The Truth Beneath the Lies

Gr 9 Up—Kayla wants to escape her life with her former-addict mother in subsidized housing and her job at the grocery store. She wants out, despite the fact that she has managed to fit in fairly well with her dance team and a popular group at school. Betsy is terrified. She is starting over in a completely new town and is inexplicably tied to a cell phone she hides under her bed. These two stories are told in alternating chapters detailing Kayla's intensifying interest in and involvement with the mysterious disappearances of local girls, and Betsy's attempts to extricate herself from the terrifying man at the other end of the cell phone. Kayla's narrative reveals her history in foster care and her desire for an older, dangerous man as the mystery ramps up, while Betsy is convinced that the world around her is dangerous while she is trying to fit into her new environment. The dual narratives converge with the ultimate reveal about how Kayla and Betsy are connected. The prose is terse and overly dramatic in places, which fits the genre's trappings, but the big reveal is predictable and will be easily deduced by savvy readers.