A clique of popular girls is haunted by the tragedy that marked their high school friendship fifteen years before in this gripping standalone novel from the
New York Times
bestselling Sisters of Suspense.
“An increasingly tense race to find who’s doing the killing—and who’s going to survive.” —
The Oregonian
First they were five. Then they were four…Who will be next?
In the Portland suburb of West Knoll, Delta and her friends were Bristol High School’s pretty, popular, elite clique, known as the Five Firsts: Amanda, Bailey, Carmen, Delta, and Zora . . . ABCD & Z. Their classmate, Emmy, could have been “E,” but with her embarrassing scholarship student status they chose wealthy Zora instead. That was 15 years ago. Even then, backstabbing and betrayal erupted among the group, three of whom are now gathered around a hospital bed. And most of it revolved around Tanner, the man lying close to death before them . . .
To Delta, it feels as if a nightmare unfolds every time they reunite. It started at their senior graduation party when a group of daredevils led by Tanner slipped under the safety rope and tumbled into a dangerous, fast-flowing river. One of the Five died following him. It all seemed a spontaneous, thoughtless tragedy at the time. But since then, there have been more deaths, more “accidents.” And the question hovers, unspoken: who’s next?
As the body count rises, Detective Chris McCrae, one of Delta’s classmates and a long-ago friend of Tanner’s, realizes that stopping the terror means unearthing the past. Hidden beneath the gossip and scandalous half-truths are secrets that someone will kill again and again to protect—until there’s no one left to tell . . .