An addic­tive debut thriller about the mys­te­ri­ous death of a small-town gold­en girl and the secret lives of three peo­ple con­nect­ed to her: the social mis­fit who loved her from afar, the rebel­lious girl who despised her, and the police­man inves­ti­gat­ing her death.
As morn­ing dawns in a sleepy Col­orado sub­urb, a dust­ing of snow cov­ers high school fresh­man Lucin­da Hayes’s dead body on a play­ground carousel. As accu­sa­tions quick­ly spread, Lucin­da’s trag­ic death draws three out­siders from the shadows.
Odd­ball Cameron Whit­ley loved — still loves — Lucin­da. Though they’ve hard­ly ever spo­ken, and any sen­si­ble onlook­er would call him Lucin­da’s stalk­er, Cameron is con­vinced that he knows her bet­ter than any­one. Com­plete­ly unteth­ered by the news of her death, Cameron’s errat­ic behav­ior pro­vides the town ample rea­son to sus­pect that he’s the killer.
Jade Dixon-Burns hates Lucin­da. Lucin­da took every­thing from Jade: her babysit­ting job, and her best friend. The worst part was Lucin­da’s bliss­ful igno­rance to the dam­age she’d wrought.
Offi­cer Russ Fletch­er does­n’t know Lucin­da, but he knows the kid every­one is talk­ing about, the boy who may have killed her. Cameron Whit­ley is his ex-part­ner’s son. Now Russ must take a painful jour­ney through the past to solve Lucin­da’s mur­der and keep a promise he made long ago.