Tagline: Come on in. The water’s fine…
Back tagline: Dead man’s float?
Summary: Sharon’s pool party should have been perfect. The event of the year. After all, it was being held in the indoor/outdoor pool at her mother’s exclusive new hotel. It was definitely a party any senior would love to be invited to.
But somebody had invitations delivered before they were supposed to be mailed. And they went to all the people Sharon hardly knew. Even a thing seemed kind of weird, Sharon decided to go with the flow. How bad could things be?
Sharon should never have believed that everything would be okay. She should have known that something was very, very wrong. Because now some of the guests might end up doing the dead man’s float — for real….
First impressions: This sounds like a fun one! I’m not crazy about the cover though. What’s with the giant face in the pool? Is the water sentient? Is it a ghost? [Note from future: This cover still makes no sense after reading the book] Why are those sunglasses at the bottom so big? Why is there no-one at this party? What the hell is that tagline on the back and why does it have a question mark? Let’s read!
Recap
Roll call:
Sharon – Our protagonist who’s just moved back to town after a year away.
Phil – Sharon’s hunky boyfriend she met over the summer.
Dan – Sharon’s ex-boyfriend she broke up with before Phil.
Irene – The mysterious daughter of the hotel’s franchise owner.
Sue, Vicki, Angel, Donna, Elaine, Marge and Ruth – Semi-important to the story but not worth having their own little description.
We begin on Monday morning before homeroom when protagonist Sharon Jones [Weirdly, we don’t find out her last name until later in the chapter] is confronted by Angel De Fazio, the gorgeous, boy-crazy chick; Sue Riley, ‘the class cynic’ with a sharp tongue; and Vicki Munslinger [Great last name! Also weirdly, these are the only last names we get – None of the other people introduced this chapter get one! Keep it consistent, Cargill], editor-in-chief of the school newspaper who only thinks about that and her grades [Note from future: This is about as much personality as we get from these girls].
They, along with a select few others around school, have received gilt-edged invitations [Gilt-edged is said about 193948483 in the first chapter alone, lol. Also the first chapter is 25 pages long, wtf?] for a pool party at Ocean House this Friday, with ‘TO THE BEST OF THE BEST’ written on top of each one.
Sharon’s mother has recently purchased franchise rights to Ocean House from Cragmoor Resorts, because she thought running an Island resort would be a good way to earn a living. Although Sharon was planning on throwing a pool party Friday night, she didn’t send out these lavish invitations, and she definitely wouldn’t have invited these three girls – they’re all from different social circles and Sharon’s never had anything to do with any of them:
What was somebody trying to do, invite everybody who hated each other to a party as a practical joke?
[I hardly think running in a certain social group means you hate everyone else, Sharon]. Despite having nothing to do with the invitations [They’re gilt-edged!], Sharon owns up to it because she doesn’t want to look like a fool. She’d spent the last year in Atlanta while her dad worked for an import/export firm and her mum sued him for divorce [Is that what divorce actually is? Suing your ex?], and Sharon’s new boyfriend, Phil, had suggested throwing a party to get reacquainted with the senior class now that she’s back on Amelia Island. Phil, who graduated from ‘some high school on the other side of the country last year’, works full-time for Fun & Sun Resort Services, teaching swimming and scuba diving and running children’s programs. Sharon had met him late in the summer after breaking up with her previous boyfriend, Dan [She moves on quick!].
Throughout the day, Sharon runs into plenty of people offended by their lack of invitation, but it’s not like she can say anything because she’s pretending she did send them to save face [Just invite them without an invitation? Use your noggin, Shazza].
As she wait for Phil at lunchtime [He’s not a student though?? Why’s he coming to the cafeteria for lunch?], she gets a surprise when Dan sits down across from her. They’d only dated for the first part of the summer after she got back from Atlanta, but she’d ended things because he had other hobbies that didn’t involve her:
…he’d always taken her for granted. He’d paid too much attention to his rock and mineral collections and not enough to her. His idea of a good time had been to take her hiking!
[Hear that, fellas? Don’t you dare share your passions with your partner if you wanna stay in a relationship. Fuck off, Sharon]. Anyway, he pulls out a gilt-edged invitation of his own and seems to think it’s an olive branch that could lead to getting back together, but Sharon quickly explains she has no idea who did. She’d like him to attend anyway though, just so there’s another person who knows the truth [So you’re gonna tell Phil?], and Dan promises to be there.
Dan leaves and Sharon finally spots Phil across the cafeteria wit a tray of spaghetti [He’s not a student, why is he just walking around school and helping himself to the lunch menu?! How is the school OK with this?!]. Apparently Phil’s got a lot of charm, which is why the faculty don’t have an issue with his presence [It’s so weird though?].
As Phil approaches, Sharon realises he’s probably behind the invitations! She asks him about it, but he’s too poor to afford such elaborate gilt-edged invitations [Have I mentioned they’re gilt-edged?], but he’s not worried because the invitations [you know, the gilt-edged ones] make her look real fancy, and that’s sure to make her popular [Not sure why her popularity matters to him, but OK], which doesn’t seem all that interesting to Sharon.
Then Donna, ‘head cheerleader as well as the richest and most popular girl in the school’, and her clique, Elaine, Marge and Ruth, come over to commend Sharon on the gilt-edged invitations and express their excitement for the pool party [It doesn’t say they have invitations of their own though? I feel like it’s written as if they didn’t get any? Either way, they’ll be there though]. Once again, Phil seems more keen on Sharon becoming popular than she is [Will he be our bad guy? Why’s he so fixated on it?].
The party is the talk of the school all week and when Friday night rolls around, Sharon’s surprised to see two catering vans out the front of Ocean House. Mrs. Jones is trying to tell them it’s some sort of mistake, since they can’t afford anything like that, but apparently it’s all been paid for! The caterers hand over a card that reads ‘Compliments of THE BEST OF THE BEST’ [What’s with the caps? And the best of the best thing?]. Sharon realises the same person who did this sent out the gilt-edged invitations [Can someone get Linda Cargill a thesaurus?].
They begin setting up by the ‘black marble pool with a matching pool deck’, which rests inside ‘an all-weather, glass enclosure with roof slats that opened to let in fresh air during the summer’ [Sounds great!]. The mystery party planner has paid for some really fancy shit, like a lobster dinner option, and has organised a band, but unfortunately no-one seems to be mingling when the guests all arrive.
As Sharon approaches Donna, Elaine, Marge, and Ruth, she overhears them showing off the gold jewellery they got at Dave’s Treasure Drove down on the beach. Apparently Dave sells antiques found in shipwrecks off the coast, and Donna managed to score a gold ring, while Elaine purchased a gold chain necklace with an emerald dangling from it and Marge got pearl earrings set in gold. Ruth is going there tomorrow, so she’s got nothing to show off yet [If this what ‘Mean Girls’ she wouldn’t be able to sit with them].
Sharon hangs back, not wanting to embarrass herself by showing off her povo costume jewellery, and the conversation turns to how the Mrs. Jones could afford this place. Ruth pipes up with what she’s heard about the place from her dad:
“Well, apparently some artist owned it a long time ago. He was crazy. He even killed people here. Or at least they disappeared mysteriously, and nobody ever saw them again. For years nobody would go near the place. They say it’s haunted by some lady he killed.”
[Ooky spooky!]. Sharon realises that must be why her mother got the place so cheap and frets about the party being a bust, since everyone’s keeping to their cliques. Phil and his mates show up and jump in the pool, and eventually that gets everyone else mingling too. Glad that whoever sent the invitations [They were gilt-edged, you know!] didn’t ruin her party, Sharon’s just about to join them when Dan taps her on the shoulder.
He suggests Sharon call off the party because ‘“those caterers aren’t in the yellow pages”’ [So ‘90s, lol] and thinks the food is poisoned [And what are you basing that on exactly, Dan?]. He’s worried that whoever sent the gilt-edged invitations [Are you as sick of hearing about them as I am? If I have to suffer through it so do you xx] didn’t do it to be nice, and Dan suspects foul play [I mean, fair, because it’s weird, but there’s been absolutely no reason to suspect something dodgy yet?]. He suspect Phil and his buddies are behind it, since Sharon doesn’t really know that much about him, but Sharon accuses Dan of being jealous and storms off.
Later, it’s food time, but one of the caterers makes a big deal about the salt shaker being missing, refusing to serve the steaks he’s cooking until he has some salt [Does he need salt for the steaks or is he just being petty?]. With Sharon keeping watch so they don’t burn, he runs back to his van to get more salt, but never returns. Donna volunteers to get some salt from the kitchen, but then she doesn’t return. And then Elaine goes to find Donna, and she doesn’t return. And then, despite Sharon’s objections, Marge goes to look for her friends, and guess what? She doesn’t return either.
Then Dan goes to find them, returning a few minutes later with a salt shaker, but despite searching upstairs and downstairs, there’s no sign of Donna, Elaine, Marge, or the cook [This book just got interesting!].
The police are called and find no evidence of a struggle in the house. Everyone at the party is interrogated, since if it was foul play, the girls had gone with whoever took them willingly [They could have been knocked out though, right?] since their cars, purses, money and clothes are still on the premises [Reminds of me ‘Rose Red’, a great-but-lengthy mini-series written by Stephen King]. Strangely, the caterer who went missing was found knocked out cold in the car park later.
By the next day, the front lawn of Ocean House has become a media circus as reporters and police swarm the property, and Sharon’s surprised to find Angel, Vicki and Sue knocking on her door. They’ve decided that someone at the party is responsible for the girls’ disappearances and want to make a pact to keep an eye on things, and they all agree to tell each other, as well as the police, if they find out any information. Normally, Sharon would have thought this was a dweeby thing to do, ‘but under these circumstances, she had to admit it made sense’ [I don’t know what they’re expecting to find out before the police do, but OK. I don’t know if a pact is really necessary either. Like, just do it?].
Angel is super dramatic about it and makes them all take an oath, but despite the fact Sharon would have never graced these three girls with her presence a few weeks ago, she realises they’re not so bad after all [Is it lonely up there on that pedestal, Sharon? She seems like your typical Point Horror rich bitch, except she’s not rich, so I don’t know why she’s got an attitude. And it’s not like she’s got any other friends, because none have been mentioned].
Afterwards, Sharon notices a girl about her age she’s never seen before sitting on the staircase, sketching in a pad. Sharon thinks she’s the most beautiful person she’s ever seen in her life, with her shoulder-length black hair, slim figure, violet eyes [That is not an eye colour] and designer clothing. Mrs. Jones appears and introduces the pairl:
“Sharon, this is Miss Irene Cragmoor, the daughter of Mr. Cragmoor, the franchiser from whom we bought the right to operate this resort. Her father owns Ocean House. She arrived this morning from England.”
[Wait, so Mrs. Jones doesn’t own the place? She just owns the right to run the hotel? I’m confused]. Mrs. Jones hurries away while the girls get acquainted, and Irene shows Sharon her sketchbook. Sharon is in awe at the “elaborate chalk drawing” of the reception area [Can a chalk drawing be that elaborate? I guess it would have to be coloured chalk maybe? Surely she’s not using white chalk in a white sketch pad] and compliments Irene’s artistry. Irene is super modest but flips through the book, revealing more detailed sketches of other areas of Ocean House, including the pool.
Then Sharon sees a drawing of something she doesn’t recognise – ‘an elaborately dressed antique doll with long blond hair’ that Sharon could have sworn was a real young woman if she didn’t know any better [If it looks that real, wouldn’t you just assume it’s a little girl and not a doll though?]. Sharon knows enough about dolls to know this one would be pretty pricey [It’s a drawing? For all Sharon knows she pulled it out of her head], and asks if Irene collects dolls.
Irene reveals she found it in the room at the top of the stairs, which Sharon insists is occupied at the moment. Irene points to the reception area where the guests of that room, a well-dressed woman and her young daughter, are currently checking out early. The woman complains to Mrs. Jones about all the reporters and police knocking on her door as well as how cold the room is, even with the AC off [Was someone hung in there?]. She caps off her complaints with a real spooker:
“My daughter claims that some woman has been barging into our bedroom in the middle of the night, talking to her, giving her candies, and sitting by the bed. I’ve never seen her, but I certainly hope you report her to the police. Perhaps she has something to do with all the trouble around here.”
[This is terrifying]. This was all happening despite the door being locked [I am alone in my house right now and I am very scared hahahaha]. The little girl pipes up, saying ‘“the pretty lady will cry”’ if she doesn’t say goodbye to her, and apparently she’s always crying [This sounds worse and worse].
Irene then takes Sharon to the room, which amongst other elegant features has a spiral staircase leading to the tower and a balcony that overlooks the pool [Sounds amazing]. Sure enough, the doll is sitting on a rocking chair by the window, and the uncanny resemblance to a real person gives Shazza the shivers. Irene says the artists back then used to make dolls look like they’re owners, and this one probably even has some of its owners real hair! This spooks Sharon some more, and Irene asks what exactly happened recently, since she couldn’t be here for the party.
As they head to Sharon’s room, Shaz tells Irene about how everything started with the gilt-edged invitations [Oh god, not these again]. She takes one from her drawer and hands it to Irene, who reveals she was the one who sent the invitations [Yep, the gilt-edged ones!], thinking it would be ‘“A nice way for everybody on Amelia Island to see the new resort”’. She explains that she drew 50 names out of a hat to decide which seniors to invite, and although Sharon knows drawing names randomly ‘wouldn’t have selected only the kids who didn’t know each other’ [Does that mean Donna and the gang didn’t have invitations? They knew each other? Are you really telling me that out of 50 seniors at the party, none of them were friends? Note from future: this is literally never addressed again, but I’m still thinking about it], she doesn’t want to make waves with the franchiser’s daughter, so asks why the invitations said ‘TO THE BEST OF THE BEST’ instead. The answer? Because it sounded nice [Sounds like an ulterior motive to me].
Then the phone rings from the living room, and it’s a mysterious caller with ‘a strange, distorted voice’ [Not hoarse and croaky? That’s a first]. The caller says Sharon knows where the missing girls are and accuses her of putting them there, reveals they’re [The caller, not the missing girls] watching everything she does and tells her to check beneath her mattress before the line goes dead. Confused, Sharon follows the order and finds Donna’s ring, Elaine’s necklace and Marge’s earrings [Ooky spooky!].
The police suspect Sharon of the kidnapping now thanks to this new circumstantial evidence [She had an alibi though? She was at the party surrounded by everyone else? How could she be responsible?]. Vicki, Sue and Angel barge in and comfort Sharon, trying to think of an explanation. They’ve been watching Ocean House since this morning and haven’t seen anything sketchy, but Sue suggests someone broke in overnight and planted the jewellery [So she thinks someone broke into the Inn and planted something under Sharon’s mattress while she was sleeping, without waking her? I don’t think so, Sue].
As Sharon continues crying, more worried about the negative press hindering her mother’s new business than what will happen to her, she spots Dan by the front door, looking all sketchy and fidgety [What are you up to, Dan?]. Sharon’s Dad, who she hasn’t seen in months, also rocks up before a policeman announces that Sharon’s a free woman since they just caught Dan trying to escape! Sharon watches as they pull a gun from his pocket:
“We found a transcript of his crank phone call to you in his pocket. We also found more gold jewelry and a list of pawnbrokers where he could sell the stuff he had left over. I had my eye on him all morning. Kinda fidgety character. Criminals always like to revisit the scene of the crime.”
[I thought the missing girls’ jewellery was under Sharon’s mattress? Where’d all this left over stuff come from? Also, wtf Dan?]. Sharon argues that Dan has no reason to steal jewellery and frame her, [I guess he could have put it under he mattress when he went looking for the girls], so the officer whips out ‘another transcript of a phone conversation, one that hadn’t taken place yet’. It’s a death threat in Dan’s handwriting [!!!!!!].
Although they only dated briefly, Sharon’s known Dan her whole life and just can’t believe he would do anything like this. He’s from an upstanding family and he’s one of the brightest students at school. How could he be responsible for these crimes? She stops the police from taking him away so she can have a minute alone with him [Is that even allowed? He’s an alleged kidnapper, and for all they know, she could be helping him escape!].
Dan tells her it really broke him up when she ended their relationship, and he wanted to hurt her how she hurt him. He really likes her, you see [Was he gonna shoot her? What the hell is going on?]. Then he grabs her and warns her to ‘“Watch out for Phil”’, because he thinks Phil’s up to something, but the rest of this conversation is cut short because Phil comes out of nowhere and tackles Dan to the ground.
Fisticuffs ensue [Boys will be boys LOL XD] until Sharon screams for help and the police break it up. Phil brags about how he saved Sharon from Dan [He’s actually super possessive and I’m not liking it]. Everyone leaves and Sharon returns to her room to rest, unsure of whether Dan or Phil is the dodgy one. Mum comes in to check on her and mentions that the hotel is losing customers like crazy before Sharon drifts off to sleep.
When she wakes up later that evening, she finds a note with Dan’s handwriting in her pocket telling her to check the room upstairs. Realising Dan must have slipped it into her pocket when he grabbed her, Sharon heads to the room directly above the manager’s suite she lives in with her mother, which just so happens to be the one she visited earlier with Irene.
Inside, she finds a damp handkerchief on the bed [Ew, why’d you touch it] with ‘CW’ embroidered on it and remembers how the little girl ‘”babbled on and on about the pretty lady with the long blond hair who’d visited in the middle of the night”’ [The girl never mentioned a hair colour and she also only said two sentences, which I’d hardly call babbling on…].
Then Sharon heads up to the tower and thinks she sees ‘CW’ on the bottom of the pool, but it quickly disappears, so she thinks she imagined it. As she heads down the spiral staircase to the main room, she hears the water running from the bathroom [A new guest already?]. The bathroom door is open and as she sneaks past to leave, Sharon notices she can’t see an outline of a person through the shower curtain, even though the water’s running.
Investigating further, she finds the doll floating in the half-filled tub, but it’s expression has changed – it looks super angry and the previously blue eyes are now red, with blood trickling from it’s mouth [Ooky spooky! The doll is blonde, maybe it’s the daytime disguise of the crying woman?].
The doll makes the news headlines by morning and Phil calls to blame Dan for everything. Sharon’s still not so sure, since he would have been in custody while she was in the room [He has an accomplice, if he even is the bad guy. There’s probably two separate bad guy plots happening because I still don’t know why he had a gun?], and Phil starts talking like a mob boss [Well that’s how I’m reading this sentence at least]:
“Say, honey, you aren’t still sweet on this kook, are you?”
[Seriously, it’s like a stereotypical mafia guy]. Phil then heads over, insisting he’ll take her to school from now on and Sharon’s getting slightly irritated by his guard dog act [Axe him, Shazza, he’s way too possessive. Also, apparently Cargill doesn’t believe in Sundays because she’s completely jumped from Saturday to Monday with a ‘“by morning”’ segue at the start of this part of the book? She found it on Saturday night, so it should be Sunday no, unless I missed something?]. After school, she tries to talk to her mother about needing space from Phil, but apparently Phil is ‘”like a son”’ to Mrs. Jones [They’ve been dating for like a second, calm down lol] who reveals he’s also been doing some work around Ocean House free of charge [OK, that’s suss].
Over the next few weeks, Phil does more and more for the hotel, offering things like swimming lessons and beach days for kids as well as lifesaving and scuba diving classes for adults, until eventually ‘the time he spent working for pay at the other resorts on the island was halved’ [Does Phil not pay rent?! Why he is doing so much for the Jones’?].
One day, instead of just dropping her off at school, he goes inside and is super vague about what he’s doing there [What’s the point?]. Vicki, Sue and Angel have no idea what he’s got planned [Why would they?] and neither does Irene, who’s apparently transferred to Ocean High because her father wants her to stay at Ocean House for a few months ’to make sure it got off to a good start’ [OK, I guess she’s not a ghost lol. But also, why is Mr. Cragmoor forcing his daughter to watch over the inn? The girl’s like 17? Why are you disrupting her life for that? Not that she seems to care, but still, that’s a big weight to put on her shoulders].
After the usual morning announcements, Phil’s voice comes over the PA, encouraging students to volunteer their time at Ocean House to help prevent the business going under in a project he calls ‘“Save Our Inn”’ [Oof, how humiliating to have your family’s financial troubles broadcast for the whole school]. Students are eager to sign up wherever they can, with ‘special talents’ like wallpapering, carpentry and plumbing on the list of things that need to be done [OK, what student has wallpapering, carpentry or plumbing as a special talent? Those are careers! This whole scheme is just a way to get free labour. I’m onto you, Phil].
Everyone’s really nice to Sharon about her financial issues, but she feels so exposed [It’s not that she’s ungrateful for Phil’s help, it’s just embarrassing that everyone knows what her family’s going through now]. At lunch, Sue, who Sharon’s gotten really close with the past few weeks, mentions how she personally prefers Dan over Phil [Same tbh, even though he had a gun and was apparently framing her lol], and it’s revealed she, Angel and Vicki believes Dan’s innocent.
We then learn that Dan’s being charged with kidnapping and maybe murder, with more damning evidence being found in his bedroom – threatening letters to Sharon, maps of Ocean House, etc. His parents took out a second mortgage to get him out on bail, so Dan’s apparently returning to school soon, and Sharon still believes he’s innocent:
Even though all the evidence pointed against him, there had to be more going on. Dan just wasn’t acting like a guilty criminal.
But then why had Dan told the police he was guilty?
[She’s right, Dan’s gotta be innocent]. When he finally does show up one morning, it seems like the whole school watches as he makes his way toward Sharon at her locker. A few people yell out to him, calling him a murderer and such, but he ignores it, and when he finally reaches our mate Shazza, Phil appears right beside her to be his usual possessive self [Ugh, go away Phil. I can’t believe everyone’s acting like it’s so normal for him to just hang around the school all the time].
A small crowd gathers, hoping for a fight between the two males as Phil makes a snide remark about Dan escaping jail. Sue, Angel, Vicki and Irene quickly jump to Dan’s defence, with Irene reminding everyone that alleged criminals are innocent until proven guilty. Slowly, the crowd disperses since ‘Nobody could challenge those exotic-looking violet eyes’ [Again, not a real eye colour hahaha].
Later in the day, Sharon overhears her father, who’s staying in town for a while, in the principal’s office, hootin’ and hollerin’ about the school needing to keep Dan away from Sharon. He’s super loud and can be heard all the way out in the hall, so a humiliated Sharon runs away from the stare bears to the woods at the back of the school, plopping herself down by a pond. Soon, Dan shows up to confess his innocence:
“I never really put the jewelry under your mattress. I just wrote up those conversations when I was hangin’ around the inn lobby that day — right on the spot. I overheard what you confessed to the police.”
He’d bought the gold jewellery from Dan’s Treasure Trove earlier that day and pickpocketed the gun from a policeman, and it was all to protect Sharon [Couple goals]. He believes someone’s either trying to frame her or gaslight her, and his logic is that by framing himself, it would give them more time to figure out who the real culprit is – ‘”to stop Phil”’.
[I don’t necessarily not believe him, but I don’t really see how taking yourself out of the equation is going to help Sharon? Like, she’d just be one person down in her quest for the truth while he’s in jail? And the real bad guy could still do everything while Dan’s locked up, and still easily frame her? In fact, the bad guy’s probably gonna make it look like they’re both in it together!]. He had also put the note about checking upstairs in her pocket because when he searched the house the night of the party, he found dirty footprints up there, but they were cleaned up by the time the police came.
Sharon’s bewildered that he cares so much about her, because she may as well have been part of his rock collection when they were dating. He explains that he thought she could tell how much he cared, so he didn’t realise he needed to say anything special [She doesn’t deserve you, Dan! She couldn’t even feign interest in your hobbies]. Sharon ends up kissing him right there and then, and they stay in a lock-lipped embrace until some policemen show up to take them both to the station for questioning:
“What for?” asked Sharon.
“It would be easier, miss, if you’d confess. You’re both in this up to your necks. It’s getting pretty obvious.”
[I knew it! Dan’s an idiot to think the bad guy would stop framing her just because he falsely confessed lol. Bless him though]. Sharon and Dan are interrogated in separate rooms at the station, but the police refuse to believe the pair are anything but a couple in on it together. That’s also what the kids at school all seem to think, but Sharon’s more concerned about her feelings for Dan:
Why had she kissed Dan and liked it? How could she have like it when everybody said he was guilty?
[Move to Shadyside, Sharon, you’ll fit right in xx]. Surprisingly, Phil hasn’t mentioned anything about Dan, and by the time he picks her up from school the day after the interrogation, she apologises, but Phil smiles and tells her not to worry, that he’ll take care of Dan [Don’t you touch him, Phil!]. Although it gives Shazza the shivers, she doesn’t say anything [Break up with the pleb].
At Ocean House, Sharon, Irene and the rest of the pact girls hang out by the pool as Phil tries to enlist their help to convince Sharon to throw another pool party [Wtf, why? Phil’s so suss]. He bangs on and on about how they need to save her reputation after the whole Dan thing, and although Vicki, Sue and Angel feel like it’d be tempting fate [And also believe Dan is innocent], Irene offers to finance the whole thing and make it even fancier than the first one! [These two are suss…maybe they’re working together? Sharon doesn’t exactly know where Phil’s come from, so it’s definitely plausible].
As Irene and Phil switch to party planning mode [Don’t forget the gilt-edged invitations, guys!], the barely listening Sharon thinks she sees the letters ‘CW’ at the bottom of the pool again before it quickly disappears. As she wonders what the hell is going on, she realises Phil’s trying to get her to join him in the pool. She hops in the water and swims over to him beneath the surface, but something grabs her leg [!!!!!]:
Sharon struggled. Something was wrapping and coiling itself around her legs. The more she struggled, the more she became entangled. She flailed her arms and legs. In the darkness of the black-tiled pool, which way was up?
[Drowning is one of my greatest fears so this is terrifying to me]. She’s rescued by Phil, who points out it was just the elaborate underwater vacuum cleaner she’d got caught up in [Oh Sharon hahahaha]. Phil decides the best thing to cure Sharon of her jitters is a pool party, and decides his word is final [Fuck off, Phil].
After some refreshing Coke [The drink, not the powder hehe], an exhausted Sharon tells everyone how tired she is thanks to some guests checking in at midnight and keeping her awake. Of course they’d taken the fanciest room, the one with the tower directly above the manager’s apartment, and it sounded like they were moving furniture and thumping around up there [Fuck that I’d be so mad]. Mrs. Jones walks in and Irene suggests they close the front desk earlier than midnight, since last night’s late check-ins kept Sharon awake, but Mrs. Jones drops a huge bomb – ‘“No one checked in last night”’ [A g-g-g-g-g-g-ghost!].
The next day, Sharon gets home from school to find a psychic convention checking in, and they want her to show them around the hotel because teenage girls ‘“are frequently in touch with the spirit realm”’ [Are they?]. Reluctantly, Sharon gives the group of old ladies a tour of Ocean House, where they mention multiple cold spots that indicate the presence of a ghost which they believe is very sad woman [Why’s this ghost so sad :(].
The last stop on the tour is the suite with the tower, where more cold spots are found and the women marvel over the doll. Sharon offers it to them, but they refuse to take it because ‘”This is the doll’s room. She lives here for a reason”’ [The doll is clearly connected to the ghost, but could it be alive too? Or maybe the doll turns into a ghost at night or something]. At the top of the spiral staircase, they find the door to the balcony locked, and afterwards as Sharon roams the grounds for some alone time, she spots Irene on the balcony.
Irene has her easel and a canvas set up, but she’s scanning the trees with binoculars instead of doing any art. Unable to get Irene’s attention, Sharon watches as she takes a shiny object from her pocket and drops it over the balcony into the black-tiled pool. After Irene packs up and heads inside, Sharon fishes the object out of the pool – it’s an old-fashion, solid gold knife with ‘CW’ carved into its handle [God I hope we find out what ‘CW’ stands for soon].
At school the next day, Irene acts completely normal, never mentioning the incident [Why would she though? Like, what’s to mention, she doesn’t even know Sharon witnessed that? Does Sharon really expect her to be like “Hey Shaz, I dropped a gold knife engraved with ‘CW’ into the pool from the balcony yesterday, just so you know xx”?!]. Sharon eventually asks her what she got up to the previous night, and the sly girl flat out lies and says she took a nap.
Sharon is immediately suss on her foreign friend – is she who she says she is? [This is Point Horror, so definitely not. But now I’m thinking my theory that Irene and Phil are the bad guys is too obvious…]. During gym class, which she shares with Irene, Sharon excuses herself early to rummage through Irene’s purse in their shared locker:
…she found a driver’s license with the name Sandy Roberts instead of Irene Cragmoor. And it wasn’t from England. It was from Richmond, Virginia!
The photo looked a little like Irene. But the hair was light brown instead of black. The eyes seemed to be blue, not violet. The girl on the license was wearing big horn-rimmed glasses, not at all Irene’s style.
[Oof, I knew she was suss. What’s her deal, though?!]. Back at Ocean House after school, Sharon sneaks into Irene’s room and looks through her sketchbook, finding drawings of several things that we know have taken place – the doll with blood dripping from it; the missing girls as well as the stolen jewellery found under Sharon’s mattress; a séance the psychic convention had held in the parlour; even Sharon wrapped in the pool vacuum [What the hell? I’m almost inclined to believe whatever Irene draws comes true, but I feel like that’s not where this book is heading because there’s way too much going on already without complicating it even more. I guess she’s just drawing things that have happened].
As a confused Sharon leaves, she bumps right into Irene, who’s completely unbothered about Shazza bolting from her room. In fact, she pulls Sharon back in and shows her a sketch she hadn’t seen, a painting of the gold knife! Irene mentions she collects stuff like this and lost the knife the other day [Girl, we saw you drop it on purpose]. Sharon makes an excuse and escapes to her own room to call the rest of the pact gang, who’ve also all noticed some strange behaviour from Irene.
Sue and Irene shares all the same classes and Irene gets called out of class a lot, but never says where she’s been when she gets back. Vicki, believing a mysterious girl from England would make a good story for the school paper, has been tailing Irene, and apparently our British friend disappears from school for hours at a time, even getting into cars with strange men [What the fuck, Irene. Or should I say Sandy?]. While not as juicy, Sharon learns from Angel that Irene dyes her hair, since Angel noticed her brown roots coming in the other day, but today, they’re black again. And Irene also wears contacts! [I mean, from the driver’s license I think we all knew she dyes her hair and wears contacts already lol]. She lost one the other day and one of the boys helped her find it, and Sharon wonders if the contacts are to change her eye colour [Obviously, Sharon. Who the fuck has violet eyes?].
Back at school, Sharon is still being accused by other students of helping Dan kidnap the girls and steal their jewellery [I mean, it definitely sounds like a Point Horror motive]. She’s still confused about her feelings for Dan, but is unable to really talk to him in private since he’s escorted to and from school while awaiting trial.
Phil also keeps banging on and on about the party until Sharon finally gives in and invites the whole senior class to her place the following Saturday over the PA system [What about the other year levels who would have listened to the announcement too? Hahaha rude]b As Phil had predicted, her popularity turns right around, with everyone keen to move on from the nightmare of the last pool party. except for Dan, that is, who leaves a note on Sharon’s locker:
Cancel the party. Don’t hold it under any circumstances. Three girls have already disappeared.
[Well, he’s got a point! I don’t know why anyone thinks it’s a good idea to have a pool party so quickly after three girls disappeared at the exact same place]. On top of all this, Phil’s been getting more and more time off his paying job to hang around Sharon [Omfg give her some space] – he drops her off and picks her up from school, eats in the cafeteria with her and stays at her house directly after school [Clingyyyyy. Something’s definitely up with him]. He invites her to a beach party he, his boss Tony and their colleagues are throwing that night, and although initially reluctant, Sharon accepts.
On the way there, Phil speeds in his van, and Sharon’s clearly uncomfortable. He’s lost in his own world though, randomly declaring that he won’t be poor forever [If you’re worried about your finances, maybe spend more time at your actual paying job?] and if he’s lucky, he might ‘“stumble upon some real finds”’:
“There were lots of shipwrecks on the coast around here hundred of years ago. This was all part of the Spanish Main. My buddies and I like to go scuba diving on weekends to see what we can find. Yep. It pays. If we find something, the state gets half and we get to keep half.”
[Did Phil kidnap the girls for the gold jewellery purchased from Dave’s Treasure Trove, which also sells antiques found in the shipwrecks? Hmmm…]. At the bonfire party, which is apparently illegal, Sharon thanks Tony for being so understanding about Phil’s hours lately, but he’s all like ‘“Don’t even mention it”’ [Which I don’t really understand…He’s offering the services you pay him for for free? Tony’s suss too]. It’s just the big, happy Fun & Sun Resort Services family and their girlfriends in attendance, and they’re all drinking, which makes Shaz uneasy [Have a beer, darl]. Then one of the girls pulls out some cards and they play some poker, with Tony whipping out a stash of ‘fresh, crisp one hundred dollar bills’ [We’ve got a baller!].
As Sharon observes the game, the group boasts about how rich they’ll be one day and the mansions and cars they’ll have, and Sharon finds herself horrified by how freely they gamble their money [If they’re so poor right now, why the fuck are they gambling such high amounts anyway?]. Sharon takes some time out to stand by the water, realising how little she actually knows Phil if these are the kind of buddies he has [PSA: don’t jump straight into a relationship with someone you know nothing about]. A drunk Phil comes over to guilt her into having sex right there, trying to remove her bathing suit [Gross, Phil], but Sharon stands her ground and orders him to take her home [Yessssss, Sharon!].
He calls the next day to apologise and even sends roses, which makes Mrs. Jones gush about how wonderful he is and how lucky Sharon is [I’m assuming she doesn’t know about last night, then], but all Shazza wants to do is talk to Dan.
The next evening, Sharon randomly wakes up at midnight and hears voices. Investigating, she finds Ocean House’s front doors wide open and follows the voices to the pool area, where a bunch of girls are gathered by the deep end. She hides behind a bush and tries to make sense of what she’s seeing, recognising some of the girls’ voices – Irene, Sue, Vicki and Angel [I think there’s more girls there because she only recognises some voices, but there’s no description of anyone else so I’m not 100% sure. Also, is everyone trying to gaslight Sharon? Has Irene started a coven of witches? What’s going on?!].
Confused about what the rest of the pact is doing there without her, Sharon realises Irene must have summoned them, but why? Instead of sticking around to eavesdrop, she goes back to bed [If she’s so fkn curious what they’re doing, why would she not stay and listen?!] and has a nightmare about an old-fashioned blonde woman sitting beside her bed and weeping. When she wakes in the morning, the doll from the tower suite is sitting in a chair beside her bed, staring at Sharon [!!!].
On Friday, the day before the pool party, Phil takes Sharon to McDonald’s for a frozen yoghurt date [Froyo at Maccas?!] and mentions a new job prospect that he can’t tell her too much about just yet [So don’t bring it up in the first place lol]. But he does hand her a ring to tide her over so they ‘“can really go steady”’. To Sharon’s surprise, the ring’s ‘fourteen-carat gold with an authentic sapphire’, and it also has ‘CW’ engraved on the side of the band [I’m over this whole ‘CW’ mystery]. She asks what ‘CW’ means but Phil has no idea, suggesting it’s probably a brand. Then she asks where he got it from, but I think we all know the answer already – ‘”Dave’s Treasure Trove”’.
When Phil and Sharon show her mother the ring, Mrs. Jones cries happily as if the pair are truly engaged [I don’t understand how people can actually get married so quickly. Like, less than a year is not enough time to get to know someone]. Meanwhile, Sharon’s finding it increasingly difficult to act as if everything’s normal between her and Irene, since Irene freaks her out so much [Why hasn’t Sharon asked any of the girls what they were doing at the pool the other night?]. Later as she tosses and turns in her bed that night, Sharon’s visited again by the crying woman:
The lady started to shake Sharon violently.
“Quick! Help me! He’s going to kill me!”
As Sharon struggled to wake up, her bedroom door burst open. The mysterious lady screamed, but Sharon couldn’t see who had come in. There was a terrible struggle. The lady ran away. The intruder chased her.
Sharon thought she heard footsteps going up a staircase. There was a tremendously loud splash.
Sharon found herself sitting up in bed screaming.
[So is this a dream, or???] Then Sharon sees the doll sitting in the chair again, even though she returned it to the tower room after finding it the first time. Mrs. Jones runs in to see what’s going on and scolds Sharon for caring so much about the doll, demanding she go back to sleep [Wow, bitch]. She takes the doll from the room though, leaving Sharon to realise someone must be terrorising her on purpose [Omfg Sharon, duh].
The next morning, Mrs. Jones refuses to cancel the party because it’s literally the day of the party [Fair point tbh] and she wants the publicity so people can see that Ocean House is safe [We’ll see about that, hun xx]. Sharon, however, doesn’t feel safe [Another fair point. I like that there’s an internal conflict with Sharon wanting the business to succeed and basically fearing for her life. Teenagers have it so hard], but Phil walks in to give Shaz a kiss, interrupting the conversation, before heading back outside to help his mates set up for the party.
Sharon dashes to her bedroom to call Dan, since he’s the only one who’ll believe that the party shouldn’t go on [Why’d you leave it so late to get it cancelled if you’re so damn worried?]. She tells him about last night, how someone snuck into her room ‘“dressed up like a ghost or something”’ [So it wasn’t a dream and she was awake? Why was it written so confusingly then? Also, why isn’t she more scared? Someone was literally in her room shaking her violently. Could it really have been a ghost?].
She believes someone’s setting her up, trying to make her feel like there’s a crying ghost roaming the inn. She knows it was real because she investigated the pool area this morning, and it was wet. So someone really did jump in/was thrown into the pool [How high’s the tower and how deep’s that pool lol?]. She laments that between the party already getting set up, her mum wanting the publicity and the convention of psychic ladies convinced a real ghost is at play, she’s had no success calling the party off [Again, why’d you leave it til the last minute, dingus].
Sharon urges Dan to call the police [Call them yourself? As if they’d listen to Dan anyway. Or maybe they would, suspecting he’s got a disappearance planned for this party too!], and Dan promises to do what he can, but insists Sharon does not enter that pool [Why though?].
As the pool party kicks off, Sharon notices Irene, Vicki, Angel and Sue surrounding Ruth and feels left out. Heading over, she finds Ruth proudly showing off her new jewellery from Dave’s Treasure Trove. It’s a gold bracelet ‘that coiled around her lower arm like a snake and clasped where two snake heads met’, with interlocking ruby fangs [Sounds pretty cool!]. It reminds Sharon too much of the missing girls’ jewellery and her brand new ring from Phil, which she’s not even wearing [Good], so she mopes off elsewhere, hoping Dan has thought of a way to shut the party down [Drain the pool, hun x].
Eventually, Phil notices that Sharon’s still dry and throws her in the pool [She doesn’t even protest! What about Dan’s warning, Sharon?!] where she’s roped into a game of volleyball until it’s time for food. She’s too bummed out to eat though, and afterwards, she’s pulled back into the pool for some more volleyball.
As the night drags on, nothing bad happens until it’s getting so late that people are talking about leaving pretty soon. That’s when the lights go out momentarily and when they come on again, Ruth’s lying facedown in the pool [!!!]. She’s just pretending though, the cheeky little trickster!
Then the lights go out again, for about a minute this time, and during that time, Sharon senses a slight movement next to her and feels someone accidentally kick her leg [Oop. Is Ruth going missing now? Also, I think she’s in the pool, so wouldn’t there be splashing?]. When the lights come back, everyone’s exactly where they were before… except for Ruth, who’s vanished [Omfg lol. What’s so special about this jewellery that the girls needed to be kidnapped/maybe murdered for wearing it? Doesn’t anyone else wear gold jewellery from Dave’s Treasure Trove? Will they go missing too?].
Dan’s suddenly there with several police officers and a search warrant. They search the pool area, with some police in scuba gear diving down into the deep end to search the bottom [I’m sorry, what? How deep is this fucking pool hahahaha. Scuba divers? What the hell hahahaha]. As it starts to rain, everyone’s herded into the Ocean House parlour as the pool enclosure is taped off and more officers come to search the premises, sniffer dogs on hand, and we learn that there’s little holes scattered all over lawns:
Her mother nervously said that the gardener had complained about the azaleas being uprooted and carelessly replaced. All the plants were dying. She’d fired him and hired another. But the second gardener reported the same thing. Someone was digging secretly, perhaps at night. She hadn’t the faintest idea why.
[“Perhaps at night”? Have you seen anyone digging around during the day, Mrs. Jones? Clearly it’s at night. My money’s still on Phil and/or Irene. I’m also suss on the pact girls too. This whole mystery has something to do with the jewellery from Dave’s Treasure Trove, so I don’t know why Sharon hasn’t thought to pay the place a visit yet]. Then Sharon’s dad arrives and asks the police if they think maybe Ruth’s just playing a joke, but the police have some bad news:
“Mr. Jones, I didn’t have a shred of proof until tonight. But just since we’ve been here I’ve received word from the station that the bodies of the other missing girls have finally been found. They were buried in shallow graves in the woods. The rain uncovered them. They were stabbed to death. Now do you still think Ruth is playing a joke?”
[Oof. Those poor girls. All for some jewellery?!]. The next day, Mrs. Jones is forced to close the inn until the investigation is over, so the psychic convention is forced to disperse [I feel like they’ve been at the hotel for weeks at this point]. One of them hands Sharon her number in case she needs them, claiming Sharon’s ‘”been chosen as a medium for the ghost”’. The psychics think the ghost needs Sharon and has a purpose for her that will be revealed in good time, but Sharon’s completely unimpressed:
“Great! Just great! There’s a lunatic murderer on the loose, and I’ve got ghosts after me, too. Just fantastic!”
[OK, so the crying woman is a real ghost and the murders are a separate plot. I’m sure they’ll be connected in some way, probably by the jewellery. I’m definitely intrigued though, but everything is really dragging on]. Despite the probable murder of another classmate, Sharon’s grateful for the one good thing to come out of Ruth’s disappearance – her father’s moved into Ocean House to get reacquainted with her mother!
[I mean, good for them but seriously Shaz, have some respect for the dead]. Sharon’s parents basically kick her out of the manager’s apartment so they can fuck uninterrupted, so she moves into the fancy room with the tower to be roommates with the creepy doll.
That night in bed, she wakes up to Ruth’s voice, followed by Donna’s, Elaine’s and Marge’s [What the hell?]. Horrified, Sharon turns on the lights and figures out the source of the voices – they’re coming from the doll! Over it, she smashes the doll against the wall until its wax face cracks and the voices stop. That’s when Irene, Vicki, Sue and Angel burst into the room, looking as if they’d all been having a slumber party without her [Those bitches]. Sharon explains the voices she’d heard, but the girls are more interested in the object wrapped around the doll’s arm – Ruth’s golden snake bracelet [The fact that I can’t figure out the full motive for what’s going on is really bothering me. It has to have something to do with the jewellery, but if the bad guy wanted the jewellery for themself, they wouldn’t be trying to frame Sharon. Why is Sharon being framed anyway? And why are these girls always with Irene now? My mind is immediately going to them being a coven of witches, but I don’t think that’s what’s going on hahaha].
Sharon really looks guilty now, and she’s labelled Dan’s accomplice in the local papers the next day, which all point out that Sharon and Dan are ‘both rather poor while each of the victims had been rich and popular’. The papers also say how each girl was wearing valuable gold jewellery that had been found in Sharon’s room after their disappearances. The cops also don’t believe a word Sharon says about her innocence [Seriously though, why would she murder people at her own party? Isn’t that just a little too convenient? I’m a better cop than these guys].
Sharon tells them about Irene throwing the golden knife into the pool, but since the cops found it in Sharon’s room after a search, it’s just more incriminating evidence against her [Again, a little too convenient] and the cops don’t even question Irene. Over the next few days, Sharon is constantly questioned by Phil, her parents and the police, who all urging her to tell the truth. Phil even suggest she just say Dan made her do whatever she did, but Sharon sticks to her guns and reiterates her story over and over again, which of course no-one believes [Honestly I feel like the whole town is trying to gaslight her at this point].
She’s basically watched wherever she goes so that she can’t talk to Dan, with even her phone calls being monitored by her parents [Not sure who she’s calling, because it’s not like she’s really friendd with the pact girls anymore – she thinks they’re suspects and they think she’s a murderer]. She does have a flip phone though [Vintage, nice!], which her dad had sent her for protection before he got to town after the first pool party.
Many students carry a cellphone these days ‘in case the killer was still stalking about town’ [Everyone suspects Dan and Sharon though, so it’s not like it’s some big mystery? I mean, they’re wrong, but still, what are they so worried about?], but Sharon isn’t sure whether Dan has one or not. She eventually sees him talking on one and manages to get his number in the cafeteria line, but doesn’t get a chance to call him because they both rush between classes and he’s escorted home by police every day.
At lunch the next day, she decides now is the best time and as they sit alone on opposite sides of the cafeteria, she dials his number. They agree to meet in the woods behind the school the next day during fourth period, which is Sharon’s study hall, since the police just wait at the front of the building for Dan every day and just expect him to stay at school until it finishes [Is that realistic though? Like, wouldn’t they suspect he might run away to avoid prosecution? Shouldn’t he be guarded more heavily?].
In the woods the next day, Dan reveals he doesn’t think Phil and his buddies are responsible for the murders, since they were right next to Sharon in the pool when Ruth went missing [So? Ruth was apparently right next to her too. So did someone climb in the pool, knock her unconscious and drag her out all without making a splash?], explaining he just warned her about him because he was a little jealous. He then says he knows who the murderer is, but refuses to tell her because it wouldn’t be safe for her to know [But more likely because there’s 50 pages left so we’ve gotta drag it out a bit more. Wrap it up, Cargill].
Dan believes his police guard is what’s keeping him alive because the murderer would surely get rid of him otherwise. Even though Sharon’s also being closely monitored, he doesn’t want take that risk because he’d rather die before he’d let her get hurt [Aah, young love].
As they leave, Sharon asks why he doesn’t tell the police what he knows, but apparently he doesn’t have enough evidence yet to convince them and he needs to keep investigating [It’s literally their job to investigate? Like, even if he was lying, aren’t they obliged to investigate?].
For a little while, they meet in the woods every so often and call each other whenever they can, usually at lunch time when they both sit alone at opposite ends of the cafeteria. Until one day, Irene, Angel, Sue and Vicki all seem to be watching her at some point or other, and one of them always happens to sit next to her at lunch [Oop, they’ve caught on]. Sharon even tries covering the table with notes and pretending she’s cramming for a test, but that doesn’t stop Irene from sitting with her and babbling away for the whole lunch period [Fuck off, Irene].
As the school day ends later, Sue arrives at Sharon’s locker and warns her to ‘”drop Dan like a hot potato if you know what’s good for you”’ [Buy a vowel, Sue]. Sharon argues she hasn’t had anything to do with Dan for ages since she’s always monitored, but Sue seems to know better, so later that night, Sharon risks calling Dan to warn him that someone’s onto them, and they agree to meet in the woods again tomorrow.
When Sharon’s study period rolls around the next day, Irene and the pact girls have her trapped in the library, all pretending to study [These girls are really pissing me off]. Sharon pretends she left a book in her locker and hurries to the woods where Dan’s waiting, but unfortunately they’re surrounded by police [Hahahahah fuck].
They’re taken to the police station where both suspects’ parents also turn up, but Dan’s mind is elsewhere as he scribbles ‘all sorts of mysterious numbers and diagrams’ on some paper [Note from future: Dan’s focus on whatever he’s scribbling is mentioned a lot here, but it’s never mentioned again so what’s the point?]. The police play a recording of Sharon and Dan’s first conversation in the woods, where Dan refused to tell Sharon who the murderer was. The police tell the parents that this is evidence that Dan is helping the murderer [Even though that’s not what he says at all? He’s fearing for his life? Also, how’d they get that tape? Was one of their phones tapped? If so, surely the fact that they haven’t talked about murdering the girls when they think they’re talking in private helps show their innocence?], and Sharon realises the police are twisting his words to make him look worse [Corrupt cops?! Why I never!]. Then the police tell Sharon’s parents that their daughter is clearly an accomplice and point out ‘”you can be convicted of murder even if you don’t wield a knife”’ [True I guess, but these cops are seriously so stupid. This isn’t evidence!].
From now on, Sharon’s not even allowed out of the house without her parents or Phil accompanying her, and talking to Dan is absolutely out of the question. She wonders who could have possibly gotten close enough to plant a mic on her clothes [Oh, is that what happened? Wouldn’t she have noticed a mic on her?], deciding it must have been Irene because they basically live together and it would have been easiest for her.
She eventually confronts Irene in the pool enclosure as she paints an impressionist portrait of the black-tiled pool, and Sharon’s sure she sees the doll painted into the picture too. Irene is pretty condescending, ignoring her questions and telling her to sit down and relax [I would be fuming if I was Shazza]. Then Irene heads inside to get Sharon a snack [OK…], and Sharon realises how thirty she is. She spots a half-finished can of Coke next to Irene’s easel and gulps down a few sips, then immediately feels sleepy [Uh oh].
Next thing she knows, Irene’s helping her to her room to lie down, and although her mind is foggy, Sharon realises that every time she’s felt exhausted lately, it’s been straight after drinking a Coke [Do I smell an endorsement?]… Irene’s been drugging the Coke! Sharon tries to fight off the drug’s effects, but she’s out cold as soon as she hits the pillow [RIP lol].
She wakes up at midnight to the ghostly woman by her bed, begging for Sharon to “stop him” [Give her a fucking name so she knows who to stop!]. Remembering she’d been drugged, Sharon’s not afraid anymore, just angry. Assuming it’s Irene, Sharon grabs for the ghost, but then is surprised when it’s a solid body rather than an incorporeal form [Why is she surprised if she’s so sure it’s a person in the first place?]. The “ghost” escapes the room and Sharon locks her bedroom door behind it, then calls Dan on her flip phone and asks him to come over right now.
A little while later, Dan climbs through her window and Sharon fills him in on everything since they last spoke, explaining her suspicions that Irene’s been drugging her so she can dress up as the ghost. Dan decides to spend the night in the tower part of the room so Sharon can yell out to him if she needs anything [Just sleep in the same bed, hehe]. Before long, he calls her up to the balcony, claiming to have ‘”caught the murderer red-handed”’.
Dan points out the doll sitting by the door, which has a gash on its foot with stuffing bleeding out, and Dan’s holding a manuscript he says he cut out of it [How big is this damn doll?]. The manuscript is the life story of a girl named Charlotte Williams [‘CW’!!!!], and Sharon and Dan sit down to read the pages [And now we’re following Charlotte’s life too, but I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be what is written on the pages or Sharon mentally summarising it. It has dialogue, which makes me think we’re getting exactly what Sharon’s reading, but the writing style doesn’t change? And since this manuscript was written in the early 1900s, surely it would be different? Maybe just bad writing on Cargill’s part lol].
Charlotte was born on Amelia Island at the beginning of the century and although she didn’t see her sea captain father very often because of his work, he’d always bring her back wonderful presents. One such gift is a doll he’d had commissioned by a Jamaican doll maker to look just like Charlotte, complete with her actual hair clippings [Gross]. He tells her the doll might make her wishes come true, and Charlotte’s delighted when her little wishes, like extra cake for dessert or being allowed to stay up later, actually do come true [Black magic!].
As she grows into adolescence, the doll becomes her best friend and confidant while also seeming to be growing up too! The servants are scared of it and think Charlotte’s becoming a witch, but Charlotte likes their fear and often complains to her doll about them, and isn’t surprised when they’re met with little accidents as the doll apparently gets revenge [This is creepy lol].
On her 16th birthday, Captain Williams invites his daughter on his next voyage, and she goes shopping every time they dock. One day as she arrives back at the ship, there’s a surprise draped under a blanket waiting for her. It’s painting depicting her shopping in the market earlier that day. It’s signed ‘”To Charlotte from Your Admirer”’ [How does he know her name?].
Captain Williams isn’t impressed and orders her not to encourage whoever it is, assuming it’s ‘“a pauper looking for a rich girl to marry”’, so Charlotte hides the dozen roses she receives from her admirer the next day from him. After receiving a note, she meets the artist, Charles Worth [Also ‘CW’!], at his studio and it’s love at first sight for her.
She returns day after day and they spend all their time kissing until the last day Captain Williams’ ship is in port when they elope [What’s it been, like three days? Gross] She writes her father a letter explaining her marriage and asks him to visit before leaving, but instead, Captain Williams sends his toughest men to kick down the door, beat up Charles and drag Charlotte back [Gotta love when women are treated more like property than human beings lol].
Instead of forgetting about her husband, Charlotte goes on a hunger strike until her father relents. Captain Williams gifts the newlyweds Ocean House and agrees to send them a yearly allowance. He then declares he’ll never return as long as Charlotte’s with Charles and warns her one last time that he’s only after their money.
Soon enough, Charles proves Captain Williams right – he blows through their first year’s allowance in record time and becomes abusive when Charlotte explains her father meant what he said about only sending a check once a year. She finds friendship in her doll again [Which cries with her and smiles with her, which is creepy af] as Charles makes her life hell until the next check comes, but that dries up even quicker than the first one [Why doesn’t the doll get rid of Charles?].
Charlotte spends more and more time locked in her tower bedroom until one day, a messenger visits with a letter from her dying father. The letter explains that Charlotte’s inheritance is the treasures of The Queen Isabella, a Spanish ship that sunk off the coast [Which Phil and his buddies had been exploring back in the present!]. Captain Williams and his crew had discovered the treasures in the wreckage and buried it at Ocean House.
Included with the letter is a map to the treasure, and suddenly it all makes sense – why her father was so protective and why he’d given her the magic doll. Somehow, Charles must have found out about the inheritance that awaits her and hunted her down to be his bride [So that’s how he knew her name!]. Charlotte refuses to give him the satisfaction of more of her money and hides the map in the doll’s foot.
When Charles realises Charlotte won’t tell him wear the money is, he starts beating her regularly while also tearing apart the house bit by bit, looking for the treasure. One night her bursts into her room in a drunken rage and threatens to kill her if she doesn’t tell him where the treasure is, but Charlotte has different plans – she runs to the top of the tower and throws herself over the balcony:
She fell with such impact that she hit the bottom of the pool. She floated back to the top as a corpse with wide-open eyes that stared accusingly straight up at her husband. In death her lips had curled upward in a smirk. She’d died with a secret on her lips.
[She hit the bottom of the pool? The same one that was so deep it needed scuba divers to search it? Yeah right. I like this description though!]. From then on, Charles constantly hears a woman weeping in the house that seems to come from Charlotte’s old bedroom, but when he investigates, he only finds the doll staring back at him. Other times, he’d find the doll in his room and would attempt to destroy it, but the next day it would always be back in Charlotte’s bedroom, neat and tidy as ever [Ooky spooky! Does this mean in Sharon’s timeline, the doll’s healed the crack she put in it’s face too? It hasn’t been mentioned it all].
Eventually Charles goes crazy, and while searching the tiles of the roof for the treasure [???], he looks down at the pool and sees the letters ‘CW’ glittering back at him. Delusionally thinking he’s found the gold, he leaps into the pool, realising on the way down the pool is coffin-shaped [What? No it’s not? Definitely not on the front cover, and I don’t think Sharon describes it that way either?]. He dies instantly on impact, with the last thing he sees being the doll staring at him from Charlotte’s window [Fuck that!], and the manuscript ends with this:
There was a curse on Ocean House. The ghost of Charlotte and her doll would get their revenge on whoever tried to steal her treasure.
We’re back to Sharon now [God, that was a long time to be away from the main plot, and a very long exposition dump], who wonders who could have wrote the manuscript, since all the people mentioned in it had died [Omg, the doll wrote it, didn’t it?]. Dan reveals the treasure map was with the manuscript in the doll’s foot, and also declares that it shows who murdered Donna, Elaine, Marge and Ruth. Instead of asking who, Sharon asks how Charlotte, Captain Williams or Charles could have even known a thing like that [Who cares, Sharon, just ask who the damn murderer is!].
Then Sharon finally notices that the doll’s face isn’t cracked anymore [Did it heal itself the day after she cracked it? It’s been a while since that happened, how is she only noticing now?!], and and it also seems to be smirking at them [OK so the doll is fucking alive and wrote the manuscript? And ghost Charlotte actually is haunting the hotel? And Irene and/or Phil are searching for the treasure/killed the girls?].
Dan realises how to catch the murderer and says they need to throw a pool party right now to lure him in [A pool party for three! Thrilling]. They head to the kitchen and grab snacks and refreshments to set up the party with [It’s not a real party, why bother?] before taking it all out to the pool area along with a CD player and some CDs [Ah, the 90s!]. Dan decides to set up flashing lights to go with the music [This is a lot of effort to go to for a fake party] and sends Sharon inside for a video camera so they can record the confrontation with the killer.
Inside the cupboard with the video equipment, Sharon finds ‘a wig, a long dress, yellowed handkerchiefs with the initials CW sewn in gold thread, and even a jar of red paint that looked like fake blood.’ There’s also a tape recorder which Sharon flicks on, which plays a recording of a weeping woman that’s all too familiar to Shazza. She also finds a crushed up powder that she assumes is the drugs that made her sleepy [This is a terrible hiding spot for all of this stuff] and puts everything in a bag to show Dan.
Then Irene and the pact girls come bounding down the stairs, calling after Sharon [Another slumber party she wasn’t invited to!], but Sharon tricks them into heading in the other direction outside and makes her way back to the pool. She tells Dan all about her find, blaming Irene and the girls for dressing up as the ghost all along. Then Dan flicks a switch, and the letters ‘CW’ light up from the bottom of the pool [So it wasn’t her imagination! Who flicked the switch the first few times she saw it though? I guess it could have been light reflecting though].
Dan then places a gold bracelet with old, elaborate charms dangling from it [This is suss, Dan! Is he our bad guy?!] and turns the CD player on, which lures Phil into the pool enclosure! He demands Sharon come with him, but she’s all like ‘”We broke up. Remember?”’ [Actually, I don’t remember that because it wasn’t in the damn book], but then Dan pulls a gun on the both of them and Sharon changes her tune pretty quickly.
Believing Dan’s the bad guy now, she clings to Phil and can’t believe she’d ever trusted her ex-boyfriend, who’s monologuing about how Phil’s been searching for the treasure all this time [I don’t think it’s our bad guy monologue, though]. He pulls out the map, which Phil admits he’s been looking for, and now Sharon’s confused again about whether Dan had been just taunting Phil so he’d give himself up.
Dan then reveals that the gold has been in the pool the whole time, as shown on the map [Omg lol]. He pulls up a piece of black tile that is suspiciously already loose, revealing the whole pool is lined with ‘solid bars of gold, jewelry and other various treasures’. Dan also declares he’s rigged the pool with dynamite [What? When? How’d he get dynamite?], and Sharon notices the fuse burning toward it’s position at the filter [!!!!].
Then Phil grabs Sharon and holds a knife to her throat, refusing to go down for all the murders, and drags her to his van. He throws her inside and jumps in the driver’s seat, locking the doors to prevent her escape. That’s when the pool enclosure explodes. Bits of cement and gold rain down on the property and smash through the windscreen, and as Phil drives away, he eagerly picks up the bits of gold off the car floor [Eyes on the road thanks, mate].
Sharon remembers the gold bracelet on her wrist and keeps her arm down to prevent Phil from seeing it as he begins his bad guy monologue. Turns out Phil, his boss Tony and their colleagues are all in it together [I definitely suspected it, but had Irene and Phil working together as my number one guess. RIP me], and Sharon realises it was them taking turns as the ghost woman [I guess trying to scare her enough that the family would move out?]. We also learn why Donna, Elaine, Marge and Ruth were killed:
“They wore that old jewelry from Dave’s Treasure Trove, you know, the one that supposedly sells finds from the Spanish shipwrecks. That stuff was real junk! Expensive but fake. We couldn’t let them get away with that. People wouldn’t appreciate the real stuff when we sold our finds from The Queen Isabella.”
[Hahahahahahha are you fucking kidding me? That is the stupidest reason to kill someone I’ve come across yet. Fuck me hahahahaha]. That’s not the only reason though – they also needed their jewellery to frame Sharon, so the Jones’ would be kicked out of Ocean House and the bad guys would be free to search for treasure as they please [Sounds like they were already doing that though].
He also explains that Irene and the pact girls weren’t in on it, but now Sharon can’t work out why they’d been acting so suspicious lately [Witches!]. Phil continues with his monologue, declaring that he’d drugged her drinks and also drugged Irene’s at the pool that time, but Irene didn’t end up drinking any more and Sharon did instead.
This whole lengthy exchange is basically Sharon asking “You did this? You did that” and Phil confirming it [You already know he and his colleagues are the bad guys, Sharon, who the fuck else would have done it? And it’s not like she’s stalling either, because he’s still driving the van and planning to use her as his ‘”ticket to freedom”’, but I have no idea what he means by that], including somehow causing her to get tangled in the pool vacuum [How could he have caused that?], and fiddling with the AC to create cold spots around the hotel before explaining how he and his cronies got the girls to disappear without a trace:
“Tony was waiting for the first three as soon as they entered Ocean House. He knocked them out one by one and dragged them to his van. With Ruth, it was a little trickier. Tony turned the lights off. Then he sneaked up behind her, clobbered her, and yanked her out of the pool. He’s a real swift worker.”
[What about the other staff at the inn? They didn’t see Tony dragging three girls to his van? Lol this is stupid]. Sharon realises that much like Charles with Charlotte, Phil was only dating her to get closer to the treasure [Sharon’s mum’s gonna feel like the biggest wanker when she finds out! She’s been defending Phil this whole damn book hahaha].
They arrive at the beach where Phil and his buddies threw their party the other night, and he forces Sharon to hide in the grassy dunes. She watches as he roll his van into the ocean and comes to hide with her, explaining it’ll be a false clue for the police to follow. He then waits expectantly for his buddies to show up, but hours later, they’re still not there.
Then they hear police sirens getting closer, and Phil realises his buddies must have sold him out [And why not? There’s no treasure anymore and it’s basically his fault. Sell him out!]. Unfortunately for Sharon, since he can’t make them pay for their loose lips, he’ll just have to make Sharon pay! He pins her down and, still brandishing the knife, attempts to plunge it into her chest.
She rolls out of the way somehow [He’s pinning her down though?] and realises the gold bracelet Dan clasped on her wrist might be the only way to save herself. She holds her wrist up and offers it to Phil in return for her life, bluffing that it’s real treasure even though she has no idea if that’s true. Phil recognises it as real though, much to her relief, and drops the knife to unclasp it from her wrist. As he does, she realises Dan must have gotten the bracelet from beneath the tile ahead of time [Which is why it was loose] just in case [Smart boy].
With Phil distracted by the charm bracelet, Sharon runs for her life just as a bunch of police cars pull up by the beach, with Dan jumping out of one of them. Phil starts chasing after her, but is quickly shot by the police. As Irene, Sue, Vicki, Angel and her parents materialise from nowhere to comfort her, she notices Tony and the rest of the bad guys in the back of the police cars [Easy wrap up, then!] as Phil’s taken to an ambulance.
We then jump to a warm day in November [I don’t know America’s seasons so have no idea how long after the main plot this is] and Sharon and Dan are meeting by the newly constructed pool at Ocean House. They have it to themselves for probably the last time, since the business is booming now [Woo!].
As they chat [Purely for our benefit, because they would have already been over this already in the time since everything happened], we learn that Irene was acting so suss because she was actually an undercover cop! Dave of Dave’s Treasure Trove had alerted police to people he’d noticed prowling around Ocean House, even before the Jones’ moved in. We learn why the pact girls seemed to turn against Sharon, too:
“How was I supposed to guess Irene had spilled the beans and convinced them I was guilty that night out at the pool? Nobody came clean with me until after it was all over.”
“You can thank me for that,” Dan said. “They all thought I was the murderer. They were trying to keep you away from me.”
[Wait, so did Irene and the girls think Sharon was guilty too, or were they just trying to protect her from Dan? I feel like this conversation doesn’t make sense and I’m still confused]. It turns out Dan had found the dynamite in a storage shed with tables and chairs while setting up for the final showdown’s pool party, but neither he or Sharon can explain why it was in there.
Anyway, Sharon’s dad was offered a job by Cragmoor Resorts, so he won’t need to travel all the time, and her parents are giving their relationship another try. Things are looking well for Sharon and Dan too, as they lock lips in the pool [Cuuuute], But Sharon still has an uneasy feeling and looks up at the balcony, where she sees the doll watching them.
She wonders out loud if Charlotte’s ghost really was haunting the place after all – maybe some of her ghostly experiences were real! She explains that she dreamed of the weeping woman last night, who came to her bedside, stopped crying, smiled and vanished. Dan suggests that Charlotte has won now, and Sharon realises that Charlotte had kept her promise that no-one would ever get her treasure [So ghost Charlotte left the dynamite for Dan to find?]. Sharon glances at the doll again, but it’s face has changed one final time – ‘the doll was smiling’.
Final Thoughts
OK, this was wild and I’m not sure how I feel about it. The plot was a bit all over the place, with too many things going on – Dan innocent or guilty; the potential ghost; the doll; girls going missing; the Irene and pact girls situation, Phil, etc. There were just too many ideas that weren’t fully realised. In saying that, it wasn’t completely horrible.
I don’t mind that it’s left sort of ambiguous about which interactions were with Charlotte’s ghost and which were with one of the bad guys dressed up as her, but I think a clearer division would have been better. The doll being alive was a cool idea, so I would have loved more of that too.
There’s a lot of things that don’t really make sense either – why did Irene send the invitations to the first pool party in the first place? Like, what was the point, she’s an undercover police officer who had no connection to the hotel? And why was her reason for inviting certain people never brought up again when Sharon was so suss about it? And also, what was she bothering with a disguise anyway? She was from Virginia, it’s not like anyone would have recognised her with her natural hair and eye colour, and glasses Dan scribbling things on some paper when the police were playing the recording of Dan and Sharon was completely pointless too – it seemed like such a big deal at the time, but it was never brought up again.
I feel like these may have been casualties of the book being edited down, but I’m not really sure because there’s some other stuff that could have been edited out of the book too – Sue, Vicki and Angel really had no reason to be in the book, and that Charlotte backstory was way too long.
Still, it was entertaining enough to keep me reading, more so because I just wanted to know wtf was going on. I wasn’t too crazy about Sharon at the start, but she grew on me eventually, and Dan might be one of my favourite Point Horror love interests, up there with Dave from ‘One Evil Summer’.
93 gilt-edged invitations out of 120.
