TESS SHARPE’s latest book The Girl in Question is the highly anticipated sequel to the must-read psychological thriller The Girls I’ve Been.
Read on for an extract of The Girl in Question…
ABOUT THE BOOK
Nora O’Malley has survived . . . senior year, that is. School’s over, but her life isn’t, which is weird since last she checked, her murderous stepdad Raymond is finally free.
Determined to enjoy summer before her (possibly) imminent demise, Nora plans a backpacking trip with Iris and Wes. And Wes’s girlfriend tags along. Amanda’s nice, so it’s not a huge issue. Until she gets taken. Or rather, mis-taken . . . for Nora, that is.
Now they’re deep in the woods. Raymond has a hostage. Nora has no leverage. Iris is carving spears out of sticks. And Wes is building booby traps.
It’ll take all of them to make it out alive.
But someone is lying. Someone is keeping secrets. And someone has to die.
***************************
Day Seven, The Cabin
I’m still pressing Agent North into the ground with my knee, but I’m seconds away from losing the physical edge if I don’t get up soon. My lower back throbs with the effort because I’ve been bleeding on and off for days from the stress. I only have two of Nora’s emergency tampons left.
I hate this so much. I planned this entire trip around my period like I always have to. I hate how much more work it is, to keep her on the ground. If my thigh starts shaking, she’ll know and I’ll be fucked. I need to get both of us upright.
‘Iris, I don’t know where Nora is,’ Agent North insists.
‘You’re lying. You have her bandanna.’ I jerk my head toward the bloody purple bandanna on the coffee table. ‘She had that around her hand. I wrapped it myself. No way that fell off and you found it.’
‘My colleague found it,’ North insists. ‘Why would I lie at this point?’ Her eyes bug at me. I don’t want to believe her. I really, really don’t.
‘She’s probably lost in the forest,’ North says. ‘If you let me up, I can help—’
‘Your files on us must really suck,’ I say, partly to distract myself from where my mind wants to go. Did I get it wrong? ‘They grew up here. They know how to move in the woods.’
‘’Course she’d find kids as crazy as her,’ North mutters.
‘We are not crazy,’ I snap right in her face, my mouth aching at the click.
She laughs. I can feel the vibration of it against my knee. ‘You’re touchy,’ she says. ‘You’ll need to smooth yourself more, if you want to con people. Everything’s on your face.’
‘I’m not a con artist, and Nora’s retired.’
‘Oh, honey.’ The condescension drips, and it sets my teeth on edge. ‘Come on now.’
‘I actually know her,’ I say. ‘You just think you do.’
‘You sure it isn’t the other way around? Are you willing to bet your life on it?’
I push off her, keeping my hands steady on the gun, and the hope that flares in her face as I direct her up dies out as fast. North’s not a tall woman. We’re eye to eye now that she’s out of her heels.
‘Iris, are you really going to do this?’ Her voice rises. Stalling tactic. She’s hoping one of her dirty mercenaries will come back in time. I am not above using her as a human shield. ‘I am a federal agent. This is kidnapping.’
‘There’s been a lot of that lately,’ I say grimly.
‘You have a future,’ she prattles on, like that will move me. ‘You don’t want to die. This is not who you are.’
I ignore her as I march her across the one-room cabin and toward the back door. The one that leads into the thick of the woods, not through the clearing.
But she’s not getting the hint, she keeps going. ‘You’re a straight-A student. You have a devoted mother. I’m sure your father misses you—’
I huff. ‘North, your files on us really suck. Pick up those boots.’
‘What?’
‘Grab those boots by the door and put them on. I don’t want you whining about your feet the whole time we’re in the woods.’
‘Iris . . .’ She tries to make it sound like a warning, but it’s a plea.
I shake my head. ‘Do what I say.’
She takes her shoes off and shoves her feet into the boots.
‘Lace them up. We wouldn’t want you tripping.’ After she does, I get the door open so she can walk through it, following close behind, down the steps, closer to the edge of the woods.
The point of no return.
‘You’re not this girl, Iris,’ she says, her eyes fixed on the tree line. She sounds sure of herself, like she really believes it. It prompts me to ask, curious, despite myself:
‘What kind of girl do you think I am?’
‘You’re a good student, you seem to be a rule follower. You don’t even jaywalk.’
I frown, because that seems weirdly specific. Has she been watching us? I wait, gun at her back, wanting to hear more about this version of me.
‘You have goals and ambitions. Wasn’t that what this trip was all about? Your internship at the fire tower?’
I can’t help the crazed smile that spreads across my face because, my God, I totally forgot about my internship.
‘Let’s go with whatever silly theory you’ve come up with, North. It’s what you do.’
She chances a look at me over her shoulder. ‘If I’m wrong, why don’t you explain it to me?’
‘Then I wouldn’t be smart. And I am.’
‘You’re not this girl,’ she repeats. ‘You’ve already taken so much of the fall—’
It startles me into stopping, but the gun doesn’t drop. ‘What are you talking about?’
She laughs. A harsh, knowing sound that makes my stomach clench because it’s so convincing for a second. But then she continues, and seals her fate. ‘She is dangerous. Natalie Deveraux is a killer.’
I let out a frustrated noise at the name. ‘Her name is Nora. Catch up, North.’
‘How about you catch up, Iris? I know. I’ve read all the internal files about the bank robbery. All your reports and statements.’
The bank? She wants to talk about the bank? ‘So what?’
‘I know that it wasn’t you who put together that chemical bomb that took out the first robber. And it certainly wasn’t you who set the second one on fire in the barn. Your girlfriend convinced you to take the blame so there wouldn’t be attention on her.’
It’s a hot jolt inside me, how wrong she is. What is with this woman? Every time she’s presented with the truth, she rejects it for her own storyline.
Unfortunately for North, I am the kind of girl who’d burn one bank robber’s face off with a bomb made out of cleaning products, and another’s with my petticoat and lighter. I didn’t need to cover for Nora, because I did all that myself. I came up with it on my own. I’ve always been good at chemistry.
Those guys put their hands on my girlfriend. Duane Collins – also known as Mortal Enemy Number 10 on my current list – tried to take her. I made sure he couldn’t do that anymore, like any rational girl armed with plenty of flammable underpinnings and the element of surprise.
But Duane’s no longer a problem. He’s in jail, and the robbery’s long over. We survived that, but we might not survive this, and now I’m here. At the edge of the woods.
At the edge of the cold, hard truth that Agent North does not want to hear.
But she really needs to start listening.
‘Agent North, will you do one thing for me?’
She nods eagerly.
‘I want you to think about it. Think about her. The girl you’ve decided Nora is. If I’m not a mark or a distraction. If I actually am someone she loves . . . then I want you to ask yourself: what kind of girl would someone like that fall in love with?’
I wait, teetering on the cliff as it falls over her face. The struggle, the realisation, then the horror.
‘You’re not—’ she starts, but my smile stops her.
‘I am everything you’re thinking. Probably more. Because I’ve had a very stressful week and it’s pushed me quite a bit. So if you’re telling the truth? If your mercenaries don’t have Nora stashed somewhere? You’ll find out how much farther I’m willing to go than setting a couple of guys on fire.’
‘I don’t have her, Iris.’ The panic in her voice cracks it.
There’s rustling in the brush and trees beyond us. I know the sound of Wes approaching now, after all these days of listening and hiding and waiting for his crow calls in the trees, heart in my hands, fear in my throat. Footsteps, followed by paws across the forest floor. Turbo’s with him. Good. Then I have everything I need.
‘I hope you’re lying,’ I say. ‘Because if you don’t have Nora, you’re the best bait I’ve got to get her back.’
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Born in a mountain cabin to a punk rocker mother, Tess Sharpe grew up in rural Northern California. She lives deep in the backwoods with a pack of dogs and a growing cabal of slightly feral cats. She’s the author of The Girls I’ve Been, which is being made into a Netflix film.
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