a car comes up behind her and honks. It's her ex-boyfriend Steve. He offers her a ride home and she takes it.
Steve has been listening to his police scanner so he's full of questions for Alice. She tells him what she knows and then he asks her out for Saturday night. She declines since she's dating Ryan but asks if he'll drive her to the flea market Saturday morning. She's supposed to sell some jewelry her father made. Steve agrees to take her to the flea market since he has to find some parts for his CB radio anyway. I find their relationship very confusing.
I'm pretty sure Steve finds it confusing as well.
We skip ahead to lunch the next day. Alice joins Rita and Liz outside the cafeteria since the day is nice. Rita is Ryan's twin sister and Liz is Rita's best friend. I get the vibe that Liz doesn't actually like Alice very much but hangs out with her because Rita does. Rita invites Alice to go shopping with them on Saturday. Apparently Ryan and Rita's boyfriend Eddie are going as well. Alice is tempted to go because she enjoys watching Rita spend money but she declines because of the flea market thing.
Ryan and Eddie join them and Ryan asks if they're all set for Saturday. Alice reminds him that she has to run her father's booth at the flea market and Liz mocks her, hoping to make Alice look bad in front of Ryan. Ryan just ignores Liz and tells Alice that he doesn't want to go shopping if she's not going. Liz is dismayed and tells Ryan that she'd be more than happy to keep him company on Saturday since Alice can't be bothered but Eddie drops the bomb that Liz isn't even invited. It was supposed to be a double date kind of thing so he'll just be going with Rita alone.
Hot girl has it out for our protagonist (probably over a boy)? Check
Ryan pulls Alice aside and asks her if she truly doesn't want to be with him on Saturday. She says she does but she has an obligation to her family. He pouts and asks if they're even dating since he can never spend time with her. She says they can go out Friday night even though she has a babysitting job lined up with the Raineys. She figures she can cancel that later if it means keeping her boyfriend happy.
We skip to later that evening. Alice is babysitting for the Larkin family and is hoping to get a lot of homework done. She hasn't babysat for them in two months and the first thing she notices is that they got new carpet. She compliments Mrs Larkin on it and Mrs Larkin makes a face and says she didn't want to get it. They were robbed six weeks ago and the robbers poured motor oil and ink on the old carpet.
Mrs Larkin leaves and Alice makes sure the door is bolted behind her. The kids are already asleep, so Alice sets in to do her homework. By eleven, she has everything finished except a little math so she takes a break to watch TV. Conveniently, she catches a news broadcast that lists out the names of all the people who have been robbed. She realizes that every single one of them are clients of hers.
Television/Radio conveniently plays the one thing the protagonist needs to hear as soon as they turn it on? Check
I really wish I had one of these magical appliances that would just feed me the exact information I need without any effort on my part. It would save me a lot of Googling.
We skip to Friday evening. Alice tells us that she neglected to cancel her babysitting job until that afternoon and Mrs Rainey is upset. She consoles herself by saying that Mrs Rainey likes to be with her kid anyway so it' s not really a hardship for her that her sitter canceled at the last minute.
Alice's parents have realized they are in a Point Horror so they are dutifully taking themselves off to some random ranch for the weekend. It's not Europe, but achieves the same effect.
The parents of the protagonist are sent off on a trip early in the book leaving them alone? Check
We're ticking off all the boxes in this one.
Alice starts to get ready for her date with Ryan. She has no idea what they're going to be doing which makes it hard to get dressed but she finally manages. He's running late, as usual, so she curls up with a book to wait. An hour later, Ryan still wasn't there. Alice gets worried but doesn't call him or anything. I don't know why. She turns on the TV again but is too restless to watch it. Another half hour goes by. The phone rings but it's just Steve. He asks if he can come over since she isn't working. She asks him how he knew she wasn't babysitting and he tells her they'll talk about that in the morning on their way to the flea market.
Spoiler Alert: They do not talk about it. We don't find out how he knew until the very end of the book. For the record, he called the Raineys and that's how he knew Alice wasn't there. We're never told why he knew to check at the Raineys in the first place, though.
Ryan finally shows up more than two hours late and doesn't apologize. He's in a really bad mood and tells her that Rita and Eddie had a bad fight and he was trying to calm his sister down. Alice scolds him for not calling her to tell her he'd be late and he gets annoyed. He says his head is all over the place because he just spent a couple of hours listening to his best friend and sister scream at each other. It's lame but Alice accepts it and they head out for their date. It's too late to go anywhere so Ryan heads out toward the lake.
Ryan parks in the place where everyone goes to make out but Alice isn't having any of it. She wants to know why he involved himself in Rita and Eddie's fight instead of keeping his date with her. Ryan instantly gets pissed and tells her if she “keeps this up” he'll break up with her. Girl.......
Alice panics a little and apologizes to him even though she didn't really do anything wrong. She says she was just worried when he didn't show up because he tends to drive way too fast and she thought he might have been in an accident. I don't really remember her being worried about him OR thinking he'd been in an accident but whatever. He pulls her close and this time she just goes with it even though she doesn't really want to make out with him because she's worried he'll break up with her.
Eventually a nearby car starts up and the sound makes them both jump. Alice takes advantage of this to move away and turn on the radio. Because every TV/radio in this book automatically gives her the news whenever she turns it on, we get a breaking story. The Raineys returned from their night out to find their home vandalized and robbed. This time, however, the babysitter was missing. The babysitter who was hired because Alice flaked.
Guess Mrs Rainey needed that sitter after all, Alice.
We skip directly to the next morning. Alice tells us that as soon as she heard the news report the previous evening, she made Ryan bring her directly home. He was pissed about it and they fought again. By the time he dropped her off, they were no longer speaking.
Alice gets ready for her day and then reads the newspaper. The missing sitter (Nancy) still hasn't been located and police are wondering if she might be involved in the crime. Alice doesn't really know Nancy very well but it freaks her out that she was the one who was supposed to be at the Rainey's the previous night.
Wouldn't it be wild if Ryan was doing all this so people wouldn't hire Alice to babysit?
What the hell.....
Odds Ryan is the robber: 55%
Steve is late getting to her house to pick her up and then insists on coming inside to talk to her before they leave. Alice is angry because all the best booth spots will be taken and that means she might not sell very much of her father's jewelry. Steve asks why she wasn't at the Raineys house the previous evening. She tells him it's none of his business but then Steve tells her that they found Nancy's body.
Steve says the police were talking about it on the scanner that morning. Nancy's body was found in an irrigation ditch behind the Rainey's property with a blunt force trauma to her skull. A crowbar was found nearby covered with her blood but absent of fingerprints. Police think the robbers thought the house was empty because Nancy was watching movies with the lights off and they killed her when they discovered there was a potential witness to the crime. He asks her again why she canceled and she asks him again how he even knew she was supposed to be babysitting that night. Before answers can be given, police show up at her door to ask her questions.
Detective Higgins asks her how old she is first and when she says she's 16, he advises her that she might want to wait for her parents to be present before they proceed. This is actually proper procedure and it shocked me so much I almost choked. He also says she can have a lawyer if she wants but she kind of just takes offense to that and tells him he's being ridiculous.
Alice is dumb, y'all. I refuse to accept that she truly won that scholarship. There must have been trickery involved.
Higgins begins by asking her why she canceled on the Raineys. Alice tells him that she decided she'd rather go out with her boyfriend instead. She says she tried to call from Wednesday on but either the line was busy or there was no answer so she didn't actually cancel until Friday afternoon. Higgins asked her what she expected Mrs Rainey to do with her child when Alice canceled so late. Alice answered that she thought Mrs Rainey would just take him with her. Higgins finds that very interesting and says “you had good reason to believe the house would be empty” then and Alice realizes he thinks she's part of the burglary ring.
She's slow.
Higgins asks where she was between 5:00 and 7:30 and she has to admit she was home alone waiting for Ryan who showed up really late. Higgins tells her that all the robberies only had one thing in common – Alice. Not only did she babysit for all of them but she knew the locations of things like valuables and spare keys. Higgins asks her some more questions and then leaves, telling her not to leave town because every fictional cop ever always says that. It's like the law or something.
Alice actually calls her parents after the cops leave and they actually come right back home. Don't they know they aren't supposed to be reachable? Someone should tell them what kind of book they're in and they should act accordingly. Alice, at least, seems to remember she's in a PH and doesn't even tell her parents the entire story. She tells them about Nancy and the fact she was the one who was supposed to be babysitting but leaves out the part where she's the number one suspect. It's dumb. Real dumb. Her mom tells her that maybe she should cut back on babysitting for awhile.
The next morning, the newspaper reports that a suspect has been questioned. It lists the suspect as a teenage girl who babysat for the victims. It doesn't take a genius to figure out they're talking about Alice and her parents are pretty mad that she didn't tell them this part. Her dad even insinuates that she might actually be involved in the robberies for some reason. I have no idea why he would do this. I would never immediately suspect my child of something like that without even talking to her. It's weird. Alice denies, of course. Her mom asks her if she ever told anyone anything about her clients. Like where the jewelry was hidden, where the spare key was, etc. Alice says she didn't but several times in the story it's mentioned a notebook where she records details about her jobs. I wonder if the information is in there. It would be absolutely stupid for it to be in there but Alice hasn't exactly proven herself to be a genius.
Odds that Alice recorded details about the clients' homes in her notebook and the bad guy got a hold of it: 75%
Ryan calls later that afternoon to apologize for their fight. Alice tells him what's been going on and he's surprised to hear she was supposed to babysit for the Raineys. Ryan is upset and tells her he wants to come over. She suggests they go somewhere else instead so he picks her up and drives her to the lake. Oddly enough, Eddie and Rita are there too, sitting at a picnic table by the boathouse. They join them and the four of them talk briefly about the situation. None of them accuse Alice of any involvement and she's thankful for that.
A little while later, Liz shows up wearing some ridiculous designer outfit. Her mom is a photographer and Liz says she's been dragged out to the lake for a photo shoot. She asks to speak to Rita alone and Eddie is instantly annoyed. He tells Alice and Ryan that Liz has been a real pain lately. Ryan defends Liz and says that Eddie needs to play nice because Rita has the right to have any friend she wants.
Rita and Liz come back and Liz digs at Alice a little saying she probably won't be babysitting much from now on since she's such a jinx. Eddie tells her to bug off and then Liz suggests they all go boating because Eddie is terrified of water and she wants to dig at him too. Rita tells Liz to leave and she does with one last parting shot at Alice to make sure to keep them all updated about her police issues. After that, Alice asks Ryan to take her back home.
That boating thing was really out of the blue. It felt like Daniel was trying to wedge something in there and hoping we wouldn't notice how awkward it was.
Odds that Eddie being afraid of the water will become important later: 99%
The next week doesn't go well at school. Alice forgets to write papers and do assignments. Her classmates are avoiding her like the plague and she hears clusters of people talking about her all day long. At lunch, she sees Liz and Steve fighting about something which is odd because she's never seen the two of them together before. I think we're supposed to find this suspicious.
As the week goes on, it gets worse. People become openly hostile to Alice. Liz accuses her of robbing all her clients to get the money to go to college. Then she hears from Mrs K that the meeting to approve the scholarship has been postponed. Alice is upset because the postponement might mean she misses the deadline but Mrs K says the committee doesn't want to do anything until the legal matter has been resolved.
Mrs K says she doesn't think Alice killed anyone herself but she seems to think that Alice might be covering up for someone. She encourages Alice to tell someone if she knows anything. Alice is feeling pretty low and then things get even worse. When she shows up for her babysitting job with the Munsons, she finds out that she's being fired. I can't blame Mrs Munson here. She just wants to protect her child. Besides, I thought Alice was going to stop babysitting for awhile anyway.
As she walks home, she laments that her future is as “dead as Nancy” which is just....I don't even have words.
Alice goes home and explains everything to her mother who seems to be really upset by it all. Then the book says this: “She looked a question at Alice when she finished speaking.”
What?
Did Daniel mean she looked questioningly? I've never heard anyone phrase it this way before but maybe it's a regional thing where Daniel is from?
Anyway, I guess Alice's mother is wondering if Alice knows anything about the robberies or murder but Alice continues to claim it's all a coincidence because she's not very bright. An idiot would realize Alice is being targeted for some reason.
I hit the 50% mark on my Kindle and nearly cried. How have I only read half of this book? It feels like it's been a lifetime.
The week goes by more or less the same. Ryan continues to act like nothing is really going on. An old friend named Jan comes out of the woodwork to offer support which seems weird to me but probably isn't. I think we should keep our eyes on Jan just in case.
Spoiler Alert: we never see Jan again.
Thursday rolls around and Alice actually has a babysitting job that hasn't been canceled. I don't know why she thinks it's a good idea to go.
The job starts in the evening so she makes dinner to eat with her parents. Steve shows up right as her dad gets home and sits down with them while they eat. He tells Alice's dad that there's some kind of fair planned for the next year and encourages him to get in on the planning. They spend the entire dinner talking about this fair. It's dumb. After she finishes eating, Steve drives her to the Eisens' house.
On the way to the Eisens', Steve tells Alice that the pearl necklace that was stolen from Mrs Munson showed up in Pueblo. A local pawnbroker/junk seller says he got it from some guy with a Chicago ID but he didn't keep record of who it was. Alice is glad that the necklace will be returned at least and Steve says he knew that one meant a lot to her. I think Daniel is trying super hard to make Steve a suspect here. The more it gets pushed, the more I resist it. If Steve is the bad guy, we definitely have an effing Justin situation going on here. I really hope that's not the case. I hate effing Justin situations.
The babysitting job goes pretty well for the first few hours and then Alice is sure that she sees someone sneaking around the backyard. She breaks all the laws of a PH and calls the police just as a window in the kitchen is smashed in. Alice runs upstairs where the little girl she's babysitting is located and barricades herself and the girl in the room. After calming down little Shannon, Alice, for some fucking reason, decides it would be a good idea to leave the room to check things out. I don't know why she does this. I DO know she would never be final girl in a slasher movie. She'd definitely die second, right after the girl who shows her boobs.
The police arrive just before the Eisens come home. Alice can tell as they're questioning her that they don't believe her story. They seem to think she set this all up herself to divert suspicion. Mr Eisen fires her on the spot and then Alice gets a ride home with Detective Higgins. Higgins tells her he might be able to get her a deal if she tells him who she's working with. He thinks she's just feeding information to someone else, not that she robbed or killed directly. Alice refuses to say anything. For once, she's being smart.
We skip ahead to Saturday. Alice has agreed to help her dad at the Flea Market again but this time he's going with her. She invites Ryan along as well and he agrees as long as they can meet up with Rita and Eddie later. She rides with her dad who encourages her to at least think about Higgins' offer. He also thinks that Alice is aiding the robbers. It's bad when your own dad doesn't believe you.
Alice wanders around the Flea Market while her dad is setting up and finds a booth selling a variety of items. One of them is the crystal cat from the Raineys house. She saw it on the table the day she went to cancel on Mrs Rainey so it was definitely stolen from the scene of a MURDER. For some reason, this stupid bitch decides it's a good idea to buy stolen fucking property and put it in her purse.
By the way, both Ryan and Steve are also wandering around this Flea Market.
As Alice leaves the booth with Ryan, she sees Steve arguing with the man running it. Nothing really happens after that. Ryan and Alice man her father's booth for awhile and then take off to drive around and make out. Eventually they meet up with Eddie and Rita at a pizza place to eat and listen to a local band.
At some point in the evening, Alice and Rita go to the bathroom together. Alice wants to redo her lipstick but can't find it in her huge purse so she ends up taking everything out and putting it on the counter. Rita asks her about the crystal cat and then picks it up so she can show Eddie. For some reason. Both Eddie and Ryan hold it in their hands before Alice takes it back. She wipes it with a napkin because she doesn't want pizza grease on it and puts it on the table instead of back in her purse. For some reason. They all get up and dance, leaving the cat on the table. For some reason.
This is all so stupid.
While they're dancing, Alice notices Steve ordering a pizza because Daniel just needs him to be there.
So stupid.
They leave and suddenly Alice remembers she left the cat on the table. She asks Ryan to go back so she can get it. It's gone, though, and Alice thinks someone might have stolen it back because it's evidence.
When Alice gets back home her parents are waiting up for her. They tell her that the police were there earlier. A bunch of stolen loot was found at the flea market in the booth where Alice bought the cat. The police know she bought something from there but they don't know what. Her parents think she sold the stuff to the man who owned the booth and then went to buy one of the pieces back. For some reason. IT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE. Surely they can see it doesn't make sense. Why would she buy back something she sold him???????????????? She would have just kept the fucking thing if she wanted it.
Y'all, I'm about to rage quit this blog.
The next day Alice decides she wants to go to Ryan's house for the day to get away from her parents' suspicion. She calls but Ryan has gone somewhere with Eddie. Rita tells her she can come over and hang out anyway but she can't pick Alice up so Alice will have to find her own way there. Alice decides to ride her bike over. Liz is there too and she needles Alice about being a suspect until Alice loses her cool and storms off. On her way out of the house, she runs into Ryan who is coming home with Eddie and Steve. They explain that their car got a flat and the spare was also flat so Steve, who just happened along I guess, gave them a ride home.
Liz flirts with Steve for a bit and he ends up taking her home. I'm not sure what that was all about. Ryan comments that Liz has been drinking way too much lately and Alice realizes that she was drunk the entire time. Ryan drives Alice home and she tells him about what happened at her last babysitting job. He gets really intense about it and asks her to tell him exactly what happened. It seems like he's mad about something. When she cries and confides in him that she's really scared she might be killed, he gets all grim and then promises her that nothing will happen to her. It really seems like he knows who the bad guy is here.
Odds that Rita is the bad guy: 45%
Or maybe.......
Odds that Rita/Ryan/Liz are some kind of crime ring: 45%
I like both these theories. Anything is better than Effing Justin Steve.
Steve calls after she gets home to ask her if she knows where Liz is. It's a weird question since Liz left with him. Also, Alice would be about the last person to know Liz's whereabouts. Steve says he's worried about Liz because she's been talking “crazy” lately and saying a lot of things about the robbery and murders.
For some reason, Alice yells at Steve to leave her alone which prompts her mom to tell her that she's changed a lot in the last few months. This upsets Alice and she runs out of the house and walks alone for hours. In the dark. When she thinks she's being stalked by a killer. Sigh.
Odds that something happened while she walking that she'll need an alibi for: 90%
The next morning Alice's mother wakes her up to tell her Detective Higgins is downstairs to ask her some questions. Higgins immediately reads her the Miranda Rights and then asks her when she last saw Liz.
Higgins asks her a bunch of questions about Liz without revealing why. He then asks her if it's true that she's determined to go to college “come hell or high water”. She says that she is but that's not a crime. He then implies that she might have committed crimes in order to afford college and Alice gets upset. She asks him why he's here and that's when he finally tells her that Liz was murdered the night before. When Alice was conveniently walking around outside alone. Of course.
Mrs K calls later that day to tell her that she's no longer being considered for the scholarship. That was honestly so predictable from the very first pages of this book.
Steve comes by at some point in the day. He doesn't have an alibi either. He says he was driving around looking for Liz. He tells Alice that someone tipped the police off about all the pawn shops he frequents to look for parts or whatever. I've already forgotten why he goes there. Anyway, someone told the police every pawn shop Steve's ever been in and the cops investigated, finding lots of the stolen stuff there. Steve thinks Alice is the one feeding the cops the information but she denies it. He changes tactics then and accuses Ryan which makes much more sense.
Steve produces the crystal cat and tells Alice that he luckily found it in his car before the police showed up to search it. He accuses Ryan of putting it there and Alice of knowing he was doing it. He's hurt that she would try to frame him like that. Alice counters by asking if Steve took it back from Liz after he killed her. I guess she's assuming Liz is the one who took it from the pizza place. I don't know. It's still a leap.
Steve is understandably upset that she just accused him of murder and he gets a little shouty about it. Alice gets shouty right back and accuses him of everything. She asks if he intends to kill her and warns him that she won't go down easily. Steve turns white and then leaves the house. Alice is sure her theory is correct which tells me it can't be. The character of the PH book never knows it's effing Justin. We're the only ones who know it's effing Justin. So if the character accuses effing Justin it means he isn't effing Justin after all.
You got all that, right? Good.
Instead of telling her mom or the police about her theory (which isn't correct anyway), Alice decides she wants to tell Ryan. Rita answers the phone when she calls and frantically tells Alice that she thinks Ryan is in danger. She wants Alice to meet her somewhere so they can talk. She asks Alice to meet her at some remote location and tells her not to tell anyone she's going.
Yeah, it's definitely Rita.
Alice goes because Rita implies that they need to save Ryan. And because she's definitely brainless.
Protagonist that needs to watch a few episodes of Dateline? Check.
Alice decides that Steve must be holding Ryan at gunpoint somewhere. I have no idea how she comes to this very stupid conclusion but I'm kind of rooting for the bad guy at this point. I really hate Alice.
Before she leaves, she puts everything in her journal – her suspicions about Steve, the fact Rita asked her to meet at a remote location, all the “evidence” she thinks she has. She figures she can threaten Steve with it later and let him know if anything happens to her, people will find it and read it.
I mean, all that's going to do is make Steve come search for her journal after he kills her. Not that it's Steve. It's definitely Rita.
Alice meets Rita in the designated place and gets in her car. Rita starts driving immediately. She takes Alice to the boat dock where Eddie is waiting. He pulls Alice out of the car wearing rubber gloves.
Huh.
I completely forgot about Eddie somehow.
Oops.
Rita is wailing that she's sorry but she had to do it or Eddie would have killed Ryan. Eddie starts running his mouth in bad-guy fashion. He's not being super specific but it sounds like he, Ryan and Rita were the thieves. Liz was kind of involved but didn't know she was involved. Basically, Liz and Rita would go to the houses beforehand to sell chocolate bars for the cheer team or something and one of them would ask to use the bathroom and then snoop around the house a little. Liz thought they were only snooping around and didn't know they were casing the place for a future robbery. I don't know why she thought Rita would just ask her to snoop but apparently Liz didn't ask questions until she began to put everything together. Eddie killed her before she could turn them in and now he's going to kill Alice and frame Steve for everything.
Ryan shows up and distracts Eddie enough that Alice is able to run away. She hears a scream and turns in time to see Ryan's body hit the ground. Eddie bashed his head in with a tire iron. Suddenly Steve pulls up. He says he followed Ryan out there thinking that maybe Alice might be there as well. It's all very improbable but I guess we have to believe it. Eddie takes off running and Steve follows instead of him and Alice getting the fuck out of there.
Stupidity really runs rampant in this town.
Steve ends up tackling Eddie into the water. Eddie freaks out because he's afraid of the water and can't swim. There's a struggle as Eddie tries to hang onto Steve but eventually he goes under and never comes back up. Steve dives down to get him and pulls him from the lake but Eddie is already dead.
I knew that water thing was going to come up again.
They go back to Rita and Ryan. Ryan isn't dead after all. He apologizes to Alice and tells her he loves her before passing out. Rita sobs that it was all a game and it wasn't supposed to go as far as it did and then the chapter ends.
We get an epilogue. Alice is going to visit Ryan in the hospital. He's under police surveillance but Higgins agrees to let her talk to him alone. Ryan asks her how she's been and she tells him that everything is okay now. She got her scholarship. She asks him to explain everything to her and he tells her that it started out as a game to plan the perfect crime. Ryan envisioned himself as Moriarity and fantasized about outwitting the police. Eddie was doing drugs and decided to put these plans into action because he needed money. Ryan went along with it because he was bored and fancied himself some kind of criminal mastermind.
Apparently one of the first times he talked to Alice, she dropped that notebook where she wrote out all the details about her babysitting jobs. She didn't realize she'd dropped it, so he took it and made copies before slipping it back into her bag. It told him everything he needed to know. He started dating Alice so he could use her as a “patsy” but he assures her that he actually fell in love with her along the way.
That's what they all say.
Ryan says he told Eddie he wanted out after Nancy was killed but they were in too deep by that point. He maintains that he never meant to frame Alice for anything. Which is hard to believe when he just admitted that he went into this wanting to use her as a patsy. Maybe he doesn't know what a patsy is. He says that Liz was blackmailing Eddie so that's why Eddie killed her.
Ryan tearfully tells Alice that he loves her and that she's special. She gives him a kiss and then leaves the room. Steve is waiting for her and they leave the hospital together.
So that was.....a book I guess. Not a good one. I can't believe some publishing company out there read this and decided it would make a good series. I'm definitely going to press on because I'm curious to see how the books in the series are related and if they get any better going forward. This is definitely one book I'm going to be happy to return to the Kindle Unlimited shelves. I'm so glad I didn't pay money for this thing.
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