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Summary: Katie Sullivan has everything — nice roommate, cool friends, and a great guy.
Until the day she and her boyfriend are out on the river and her their canoe overturns.
She survives. He doesn’t.
Katie can’t stop thinking about the accident, weighing the evidence, wondering if it was her fault.
But someone else has already reached a decision about Katie.
The verdict is guilty.
The punishment is death.
First impressions: It’s about time we revisit Salem University because it’s been a while! It’s a series I’ve mostly enjoyed so far, so I’m looking forward to it. It sounds like it’ll be one of the typical stalker type plots, but there’s hopefully enough other things going on to keep it interesting.
As always, I really enjoy the double covers, with a window revealing only a small segment of what’s on the inside cover. In this case, Katie seems to be being kept underwater by a boy. I like that looking at it from the outside it’s like she’s banging on the window to get free. Without the window, her arms are in an awkward position that does not resemble swimming at all hahaha.
Will Katie receive her punishment? Let’s find out!
Recap
Roll call:
Katie – Our protagonist who completely changes after the death of her boyfriend.
Brownie – Katie’s boyfriend who dies during a canoe trip.
Allen – Katie’s friend since high school.
LuAnn – Katie’s roommate who’s struggling to live with the new Katie.
Callie – Brownie’s sophomore sister.
Davis – Brownie’s best friend who rounds out the friend group.
We begin with a prologue, written in first person POV from our bad guy’s perspective, and they’re mad that their friend group has been fractured. One girl is to blame, and she’s definitely guilty; why else would she be so messed up, forgetting things, losing things, getting in trouble on and off campus… ‘if that’s not a guilty conscience, what is?’ The whole friend group knows she’s responsible for taking something precious from them, and everyone’s pretending it’s OK, but it’s not OK, and something needs to be done. The death penalty is the only appropriate sentence for her, and Nightmare Hall will be the perfect place for the execution:
She was given a fair hearing, by the only one of us with guts enough to do it. All of the evidence was weighed carefully. And when that was done, there really was no other choice. She had to be convicted. Because she was guilty. No question about it.
[I wonder if the bad guy is a girl who was in love with Katie’s boyfriend and is now pissed he’s dead?] The main story begins with Kit Sullivan [Not Katie, like in the blurb?] waiting in line at orientation for her freshman year at Salem University in Twin Falls. Kit feels a little out of place in her black skirt, pantyhose, flats and white linen blouse; she hadn’t expected it to be so hot, and all the other girls are in tank tops and shorts! She considers running off to jump in the river that flows behind the administration building, but the current looked swift and treacherous. Not her kind of thing anyway — ‘She didn’t like deep, swirling water with unknown depths. She preferred the safety of a pool.’ [Is that because her boyfriend died? Or has that not happened yet] And besides, jumping into a river fully dressed isn’t the kind of thing Katherine Harrington Sullivan does! She’s far too reliable and responsible to do something like that. Just ask anyone, and they’ll tell you Kit can always be counted on!
The only person she knows here is a friend from high school, Allen Caine, who’s in the science line, while she’s in the line for arts. He’s always made friends easily, and Kit would get to share them. Right now, Allen’s talking to a guy with big muscles, and he brings him over and introduces Kit to Robert Brown, who goes by Brownie, and he’s even more attractive up close with straight, flat brown hair and a wonderful smile. Brownie immediately asks Kit to marry him, and she agrees as long as she can go through orientation first. Brownie laughs and scolds Allen for telling him Kit was shy, and not telling him her eyes were almost purple. [Are they really, though?] Kit blushes, realising Allen had probably made her sound like a pathetic reject.
A short, plump blonde girl bumps into Allen and quickly apologises, then notices Kit and says hello. It turns out she’s Kit’s roommate, and Kit introduces Allen and Brownie to LuAnn Price. Kit had only met her for a few minutes in their room in the Quad before LuAnn had headed out, so they don’t know each other well yet. LuAnn immediately gets flirty with Brownie, who’s trying to find his sister, Caroline, who goes by Callie. She’s a sophomore and is helping out with orientation. He spots her in the crowd and waves her over, and Callie jokes that she’s surprised to see him; their father was sure he’d ditch school and wander around America instead. Kit likes her immediately, with her friendly demeanour and obvious affection for her brother. Everyone’s told to take a seat, and LuAnn quickly grabs the chair on one side of Brownie, while Kit takes the one on the over side of him. She’d noticed that Callie had stood off to the side to let her ease in front of her to get the seat, and Kit flashes a grateful smile. She decides that even if Brownie turns out to be a dud, Callie is worth knowing.
Over the next few weeks, a tight friendship group forms between Kit, LuAnn, Allen, Brownie, Callie, and Callie’s sophomore friend Davis Teale, who’s become best friends with Brownie. The gang goes everywhere together, and Kit and Brownie quickly start dating. She may not be the life of the party like other girls, but he picked her, and she stopped trying to figure out why when Davis had assured her she’s the kind of girl Brownie needs.
One glorious morning, the group head off on a hike, but Brownie’s planned a separate canoe trip for him and Kit instead, planning to meet the others at a bridge further up. The rushing river is wider and higher thanks to recent rain, and Kit’s hesitant to go. Brownie assures her he can handle the river and she won’t end up in the water, and since there’s other canoes missing from the landing, Kit decides the muddy water must be safer than it looks if other people are out on the water already. They set off, and Kit can tell pretty quickly that Brownie’s struggling, although he’s trying not to show it. She realises the other canoes were probably torn away from the dock by the swirling river instead of being taken by other people. The canoe ends up slamming full force into a huge tree limb jutting out of the water. The canoe topples over on its side, and the pair are flung into the water.
Brownie manages to grab the struggling Kit and orders her to keep her arms around his neck so he can help get her to shore. But he’s unable to fight the current, and Kit knows that he’d be able to make it to dry land if she wasn’t on his back, but she’d never make it without his assistance. They’re swept along the river, under the bridge in the centre of Twin Falls. They can hear people shouting and are sure help’s on the way if they can just stay afloat for a few more minutes. Eventually they’re swept to an inlet which is much more calm, and Kit is able to make it to shore. She assumes Brownie’s behind her but when she turns around, he’s still floating in the inlet. She realises he’s exhausted from helping her and wades back into the water to assist him. She’s only a few feet away when a sudden rush of water yanks him from the inlet and back into the current. Kit can only scream as Brownie is swept into the middle of the river and disappears around a bend.
A newspaper article reveals that Brownie’s body was recovered after an intensive search. It details how he and a companion, whose name hasn’t been released, were canoeing when their craft overturned, and while he managed to save his friend, he was swept back out and drowned. Brownie is survived by his parents, sister, and younger brother, Stefan, and a memorial will be held in the Tyler Chapel at Salem University. [Damn, poor Brownie. Drowning would be one of the worst ways to go, knowing you can’t do anything to save yourself]
It’s a month later now, and Kit is doing absolutely everything except dealing with her grief. She’s going by Katie now and refuses to respond if someone calls her Kit, [That explains the blurb! Katie’s a much better name, anyway] so I guess we’ll call her Katie now too. Her shared room is a pigsty because she refuses to clean, and she stays out late, hardly eating or sleeping. But life’s too short to clean [Amen, sister! I hate cleaning] or be tired, so it’s go, go, go for Katie, who can barely keep still. Tonight, she leaves LuAnn in their messy room, even having the audacity to tell her she’s welcome to straighten the room up if she wants, [Lol rude] and heads over to Burgers Etc. to meet Callie, Allen and Davis. She barely eats anything and is eager to get going, insisting they’ll be late for the movie:
“Relax!” Allen cautioned, frowning at her. “We’ve got plenty of time. Boy, you can’t sit still for five minutes anymore.”
“Allen…” Callie warned.
Katie saw the look that passed between the two, and burned with humiliation. Taking care of her… they were still taking care of her. Watching what they said, careful not to mention Brownie’s name around her, never talking about that day…
They had all said the same thing: “It wasn’t your fault.”
If it wasn’t her fault, why didn’t they talk about it when she was around?
It wasn’t her fault. It couldn’t be. She couldn’t bear that…
[The reason they don’t want to talk about it around you is because they don’t want to upset you, duh] Katie’s triggered and runs out of the building, positive all the other diners are staring and whispering about her. It’s been like that every since Brownie died, but she can’t tell if everyone blames her for his death, or if everyone thinks the loss has unhinged her and they’re waiting for her to crumble completely. [I don’t think either of those things are the case, especially since she was never named in the article so how would random strangers know? She’s probably just paranoid because she blames herself] Davis comes outside to comfort her and she confesses how much she misses Brownie. He understands and tells her they all miss him, and she takes the comment as him blaming her, which he quickly disputes. [I know she’s grieving but she seems unsufferable now]
Katie puts on a brave face when Callie and Allen come out and suggests they go dancing instead of seeing a movie, but no-one else is keen. They insist she needs to relax, but Katie reckons relaxing is a waste of time! She eventually relents and they go see the movie, although she doesn’t pay attention and is back and forth to the concession stand to buy snacks the whole time. She doesn’t eat any of it of course, it’s just something to do. She knows her friends are annoyed by her behaviour lately, and she finds herself annoyed that they’re annoyed.
After the movie, they had back to Katie’s car in the parking lot and Allen makes a comment about how dirty it is. None of them know how often Katie drives along the muddy dirt road next to the river late at night to the spot where she and Brownie first got in the canoe, and sits there for hours alone. She’s about to angrily tell Allen he can walk home if he doesn’t like dirty cars, but Callie notices something on the hood of the car first. She and Davis try to stop Katie from looking, but she manages to get around them and spots GUILTY written in dust. [The bad guy has to be someone in the friend group based on the prologue. LuAnn’s the only one not here, so is she the bad guy? Maybe she had feelings for Brownie. Or did one of the others sneak out of the movies while Katie was gone? Could it be Callie, Brownie’s loving older sister who would understandably be super upset about his death? Or maybe it’s Davis, Brownie’s best friend! Or has Allen been in love with Kit since high school and is punishing her for choosing Brownie over him?!]
Katie immediately knows it’s connected to Brownie’s death, and Davis suspects the same thing. It’s the first message like this she’s received, but will it be the last? After the accident, everyone had assured her it wasn’t her fault, even Callie. It’s true that Callie had screamed at her that day, questioning why Katie got out safely but her brother didn’t, but she had apologised and things had been OK since then. Callie’s said multiple times that she doesn’t blame Katie. But clearly someone out there does!
As they get in the car, Allen suggests it was probably just some jerk trying to be funny, but Katie has her doubts that it was a random message; she’s the only one on campus with an orange Honda, and she’s got personalised number plates that were gifted by her stepfather on her 18th birthday, KIT-18. [Might need to change that to KATIE-18 if you want the new name to stick!] But the car is filthy after all, so maybe they the number plate is covered in dirt and the author didn’t notice it. She decides Allen’s right and the message isn’t specifically for her.
On the way home, Katie tries to convince everyone to go dancing again, but no one’s keen. At campus, they hang out at the fountain, trying to get Katie to go to her room and get some sleep. She refuses, but doesn’t tell them it’s because she wants to avoid the nightmares about that fateful day. Instead, she borrows a portable radio from a couple walking by, starts singing along to the song and dances in the fountain. [I would have walked away form her by this point, she’s being way too annoying] A crowd starts to gather, cheering her on while her friends urge her to get out of the fountain because it’s cold outside and the water is freezing. She ends up slipping and falling on her ass, and Davis has to pluck her out and wrap his jacket around the shivering idiot. The water isn’t the only reason she’s never been so cold; deep down she realises that the car message is for her and someone out there blames her for Brownie’s death.
Later, Katie’s struggling to stay warm in bed and trying to sleep, having sent her friends away, sensing they’re unhappiness with her. LuAnn’s not impressed either; she’d been very understanding of Katie’s recent behaviour at first, knowing she was grieving. But LuAnn had been in the car when Katie nearly ran over a dog while ignoring the speed limit, and also later that same day when she was pulled over and issued a ticket for speeding. She’d also been woken up many times by Katie returning to the room late at night. Add to that the pigsty of a room and constant music Katie plays to drown out her own thoughts, and LuAnn’s just about out of patience. She’d headed over to Nightingale Hall, known on campus as Nightmare Hall because of how creepy it is, to crash with her friend from the swim team, Linda Carlyle. [From The Silent Scream!]
LuAnn must be pretty annoyed if she’s willing to spend the night at Nightmare Hall, but maybe the place isn’t so bad; Jessica Vogt and Ian Banion [Also from The Silent Scream!] seem to enjoy living there! Katie’s sure LuAnn will discuss her crazy roommate with Linda and the others, and how you never know what Katie will do next. People said the same thing about Brownie, but everyone had thought he was fun…Katie must be doing it wrong. [I just had a thought… what if Katie’s guilt is manifesting as a split personality or something that she’s unaware of and it’s this personality’s tormenting her? She was in and out of the theatre lots of times, so would have had the chance to write GUILTY on her car. That would be a fun twist]
Katie gets annoyed with herself for jumping in the fountain in the cold; what if she gets sick? She’s already behind in her classes from taking two weeks off after Brownie’s death. If she misses any more, she’ll never catch up! How could she be so stupid?! Davis had previously accused her of trying to fill the gap left by Brownie’s absence, assuring her she doesn’t have to prove herself to anyone and no-one expects her to take Brownie’s place except herself. It occurs to her that if that’s what she’s trying to do, she’s not doing it very well; maybe the GUILTY on her car actually meant she’s guilty of acting like an idiot. If whoever wrote it saw her in the fountain, they’ll write CRAZY next!
Katie eventually cries herself to sleep, but wakes up to a noise. She initially thinks it’s LuAnn returning from Nightmare Hall, but there’s no answer when she calls out. It’s also 3am, and there’s no way LuAnn would head back to the dorm this late. It’s silent for a few moments before she hears Brownie’s voice repeating over and over, ‘”It’s all your fault!”‘ It eventually stops, but Katie stays sitting up in bed until LuAnn returns at 7:30am. Katie knows LuAnn and anyone else would say it was just a dream if she told them about the voice, so she doesn’t bother to mention it and tries to dismiss it as a dream as well. But Brownie’s voice was as loud and clear, as if he was in the room with her…
A short time later, Katie’s searching through her mess for a sociology paper. It’s due today, and she knows she finished it! LuAnn comes out of the bathroom and is surprised to know Katie had finished anything, since she’s never seen her study. Katie lies that she’d done it at the library, not wanting to reveal that she goes down to the river between classes to work. LuAnn hopes she finds it and asks her to clean up a bit while she’s searching, then heads off to class. As expected, Katie doesn’t tidy anything, but we do get some more insight into her newfound laziness:
Before, she had believed that being neat and punctual and responsible, doing all the “proper” things, would keep terrible things from happening. If you were doing things the right way, wasn’t your life supposed to turn out okay?
Wrong!
So, what was the point?
Katie never finds the paper and offers to drive her friends to the mall instead of going to sociology empty-handed. However, she gas is empty, even though she topped it up on Saturday. At least, she’s pretty sure she did! Callie suggests there’s a leak, and the gang takes the bus to the mall instead. But Katie’s day is only getting worse, because now her purse isn’t in her bag! She doesn’t want to let the others know that she’s misplaced yet another item, so she lies that her money is in her other purse. [At this stage I can’t decide if Katie really is forgetting all these and like I said earlier, she’ll turn out to be the bad guy herself, or if it’s one or all of her friends trying to make her lose her mind as revenge. If it’s one person, I’m going with LuAnn for now. As Katie’s roommate, she has the most opportunity to steal/hide Katie’s belongings and was the only one not at the movies, so could have written the note on the car. Maybe she was secretly in love with Brownie, blames Katie for his death, and is now trying to drive her crazy to make her drop out of school!]
On the way home, LuAnn jumps off at Nightmare Hall to help plan Linda’s upcoming birthday party, and invites Katie along too. Katie doesn’t really want to, but a creepy dorm full of people is a better option that being alone in her dorm, so she takes up the offer. Everyone else decides to tag along too, and as they approach the house, Katie notices the attic window is open. Katie apparently loves attics, and she decides it’ll be a perfect place to rest. [???] She tells the others she’s going to climb up the rusty fire escape and enter the house through the second-floor window, which is also open. The others ty to stop her but as usual she doesn’t listen, and they all go inside through the front door without her.
Katie skips the second floor and heads up to the attic window — ‘If she went up there instead of joining everyone else, she wouldn’t have to listen to a lecture from Allen, wouldn’t have to feel the curious eyes of Nightmare Hall’s residents on her. They’d be wondering why she’d been climbing around on the fire escape, and if she really was losing it.’ [Well, now they’ll be wondering why she decided to come in through the attic, which is even weirder. This girl does some serious flips to justify her reasoning for doing silly things] Inside, she fumbles around and eventually finds a long, narrow closet filled with white large white garment bags hanging on a rod that reach all the way to the floor. Nosy Nelly starts unzipping the bags to inspect the antique clothing inside, ends up hitting her head on something and falls unconscious. When she wakes up, she realises she’s fallen inside one of the garment bags. And not only that, but the bag had been zipped up behind her! [Spooky!!]
The zipper’s on the outside and the plastic is too strong for her to tear with her hands, so Katie quickly starts panicking, realising her air is limited. She eventually finds a hatpin on the dress in the bag with her and manages to make a hole big enough to get her hand through to unzip the bag. Finally, she makes it out of the bag and notices something else weird; the closet light, which she’d turned on earlier, is now off! Not only that, but the closet door is shut too! It’s not locked at least, and she heads out into the attic to find that the window she’s climbed through is now closed. Someone was definitely up here!!
Katie makes her way down to the living room where the others are surprised to see her; they assumed she went back to campus when she never appeared. Katie explains she was trapped in the attic, and although they’d searched all over the house for her, they apparently didn’t bother with the attic because they think she’d go up there. [I guess it’s not common knowledge that she loves attics!] Katie can tell they don’t believe her story, so she shows them the blood on the back of her head from when she knocked it. After the house mother, Mrs. Coates, tends to the wound, Katie leads everyone to the attic to prove she’s telling the truth. It turns out Mrs. Coates had closed the attic window, having opened it earlier to air it out, but she doesn’t recall the closet door being open or the light being on inside when she closed the window. They venture inside the closet so Katie can show them the garment bag she’d been trapped in, but strangely, every single bag is completely intact! [Weird!]
Mrs. Coates can’t remember how many garment bags there were originally, so there’s no way Katie can prove one is missing [Well, it would have to be somewhere around here, maybe it was hidden in another bag?] Everyone feels sorry for her, but she can tell they don’t believe that someone had tried to suffocate her. Everyone heads home, and after arriving back at the dorm, Katie lies to LuAnn that she’s heading downstairs to the vending machine for a soda. Instead, she heads to her favourite spot along the river to think. She’s been out here alone at night plenty of times, but now that someone has tried to kill her, it feels different. Having somewhere to think is apparently more important than her life though, so she’s undeterred. [The last thing I’d do if someone just tried to kill me is go somewhere secluded by myself at night…..]
Katie notices a wallet in the mud on the riverbank. She realises it’s Brownie’s after retrieving it, and quickly searches for the photo Brownie kept inside — it’s her favourite photo of them as a couple and they only printed one copy each for their wallets. Unfortunately the photo isn’t there, and it seems unfair that of all the pictures in his wallet, this was the one that had been ripped free. [Unless our bad guy found the wallet, took the photo out and threw it back into the river!]
Katie heads back to the dorm and asks LuAnn to give the wallet to Davis tomorrow since they share a class, and he can pass it on to Callie. LuAnn reveals that Davis and Callie aren’t dating anymore, [I didn’t know they were in the first place! They’ve only ever been referred to as friends, and I Davis was kind of seeming like a love interest for Katie] and Katie keeps the wallet to give to Callie herself.
The next morning, Davis shows up at Katie’s dorm and invites her to the Quad cafeteria for a coffee, where he suggests she see a doctor about her grief since she won’t talk about it with any of her friends. [They never talk about him around her to avoid upsetting her, but she mistakenly thinks it’s because it’s too upsetting for them lol] She suspects that Allen put him up to this because he seems to believe he needs to look after her, but Davis denies it and insists everyone is worried about her. She agrees to consider talking to a doctor and plasters a smile on her face for the rest of the day to appear normal. She even has lunch with Callie and Allen at Vinnie’s, the local pizza place, but she doesn’t give Callie Brownie’s wallet. She thinks it’ll be too upsetting for both of them right now, and she wants everyone to think that she’s not totally falling apart. As she watches Allen and Callie joking around, she decides they’d be a cute couple.
Later that evening, Katie wakes up from a nap at the dorm to find LuAnn and Linda studying. Katie suggests they go for a dip at the Olympic-sized pool, but the others protest that they’ll get in trouble since no-one will be there. [Linda and LuAnn are on the swim team, plus they’re adults… Are they really not allowed in the pool without a faculty member there? Lol] Katie insists until the girls agree, and they soon set off for the Robeson Athletic Center.
The girls swim around in the dark, not wanting to draw attention by turning on the lights, and after an hour LuAnn and Linda decide to head off for some food. Katie’s feeling super relaxed and wants to stay a bit longer and tells the girls she’ll catch up to them soon. LuAnn’s reluctant to leave, either because no-one should be in here in the first place or because she does actually believe someone had tried to kill Katie in the Nightmare Hall attic, but Katie insists it’ll be fine so she heads of with Linda. [If she only wants to stay a few minutes longer why don’t they just wait?? Lol. Also why is Katie so insistent on being alone in secluded areas when she knows someone’s out to get her? She’s an idiot] As Katie continues to float in the water, all alone now, she can almost forget about the mysterious things that have been happening, like her gas tank being drained, and being left to die in the garment bag. But she’s soon brought back to reality by a splash on the far side of the pool, followed by what sounds like someone swimming towards her. She initially suspects it’s LuAnn and calls out to her, but there’s no answer. Is LuAnn trying to scare her? No, LuAnn wouldn’t risk pushing Katie over the edge when she’s convinced she’s so close to losing her grip. Which means someone else must be in the pool with her!!!
Before she can make her way to the edge of the pool, someone grabs her legs and she’s dragged underwater. [Just like the cover!] She’s able to kick herself free and make it back to the surface, but only manages to gulp in some air before she’s dragged under again. This happens several times until she’s eventually able to elbow the attacker, painfully striking something solid, like a forehead or jaw. She quickly makes it out of the pool and flees, leaving her clothes behind. She bumps into a security guard outside the locker room, but he doesn’t seem to believe her claims that someone just tried to drown her. Disregarding her elbow that’s starting to swell, he drags her back to the pool to search for the alleged attacker, but of course there’s no-one there now. She lies that her name is Jane Ellen McIver since the guard plans on reporting her for the after-hours pool visit, and he kindly drops her off at the Quad.
LuAnn’s at Nightmare Hall helping set up for Linda’s party tomorrow, so Katie has a shower to calm her nerves. She contemplates phoning LuAnn to ask her to come home, but she’s distracted by a knock at the door. It’s Allen and Davis, who sense something’s wrong. Before she can explain anything, the phone rings. It’s for LuAnn, and as Katie’s taking a message, she notices something strange about the framed photo on her bedside table. Her favourite photo of her parents has always been inside, but they’re not smiling back at her anymore…. Brownie is. And it’s the photo that was missing from his wallet!!!
She begins hunting around the pigsty for Brownie’s wallet, She lies to the boys that she’s looking for her purse, not wanting to reveal she’d found Brownie’s unless she can actually produce it, because they won’t believe her otherwise. Speaking of her purse, she’d found it earlier lying inside a notebook, and she certainly hadn’t put it there. So someone has definitely been in the room several times, and since LuAnn had been the only one to know she had Brownie’s wallet in the first place, Katie suspects the thief hadn’t known who it belonged to until they opened it up. [Or LuAnn’s the bad guy! 👀]
Katie sends the boys home and continues looking for Brownie’s wallet. LuAnn eventually returns and denies telling anyone about the wallet; she’s sure it’s just lost somewhere in the mess. Katie doesn’t appreciate that dig and tells her she can always move out. LuAnn’s actually been thinking about it, but Katie quickly changes the subject and asks if she swapped the photos in the silver frame. LuAnn doesn’t tamper with other people’s things and is actually offended by the accusation, storming to the bathroom. Dejected, Katie climbs into bed and apologises when LuAnn exits the bathroom, and LuAnn brusquely tells her to forget it. Katie’s sure she’ll be searching for a new roommate tomorrow, and she doesn’t blame her. And did the photo and wallet really matter that much? Someone had tried to drown her tonight, which is far scarier than someone going through her things. Katie had managed to get away this time, but would the attacker try again? [Of course!]
The next evening is Linda’s birthday party, and although Katie’s not in a partying mood, she’s planning to use the opportunity to sneak up to the attic and track down the ruined garment bag she’d been zipped up in. Then everyone will have to believe her! [Or they’ll just assume you ruined another bag just now?] Conveniently, Linda’s organised a little treasure hunt outside, so no-one notices as Katie slips upstairs instead. She searches all overt the attic and the closet but comes up short; she’s sure the bag was hidden, but it must be somewhere else instead of the attic. Defeated, she returns to the empty dining room. After admiring the decorations and the cake, she’s about to join the others outside when someone joyfully starts singing Happy Birthday. Katie initially thinks it’s just bad timing, since Linda is still outside, but in the same instant she recognises the voice. She passes out in her chair in shock as Brownie’s dulcet tones, clear and confident, finish the birthday song.
She wakes up slumped over the table as the partygoers return. She explains that she fainted, and Nightmare Hall resident Jessica Vogt ushers everyone to the library, sensing Katie’s embarrassment. Davis, Allen, Callie and LuAnn stay behind with Katie, who’s fed up with hiding things and explains what caused her to faint. There’s the usual scepticism, but they’re all ultimately supportive, and Katie even confides that she heard Brownie’s voice in her room the other night too. She quickly realises that was a mistake and suggests she’d been dreaming both times, since she hadn’t been sleeping a lot anyway. Not wanting to make a further fool of herself, she decides to head home, and Allen insists on coming with her. Davis offers to drive them back, but Katie tells him to stay and enjoy the party, remembering the concern in his eyes when she told them why she fainted:
She couldn’t stand the thought of anyone feeling sorry for her, least of all Davis. And realized for the first time that she would have preferred that Davis feel something entirely different for her.
That surprised her. Davis? Okay, so he and Callie weren’t an item anymore. But he was just a friend. Wasn’t he?
Had that been real concern in his eyes? For her? Or… or was it just pity? Because she seemed to be one glove short of a pair?
Then shame welled up inside Katie. What was she thinking? Romance? What about Brownie? It hadn’t been that long. Maybe there was something really wrong with her.
[Poor girl] On the walk back to campus, Allen fires question after question at her about what’s been happening, and she answers everything honestly, realising that talking about it does help. She seems to believe she really had somehow been dreaming when she’d heard Brownie both times, which is yet another terrifying thought because she hadn’t even known she’d been asleep! They end up heading to Burgers Etc. for some food instead of going straight home, and Allen suggests Katie could transfer to another college to get away from the bad memories of Salem. He even offers to transfer with her! He’s sure their parents would love if they were closer to home anyway. Katie had considered it after Brownie died, but knows staying here was the right thing to do. Allen admits he doesn’t really want to leave either, and Katie suspects it’s because he’s crushing on Callie.
Over the next few days, Katie sees Allen and Callie spending a lot of time together, even holding hands, so I guess they’re dating now. It makes her think of her potential feelings for Davis, but she quickly brushes them aside because it’s too soon after Brownie. We then get a little flashback that shows their relationship wasn’t all rainbows and sunshine, and Brownie actually had a nasty jealous streak. One day he’d accused her of making eyes at a worker somewhere, when Katie had only been daydreaming, not even paying attention. He’d apologised later of course, and insisted it was only because he loved her, but she wasn’t quite sure what it was that he loved. It seemed he’d been getting annoyed by a lot of her traits lately, and she’d realised the only way to keep him was to become more fun and outgoing like him.
Ironically, she has changed now, but being more like Brownie has caused a lot of issues in her life. LuAnn’s even moved out, preferring to move into Linda’s room at Nightmare Hall. Katie’s already talked to the RA for help finding a new roommate because she definitely doesn’t want to live alone when there’s someone out to get her. She decides that she’ll just have to spend as little time alone in her room as possible, and on her first night without LuAnn, she talks Callie into going to Vinnie’s for dinner. Callie brings Allen and Davis along, and Katie’s grateful that none of them mention LuAnn’s departure when they see her empty bed. Katie isn’t sure she can talk about it without getting upset, and she’s determined to be the epitome of composure from now on. In front of other people at least; if she’s going to fall apart, she’ll do it in the privacy of her own room.
At Vinnie’s, Callie and Allen play a game of pool while checks in on Katie. Katie puts on a front as usual, but admits she feels like everyone is staring at her. Davis suggests they’re staring because she looks great in that red shirt, and Katie tells him not to talk like Brownie because he’s not good at it. [Pot, kettle, black……] Davis says the same thing about her and that she should go back to how she was, but Katie angrily states that’s what got Brownie killed. Davis corrects that it was Brownie’s own foolish actions that got him killed, and he risked Katie’s life in the process, too. Katie needs to stop beating herself up because ‘”You’re not guilty of anything except loving Brownie.”‘ Katie points out that someone disagrees, and excuses herself to go to the bathroom.
After dinner, the boys head home while Katie convinces Callie to come study in her room; she has an overdue assignment and Callie’s in the same class. Callie heads downstairs to get a coffee, and Katie realises she’s misplaced her textbook. She’ll just have to share Callie’s tonight, and as she lifts the flap of Callie’s bag to help herself, two small cassette tapes fall out, both labelled ‘Brownie’. She suspects they’re tapes he’d recorded during Callie’s first year of college instead of writing letters, [No, one will definitely be him singing Happy Birthday and the other will be him saying “it’s all your fault” and Callie’s been using voice recordings of Brownie to make Katie go crazy. But there’s still 60 pages left, so there has to be another twist later on. Maybe the whole friend group is in on it?] and Katie simply has to hear his voice. Surely Callie won’t mind! Maybe if they’re not too personal, she’ll even let Katie make copies so she can listen to him whenever she’s especially missing him.
Katie puts the first tape into her portable cassette player and is shocked to find that it’s Brownie singing Happy Birthday. [I’m not] She tries the second tape which, also as expected, is Brownie repeating ‘”It’s all your fault!”‘ Callie returns to find Katie listening to the tape, and it’s quickly revealed that she does, in fact, blame Katie for Brownie’s death and hates that she got off scot-free. Katie stalls for time and asks where the tapes came from, and Callie explains she’d edited the birthday one from a message Brownie sent her last year, and the other one is from the family’s answering machine; Callie had taken the car out and forgot to put gas in, and when Brownie used it afterwards, he ran out of gas and was late to a party, then angrily left the message on the machine directed at Callie. Callie removed the tape and bribed him into not telling their parents she’d forgotten to fill up the car, and she’d simply edited it to torment Katie. She had actually slipped inside the room and was hiding in the doorway, but didn’t stay long after scaring Katie. [So Katie didn’t notice the door was slightly open? Was it really that dark?] From Callie’s perspective, Katie was living her best life and didn’t have a care in the world after Brownie’s death, so she needed to be punished.
the girls continue to talk, and it’s revealed that Callie isn’t responsible for writing GUILTY on Katie’s car, or trying to kill her in the attic and pool. Callie could be lying of course, but Katie’s inclined to believe her because why would she admit to everything else but not those things? [I believe her, but I mean why would she admit to attempted murder if she was responsible?] We also learn that Davis ended things with Callie because she wouldn’t stop banging on about Brownie’s death being Katie’s fault, which he disagreed with, although he didn’t actually know what Callie had been doing. Apparently Davis has a picture of Katie and Brownie in his wallet, and from the sounds of it, it’s the missing picture from Brownie’s! Katie explains how she’d found Brownie’s wallet, which has since disappeared, with that particular photo missing, and neither girl can explain how Davis would have the photo.
Katie also clarifies that she’s been torn up inside ever since Brownie’s death and she’d only been keeping herself busy so she didn’t have to think about it. She agrees to forgive Callie and not report her to the school on the condition that Callie spends the night. Callie agrees and calls Allen to let him know, since he’d been planning on calling her at her own dorm tonight. Afterwards, Katie tries to call Davis to ask about the photo, but he’s not home despite how late it is. As the girls climb into bed, Callie apologises again and assures Katie that she believes someone tried to kill her in the attic and pool, promising to do everything she can to help find out who’s behind it. She’s sure Allen and Davis will help too!
The next morning before heading to class, Callie suggests that the river ripped the photo out of Brownie’s wallet; the police had said he was really thrashed about by the river that day, and even had an awful gash on his forehead when they found him. The theory is he hit his head on a rock, fell unconscious and drowned. The gash is news to Katie, even though Callie says it wasn’t a secret. [OK, my current theory is Brownie made it to shore but was found and struck in the head and then drowned by someone in the friend group. Maybe Davis has had a crush on Katie since they met?!] Before heading off, Callie offers her ear if Katie ever wants to talk about Brownie.
Katie expects to feel a flood of relief knowing that Brownie didn’t die simply because he’d saved her, but maybe it’ll come later when she’s had time to fully digest the information. She decides to go search for Davis to ask about the photo, eventually finding him around noon. We learn that Callie had taken a bunch of pictures the day the particular one of Brownie and Katie was taken, including some of Davis. Davis asked for the negatives so he could make copies of the ones he was in, and then printed this particular one after Brownie’s death. They were best friends after all; ‘”This was the best picture Callie took that day, and I liked the fact that you were in it, too. That seemed…right, somehow.”‘ It makes sense, and Katie knows Davis misses Brownie too, but just how much? Enough to try and kill someone he thinks is to blame for his death!? But Davis wouldn’t hurt her… would he?? [OK, now that she’s suspicious of him I don’t know if I should be lol. Maybe it’s Allen, and he’s had feelings for Katie ever since high school or something? That sounds on brand for this kind of book]
Afterwards, Katie’s sitting at the fountain thinking about everything when Allen appears. She immediately questions why he never told her about Brownie hitting his head, but just like Callie he thought she already knew. He makes a comment referring to how she used to be, and she angrily splashes water at him. He gets mad and she immediately apologises, saying she doesn’t know what got into her. He basically tells her she needs to stop acting like Brownie because it doesn’t work for her, and she recalls that Davis had said the same thing. She apologises again and scurries to her room, bumping into Davis along the way. She brushes past him without a word and locks herself in her room. Davis shows up a few minutes later wanting to talk; he’s not sure why she’s upset about the photo. She explains that the same photo was missing from Brownie’s wallet, and he understands where she’s coming from. To prove he’s not lying, he heads back to his dorm to get the negatives, and Katie can’t help but wonder if he’ll return with a weapon instead.
Katie then remembers that Callie had given everyone a set of photos from the hiking trip the day Brownie died. She hasn’t looked through them yet, but she realises there may be something in one of the photos that can tell her something she’s missed or forgotten about that day. There’s no photos of Brownie, which makes sense because he and Katie had gone off in the canoe, but there’s strangely no photos of Allen either. [Because he wasn’t actually with the others?!?!?] She’s not too surprised since he’s always hated having his photo taken, [Same!] and she’s sure it probably pissed Callie off, since she wanted photos as mementos of the outing.
Speaking of Callie, she calls to invite Katie to spend the night at her doom, which she eagerly accepts. Katie then compliments the photos from the hiking trip, noting that that Allen must have been hiding from the camera. Callie corrects that Allen wasn’t with them, having gone back to his room complaining of a headache from the ragweed a few minutes into the hike. Katie remembers that he’s allergic to ragweed and wonders if he walked back along the riverbank; could he maybe have seen Brownie struggling and just not told her, not wanting to add to her pain? She absolutely needs to know right this second, so she tells Callie she’ll be right up and heads to Allen’s room first. [Are we forgetting Davis is coming back?] No-one’s home but it’s unlocked, so she lets herself in. It’s starting to get dark, but she deduces that she has 15 minutes of daylight left to find Allen; she won’t be able to sleep if she doesn’t talk to him! It’s cold out so she wants to borrow one of Allen’s sweaters, which shouldn’t be an issue since she’d done it many times in high school. In the closet, she pushes aside some shirts to get to the sweaters, but ends up finding a blown-up version of the wallet photo hanging on the wall in there. Except Brownie’s face has been cut out and replaced with Allen’s! Nauseous, she backs away, only to hear Allen’s voice behind her.
Whirling around, she discovers that Allen’s crept into the room and closed the door behind him, trapping her there. Allen scolds her for snooping through other people’s things and she asks where he got the photo — did he have a copy of the negatives like Davis? Allen pulls a large knife from a desk drawer and tells her he got the photo from Brownie’s wallet, which he’d then buried. Then he’d gone to the mall and had the photo blown up! He also reveals that he’d burned the wallet after he stole it back from Katie. Katie doesn’t quite get how he’d taken the wallet from Brownie, so he clarifies that Brownie actually made it safely to the riverbank, and Allen hit him with a rock as he lay there getting his energy back:
“He ruined everything! I never knew what Kit saw in him! Conceited, show-offy…he thought he was such hot stuff, and Kit fell all over him. She was supposed to be with me when we got to college. Everyone knew that. My parents, Kit’s parents, our friends…maybe we were just pals in high school, but I knew it would be different when we got to college. We’d be adults finally…no more high school stuff…and I was sure she’d see me differently away from home. I figured she’d finally be ready to admit that we belonged together. Forever.” Allen glared at the floor, as if it were somehow responsible. “And then she met Brownie, and everything changed.”‘
[Why is he talking about Kit as if Kit and Katie aren’t the same person lol] Allen also admits to trying to kill her both in the pool and attic, revealing he’d folded up the damaged garment bag and hidden it in the bottom of one of the others. It was never found because Katie didn’t bother to look inside any of them. [When did he even have a chance to hide it? The whole group seemingly stayed together the whole time after Katie came down from the attic] By this point Allen’s grabbed Katie and has the knife pressed into her back underneath her sweater as he forces her towards the door, warning he’ll kill her on the spot if she tries to alert anyone. Katie, who’s also been wondering why he’s referring to Kit in the third person, asks why he tried to kill her if he wanted to be with her, and Allen’s confused why she thinks he’d want to be with her. She says that she is Kit, which sends him into a rage — how dare she! Katie isn’t anything like Kit! Kit would never do the things Katie’s done! Katie took Kit away from him, and he’ll never forgive her for that! He waited for her to return when she went home for 2 weeks after Brownie’s death, but Kit never came back, and Katie showed up in her place. He starts to cry as he admits to waiting for Katie to go back to her old self, but she never did; Katie was noisy and show-offy and reckless just like Brownie, and Allen couldn’t stand it — ‘”It was like he wasn’t really gone, after all. And Kit was!”‘
Allen goes on to say that he’s already put Katie on trial for the murder of Kit, and the verdict was guilty. We learn he snuck out of the movies to write GUILTY on her car, and she never noticed he’d been gone because she was barely in her own seat. While she thought it had been referring to Brownie saving her and dying himself, everything Allen’s done was because of what he perceives as the murder of Kit Sullivan, and Katie’s sentence is death! As he forces her out into the empty hall and over to the stairwell, Katie considers screaming to alert the other students in the building, but isn’t sure anyone would hear her over their stereos and what not. [I guess there’s no real point trying to get someone’s attention, he could slit her throat then dash back to his own room and come out into the hall pretending he just heard a scream] As they make their way down the stairwell in silence, Katie goes over everything she’s learned and realises that Allen’s never actually referred to her as Katie like the others; he simply didn’t call her by name at all. She can’t believe this is the same close friend she had in high school, who’d never laid a hand on anyone before.
They successfully reach the ground floor without running into anyone and Katie’s dismayed when the outside of the Quad is completely empty, too. Allen forces her towards the back of the campus, and she realises they’re headed to the river; he plans to kill her in the water just like Brownie! Allen takes her to an old railroad bridge that crosses the river, leading into the woods on the other side. It’s been years since it’d been used by a train, and Salem students were warned the deteriorated bridge was too dangerous to walk across. Allen’s plan is to force Katie to walk across the railing, knowing she’ll fall; if she survives the fall to the water, she’ll likely be injured and drown, [Will she?? How high is this bridge? The water isn’t shallow enough to cause injury. What kind of plan is this lol] and everyone will think it’s suicide. If she falls onto the bridge, he’ll just kill her, but it’s unclear how he thinks that won’t lead to a murder investigation. [What a silly plan!]
Up on the railing, Katie uses a beam overhead to keep her balance, but it’s not a long beam and she’ll reach the end of it shortly. She decides her best chance is to pretend she’s back to her old self, even changing her voice to sound like the shy, timid Kit. She reminds Allen of all the times he’d helped her in high school, such as when she froze in fear up on a ladder, or when she was getting hit on by someone she wasn’t interested in, and asks him to help save her now. Allen falls for it and climbs up onto the railing to help her, dropping the knife in the process which ends up falling into the river below. [Did he even need to climb up there to help her? I’m having a hard time picturing the logistics of this scene tbh] When he reaches out to grab her, Katie makes the mistake of recoiling, unable to help herself from picturing him killing Brownie on the riverbank. He immediately realises she tricked him and instead tries to push her off the railing. She latches onto his arm, and they both fall into the river below.
Katie survives the fall uninjured [See? Allen’s plan was stupid. If I was Katie I would have just jumped in from the start, swam to shore and dashed for help] and as she breaks through the surface she realises she’s no longer holding onto Allen. Did he survive too?! Worried that he might try to drag her down like he had in the pool, she furiously swims to shore, determined to survive to spite her would-be killer. She finally reaches the riverbank where Davis, Callie and LuAnn are waiting for her. LuAnn runs off to call and ambulance as Katie asks about Allen. Turns out he’d already made it to shore, but passed out straight away. The police will deal with him now!
Davis explains how he’d noticed Allen seemed to resent the way Katie had changed, and he’d known Allen had had feelings for her before. He eventually dawned on him that Allen was watching for signs that Katie was still Kit, and when Davis saw GUILTY on Katie’s car, he noticed Allen’s hand was dusty and remembered he’d had left briefly during the movie. [And you didn’t want to call it out then? Lol] Davis wasn’t sure what Allen thought Katie was guilty of, but figured it was something to do with how she’d changed. He’d been trying to keep an eye on Allen, but he kept slipping away. At Nightmare Hall, Allen wasn’t downstairs with everyone else while Katie was in the attic, and when questioned about it later, Allen claimed he was checking out the creek at the back of the building, but his shoes were suspiciously free of mud. [Well in his defence, he could have checked it out from afar] Davis hadn’t wanted to say anything to Katie about it while he was still trying to figure out what was going on and feels bad about it now, having underestimated Allen. [Well, all that dillydallying almost got Katie killed several times, Davis! Could you not have figured it out when Kit insisted someone was trying to kill her?]
When Davis returned to Katie’s room tonight with the negatives and found her missing, he went to Allen’s room and discovered her backpack and the photo in the open closet. He called Callie to see if she had any idea where they were, revealing his theory about Allen. The book ends as Callie explains she’d she’d known to come to the river right away because Allen was fixated on it, but she’d thought it was because it had taken Brownie from them, not because Katie had come out of the river that day instead of Kit:
The knowledge that Davis and Callie had been out looking for her warmed Katie, especially since Callie must have been devastated when Davis told her what he suspected about Allen. Katie had felt so alone. And she hadn’t really been alone, after all.
Except…in the river, she had been alone. And that was okay. She had been scared…more scared that she’d ever been before. But she had kept going. She had saved her own life. Although she knew she’d always miss Brownie, at last she was free of the guilt.
Final thoughts
Firstly, I must apologise for how long this recap has taken to finish. I moved house recently and I’ve had some changes at work which hasn’t left me with a lot of free time, but hopefully I can get back on a regular recap schedule soon.
Anyway, this was decent enough. I liked that it essentially had two independent bad guys, which was a surprise. I think Hoh explored Katie’s grief well, too; everyone mourns differently, and even though Katie was wracked with guilt, she wasn’t just moping around in a depression spiral. I also liked that although the reason he killed Brownie in the first place was pretty generic, Allan’s motive for going after Katie really had nothing to do with Brownie at all.
The book isn’t without it’s flaws, though. I think it definitely could have been shorter; it felt like a bit of a slog to get through by the end, especially after the big reveal. I also don’t believe any reasonable person would be going off alone constantly when they know someone is trying to kill them like Katie was. Allen’s personality also completely shifted when he revealed himself, including the way he talked. His dialogue became so stiff and unnatural, almost formal? I don’t know, it just seemed super weird. His plan to kill Katie at the end was also super dumb lol.
All in all, it wasn’t the most interesting story, but certainly not the worst either. (Looking at you, Deathkins!) 104 canoe trips in dangerous waters out of 209!
