The Last Real Crime: A Mystery

Book 2: The Disappearance of Charlotte Walters

by L.C. Warman

Synopsis

A body in the lake. A mystery that is not what it appears. A boy with his own dark secrets.

***

It's been four days, and 17-year-old Reese Elderwood still has no idea what happened to her missing best friend, Charlotte Walters.

Charlotte disappeared at her own house on a Saturday night, in the middle of a Halloween party with the theme of "missing girls." And so far, no one has any answers. Charlotte's parents and older brother are still acting strange, a classmate whom Reese used to have a crush on has been giving her cryptic hints and warnings, and the police have made a shocking discovery in the lake that raises only more questions.

But Reese is not about to give up on her best friend. The affluent, lakeshore town of St. Clair has always been a place full of secrets, but Reese will make sure that what happened to Charlotte doesn't remain one of them.

Her first order of business? Making a trip to Charlotte's neighbor's house, where an elusive boy drops hints that the mystery Reese is unraveling is bigger than she could have imagined--and that if Reese keeps investigating, she may discover that her best friend was keeping more than just a few secrets from her.

THE LAST REAL CRIME is the second novel in the YA mystery trilogy "The Disappearance of Charlotte Walters." The complete trilogy includes:

• THE LAST REAL GIRL (Book 1)
• THE LAST REAL CRIME (Book 2)
• THE LAST REAL SECRET (Book 3)

Praise for THE LAST REAL CRIME:

A Kobo Double Daily Deal Selection

Praise for THE DISAPPEARANCE OF CHARLOTTE WALTERS:

"Warman's taut prose is pitched perfectly for her subject matter, managing to make the high school drama feel high-stakes and creepy by turns... The author's sharp senses of pacing and character make this a thoroughly enjoyable read. Readers will be waiting with anticipation for future volumes. A captivating teen mystery in a secretive lakeside town." -Kirkus Reviews

"An intriguing blend of realism and reflection, unsettling discoveries and natural consequences... In this young adult mystery, nothing can be taken for granted and no one connected to the missing girl is untouched." -Foreword Reviews

About:
L.C. Warman is the author of the St. Clair mystery series. She grew up in New England, in a town where real estate contracts stipulated that you couldn't back out if you discovered your new place was haunted. She currently lives in a Michigan lakeside town with her husband and two dogs.

Release date: June 18, 2019

Publisher: Greenleaf & Plympton

Print pages: 182

Sample

When I slept that night, I dreamed of Charlotte. 

 

I saw her body floating in the lake, dark curls twisting in the deep black waves, light from the moon spilling through the water, illuminating her crescent-shaped nails, her long neck, her spindle legs enmeshed in long skirts that soon dragged her down, down, down. 

 

In some of the dreams I was in the lake too, my clothes pulling me towards the bottom, my arms outstretched to try to catch Charlotte, to try to hold onto her bone-white wrists and pull both of us to the surface, miles above us. My mouth would open to scream and water would rush in, and Charlotte’s eyes would flicker open. She would be disappointed, angry, disdainful that I couldn’t save us. That I couldn’t save her.

 

When I woke in the morning, my clothes were drenched in sweat, and I had nearly cocooned myself in bed sheets, comforter kicked off the edge of my twin-size bed. I checked my phone immediately, hungrily, for any updates or texts. Nothing. I googled “Dead girl St. Clair lake.” Nothing. Whoever the divers had found in the lake yesterday, the news must not have hit the press yet. Or the body hadn’t yet been identified.

 

It wasn’t Charlotte, though. I had to keep reminding myself of that when I felt my breath turn short and shallow. It wasn’t her. There was still hope. Four days gone—no, four nights and three days, I corrected, mentally counting back to Saturday night. She could still be alive.

 

She had to be.

 

My mother was gone by the time I came down for breakfast; she must have been on the early shift at the hospital. The note on the fridge contained an apology and a request that I take the bus. The bus. I hadn’t been on it since sophomore year, before Charlotte had her permit and her new car.

 

It didn’t matter, though. Today was not the day I would be climbing back on board the spluttering yellow contraption with duct-taped brown cushions and seatbelts that hung uselessly, like extra limbs, across the gum-covered seats. Today, like yesterday, I’d be skipping class for something more important.

 

A lead.

 

I took a long breath, steadying my voice. Charlotte had always told me that mine was deeper than hers, a little raspier, and so on the rare occasion when we needed to pretend to be adults (telling her coach she had a doctor’s appointment, convincing the local librarian that her ‘daughter’ Charlotte could indeed check out R-rated movies on her behalf), I was always the one to do it, palms sweating, voice shaking, eyes pressed shut lest they would open wide to reveal my fear. I wasn’t a natural rule-breaker like Charlotte. I liked playing the good girl, the kind that teachers defaulted to giving good grades because I was just so easy, the kind that adults would believe instantaneously because I wasn’t a “troublemaker,” the kind that didn’t make any waves because the world had always been good to me, the rules working in my favor, the endless bureaucracy a warm chrysalis that promised to hold and secure and transform me.

 

But not today.

 

I dialed, not giving myself time to think. “St. Clair High School,” the administrator on the other end said. Bitter, a little suspicious. I could only imagine how many seniors tried this each morning.

 

“Yes, hello,” I said, with exactly the same inflection as my mother. “Debra Elderwood here. My daughter Reese won’t be coming to school today.”

 

“Okay,” the woman said, voice flat and neutral. “Illness?”

 

I paused, as I knew my mother would if she was indeed worried about me, the best friend of the missing girl who was too bereaved to attend classes. “Yes, ill,” I said finally, and sighed.

 

The woman at the other end of the line didn’t seem to care for my theatrics. Her curiosity was not aroused. She told me curtly that she’d make a note of it and hung up without a good-bye.

 

That taken care of, I took some time to make myself toast and marmalade and poured myself a mug of coffee from the burnt pot. I sat at the counter, swiveling in one of the checkered stools my mother had bought at a garage sale two summers ago, and pulled out my laptop. Crumbs flecked over the keyboard cover. I brushed them off, then carefully wiped my fingers before typing in my password and searching maps again for Charlotte’s house.

 

I found it quickly enough. For a moment I was mesmerized again, eyes locked on the large outlines of the Walters’ estate, gaze tracing the distance from the back patio door through the forest and down to the lake. An image flashed into my mind: the last time I had seen Charlotte, sprinting out into the night, laughing and playful, giddy with drink, the house full of sounds and the smell of booze and sweat and pumpkin candles. I had followed her into the woods, called her name, searched for her, but in the end I had seen only a rowboat in the dark water, a hooded figure rowing away, a sack of what might have been blankets or a body at its feet, but of course my imagination could have placed that there afterward; I had read enough about memory and witnesses to know that the mind was an unreliable organ, always ready with a lie, always eager to fill in a gap or provide an explanation.

 

Once in school I had read about a psychology experiment where scientists had worked with patients whose two halves of their brain couldn’t communicate to one another. The scientists had somehow finagled it so that only one side read a message like, “Leave the room.” The patient would get up, but the side of the brain that was involved in conscious thought had not read the message. So the patients would say, when asked, that they were leaving the room because they wanted to, or because they needed some fresh air. They wouldn’t realize that they had been tricked, that they were following subliminal directions, that in fact, they were not in control of their bodies, and that their mind was just lying to them, trying to figure out and supply a reason for a behavior it could not explain.

 

It made me wonder what my brain was lying about.

 

I shuddered and refocused. Moving the map carefully south, I double-checked the address right below the Walters’ house. I wrote the numbers and street name down in big block letters, retracing the lines a few times as I pulled up a ride share app with my other hand, fingers dancing over my phone. I wouldn’t think about the cost, not now; my bank account, set up by my mother with swift efficiency when I turned sixteen, had at least $200 in it for emergencies.

 

This was an emergency.

 

I was off to talk to the boy who might have kidnapped my friend.