A Secret Summer Read online

  A Secret Summer

  Rachel Louise Finn

  Copyright © Rachel Louise Finn, 2021.

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

  ISBN: 9798708895837

  prologue

  That Summer

  A red firework shot across the sky, closely followed by a blue one, lighting up the street. Eighteen-year-old Annie Pierce was in her bedroom, trying on dresses for the end of summer bonfire party in Jason Wright’s back garden later that night.

  She was almost ready and she knew that her best friends would already be out in her own back garden waiting for her to come out so they could start their pre-party drinks session.

  Another firework thudded in the distance and Annie’s dog whined from its place at the bottom of her bed.

  “Shut up, Pixie.” She sighed. “It’s just a fucking firework.”

  Once she was finished admiring herself in the mirror, she slicked on another coat of lip-gloss and then turned to haul the box of alcohol up into her arms.

  Getting Evan Johnson, the local pub owner, to give her the booze for free had been super easy. All she’d had to do was use that same bullshit story threatening to tell everybody that he was sleeping with the butcher’s wife. He was far too easy. The picture Annie had taken on her phone was hardly worth anything - it was blurry and they’d practically pulled away by the time the flash went off. But he didn’t know that and he was worried. Everybody knew that the butcher had a terrible temper.

  Annie was just amused. She had bigger things to worry about than some bartender but he was good for keeping her in drink, and she really wanted to have a good time with her friends tonight. She had it all planned perfectly.

  She swept out of her back door and into the garden, slamming the door as she went. Turning, she glanced up and made a face at her sister Chloe, who was watching from her bedroom window. She laughed when Chloe disappeared, shaking her head and dragging the alcohol towards the small shed she and her friends had agreed to meet up behind.

  It was out of sight of the house, not that her mother would be able to do a lot if she caught her with a case of booze. Annie would be able to wriggle out of that one just like she was able to wriggle out of everything else.

  When she finally appeared, her friends were already there as she’d predicted. They were always waiting for her. Annie was always running fashionably late. She liked to make an entrance. She flashed them all a bright smile, noting the adoring gazes and felt better. She hadn’t even realised she had been worrying until it all went away there and then. She had problems, everyone did.

  Annie wasn’t just the Queen Bee of Baberton high school, she wasn’t just beautiful and popular – she had issues too, you know! But those issues could wait. Tonight was about having fun and she would deal with it all some other time. Tomorrow was another day.

  “Here’s to summer, girls!” She announced, plonking the beers and wine coolers down in the middle of their little circle and pulling out a bottle as the rest of the girls helped themselves.

  “This has been the best one yet. Let’s see it off with a bang!”

  The rest of the group cheered her mini speech and threw back their heads as they gulped a swig of their alcohol down.

  Annie picked her four best friends Ruby Peterson, Kelly Sharpe, Sophie Baker and Imogen Ford from social obscurity when they were all eleven and just heading up into secondary school. Even at a young age Annie was addictive. With her doll-like face, raven hair and wide, bright eyes she was already a star. Everybody wanted to be her friend. She knew people loved her but her manipulation hadn’t hit its peak yet and nobody was quite as wary of her as they would grow to be.

  The four girls had no idea why she picked them - Annie did so for different reasons - but they were so grateful to have been welcomed into her inner circle. From the very start it was as though they were all VIPs in a town they had almost grown bored of.

  There was Ruby with her long dark hair and painfully shy expression who Annie knew, instantly, that she could control.

  There was Kelly, who was a year older than the rest of them, but who worshipped Annie like she was a princess and Annie loved to be worshipped. Loved to be obsessed over.

  There was Sophie, with her great fashion sense and her fiery attitude - which Annie knew might cause a few problems but also knew would complement the group perfectly.

  And then there was sweet little Imogen, with her blonde hair and her angel face. She was Annie’s favourite because she always did as she was told and always gazed lovingly at Annie which boosted her ego… but she was also the easiest to talk to.

  These four girls had no idea what a wild ride they would be in for when they met Annie, when they finally became her best friends. They all loved and hated one another just as they loved and hated Annie herself.

  They were constantly vying for her attention, subconsciously feeling as though they had to get one over on each other and be better to get her to love them the most. Which is probably why they did whatever she asked, often without question, or without much arguing.

  They had hurt people and they felt guilty but being Annie’s friend felt worth it. It was wonderful, being part of her group. But it was also horrible because she would play them off against each other and tease them and keep secrets from them and sometimes she would ignore them for days and then act as though nothing was wrong.

  But they always came back like wounded dogs with their tails between their legs. Because Annie was like a drug that people just couldn’t get enough of.

  Annie had another way of keeping these girls close to her, however. Annie liked secrets. She had this insane habit of being able to figure out the secrets their peers were keeping and using those secrets against them… and Annie had no qualms about doing this same thing with her best friends.

  She knew about bubbly Imogen’s sexuality struggle. She knew about wallflower Ruby’s scandalous affair with one of their teachers. She knew about Sophie’s eating disorder. And she knew about Kelly’s addiction to her mother’s prescription pain medication.

  It was easier to keep people in line when you knew something about them that nobody else did. Even if they were your best friends.

  Time passed and Annie kept drinking, probably drinking most of the case herself, but she felt in high spirits tonight. She’d had a long day of being forced by her mother to fill in last minute college applications, full of stress, and she was just looking forward to letting her hair down. Dancing, drinking, laughing, maybe making out with some cute boys… and waking up in the morning with no memory of what happened but knowing that she’d had a damn good time. That’s all she wanted.

  “Here’s to us!” She giggled, holding up her bottle, half gone already.

  Sophie Baker smiled, clinking her own bottle against Annie’s. She was the smart one of the group and she never drank more than she knew she’d be able to handle. Sophie was always the reliable one. The one who made sure everybody else got home safe when they were too drunk to handle themselves. Tonight would be no different.

  Sophie was looking forward to the party. She had the biggest crush on Thomas Playfair, a popular college boy that all the high school girls had a crush on. She was the one with the biggest chance, or she felt that way at least. He’d been paying her a lot of attention recently and Sophie was excited to see him while he was drunk, she’d even dressed especially for the occasion. He had a girlfriend, unfortunately, but the two of them were constantly arguing and were definitely on the verge of breaking up.

 
Sophie decided she would be there to be his shoulder to cry on if - no, when - that happened.

  She and her little group had been best friends for around seven years and had started high school together. They were the most popular girls in their school. Love or hate them, everybody wished they could be them.

  Sophie didn’t see herself as superior exactly (like maybe Annie did) but she liked the perks that came with such popularity. She liked her friends, though she was the one who stood up to their ringleader most often. She and Annie always butted heads and they fought over absolutely everything. Boys, clothes, grades. Sometimes it felt like they were two wild dogs fighting over Alpha status.

  Annie was the drunkest of the five girls by the time they started making a move over to Jason’s party, which was only next door. It wasn’t unusual for Annie to be the most gone of them all, she was the life and soul of the party, consuming so much alcohol that you’d think her tiny frame wouldn’t be able to handle it all.

  She’d be dancing and laughing and drinking all night and nobody would know how she was still standing. It was nothing out of the ordinary, they’d seen it all before.

  Annie linked arms with Imogen Ford, who beamed back at the brunette, and they all moved towards the gap in the bushes that would lead them to Jason’s garden, where the party already seemed to be in full swing. They could hear the music over the odd firework and merry voices filling the air.

  Annie glanced behind her and saw the back door of her house opening, her sister slipping out into the night.

  “Quick!” She squealed, giggling as she pulled her friends through the gap and into the party.

  She and her twin sister barely got on these days. They used to be close when they were younger but as Annie got older and her popularity grew, she left her sister behind. Chloe was obviously upset, and probably jealous, but Annie kind of thrived on it instead of feeling bad.

  “Hey, you!” Annie beamed, flinging her arms around Jason Wright’s neck, knowing that beside her Imogen would be feeling jealous. Though whether that was jealous of Jason or Annie wasn’t fully clear.

  Annie had had a sneaking suspicion for a while that Imogen secretly swung both ways. She knew she’d had a crush on Jason Wright for years and she had seen the way Imogen gazed adoringly at her. Annie had hinted, for her own amusement just to make Imogen squirm, but she hadn’t fully figured out how to take full advantage of this information yet.

  She pulled away, squeal-laughing as she felt Chris Marshall come up behind her and grab her round the waist, spinning her off the ground. Chris was a complete creep, at least in Annie’s eyes, but she played along anyway. Most of the time she liked to keep the college boys on side.

  As Chris put her down, Annie turned to give him a playful shove. He just laughed and teased her. Annie’s gaze was pulled over his shoulder by the feeling of eyes on her. Not just on her… practically boring holes into her skin.

  Jamie Kirk. The college hottie who had never adored her the way she liked them to. Jamie had never fallen for Annie’s bullshit and that irritated Annie. He was always standing up to her and calling her out.

  She stared levelly back at him, meeting his glare. He was angry. Good.

  He had a right to be, of course. He had only just gotten out of the hospital after his oh-so-tragic near fatal car accident… that Annie herself had caused when she messed with his brakes. She’d visited him in the hospital and made it very clear to him that she had done it, so that he would think twice about messing with her again.

  She smirked as she turned her gaze away, turning back to Imogen and grabbing her hand to pull her deeper into the crowd. “Come dance with me!”

  The hours passed in a colourful blur. The five girls danced and drank and laughed and revelled in their final freedom from the looming horror of the beginning of college, the biggest change in their lives so far. It would be strange not being at the high school anymore, though some of them would miss it more than others.

  They all drifted to different corners of the party, interacting with everybody there. Everyone always wanted to talk to them.

  Annie didn’t see him at first and she wondered how long he’d been standing there. Charlie Baker. Lurking in the shadows at the edge of the woods. Was he here to find Sophie? No… judging from the way he was glaring at her, he was most definitely here to see her. Fine. Annie was in the mood for games tonight. Mainly due to the alcohol firing through her veins but wasn’t she always in the mood for games?

  She staggered away from Chris Marshall, thinking he was quite possibly the most repulsive guy she’d ever met and made a mental note to get her own back on him for drunkenly touching her up tomorrow.

  The edge of the woods was a little out of sight and Charlie was standing behind a tree.

  “Come to peep at all the under age girls, Charlie?" She trilled, blinking at him from beneath her false eyelashes. "Hoping one of them will get drunk enough to fall into bed with their poor, used up English teacher?”

  The look on his face was reward enough and Annie laughed; a loud, drunken laugh. “I’m teasing. We’re friends now, right? Friends tease friends.”

  Of course friends was a loose term for ‘I’ve got you in my pocket and you’d better do everything I say or I’ll get you thrown in jail’ but that was a bit of a mouthful.

  “Piss off Annie.” Charlie spat back through gritted teeth, his glare menacing through the darkness. “I’m not in the mood for any of your shit tonight. I’m only here to give you this.” He shoved an envelope at her and turned to walk away but Annie grabbed him by the fabric of his jacket to stop him. He whirled round and yanked himself angrily from her grip, crossing his arms defensively over his chest and standing with his glare fixed on her.

  She ignored him, opening the envelope and peering at the contents. Money. A lot of it. Her eyebrows shot up in surprise, something she would never have done sober, and she glanced at him.

  “That’s it. That’s your lot. You’re going to take this and you’re going to leave me alone.” He took a step towards her, uncrossing his arms. “No more grade changes, no more skipping classes and being marked as present on the register. No more free answer sheets… not one damn thing. I’m done with it. I’m done with you.”

  Honestly, Annie hadn’t thought Charlie had it in him. He was always so nice and well-spoken that she’d assumed he would be more than easy to walk over… hadn’t his mother walked over him? It was surprisingly easy to find that out and she planned to tell Ruby that he was the same way, an alcoholic with violent tendencies, wouldn’t that keep her friend away from him once and for all? It had better.

  “I want more.” She announced, eyes still glued to the envelope, ignoring the spinning in her head. “This isn’t enough to make it all just go away.”

  “I don’t have that kind of money, Annie.” He was getting angrier. Good.

  “I don’t think you understand how this works.” Annie hissed, pocketing the envelope and turning her gaze on him. “I’m not just going to let this go. You’re a dirty perv, Mr Baker. Everybody needs to know the truth.”

  She felt so dizzy that she felt like she might fall over against a tree at any second. Why had she had so much to drink?! Idiot, she thought to herself. What had she told herself? Control! Always be in control. Still, she continued to stand her ground. Staring Mr Baker down.

  The argument didn’t end there, though. He was furious, more furious than Annie had ever seen him, and when he reached out and grabbed her by the arm she had to admit that she was actually… a little scared. She turned and looked over her shoulder. Nobody could see them.

  What was his problem? He was the one playing away with an eighteen year old, his own daughter’s best friend no less!

  He shook her slightly and said something that she didn’t quite catch, but Annie didn’t think she really wanted to know. She hadn’t expected him to get this angry. Scared, maybe, at what she was threatening to do. Tense, anxious, nervous, worried, compliant… all things she
had expected. Anger? Not one of them.

  When, finally, he released his grip on her arm, Annie took a step back and shot him a glare. “You’re going to pay for that.”

  “No, Annie. You’re going to pay for that.” He spat back at her, shooting one last glance towards the party, before turning and storming off through the woods.

  Annie stood where she was, staring after him. Whatever. He’d sleep on it and realise that he was much better off doing what she asked. Creepy pushover English teachers probably didn’t do so well in prison.

  She turned at the sound of her phone pinging in her pocket, Charlie Baker completely forgotten, and checked her messages.

  Annie had been receiving messages for the past year and a half. Strange texts, some threatening, some just I’m watching you, mostly just somebody acting like they were stalking her and she didn’t know why they were doing it or who the hell they were… but Annie didn’t like to feel like somebody else had an upper hand over her. By not knowing who the hell was watching her, she felt like she was losing a game she hadn’t agreed to play.

  “If you want to know who I am, meet me at your childhood tree.”

  More games? Ugh… Annie was far too drunk for riddles. But then, when she thought about it, she realised the answer was staring her straight in the face. Tree. Childhood. She and Chloe used to play under a specific tree in the woods when they were kids, back before Annie stopped giving a shit what her stupid sister got up to.

  That was where this weirdo wanted to meet her? Meet, as in face to face? She was going to find out who this was tonight?

  Annie, excited and dizzy, looked up and hurried off into the dark forest without even thinking twice about it.

  It was pitch black and it would have been creepier if the raven-haired girl stumbling through the woods hadn’t been too drunk to notice. Annie could feel her head spinning thanks to all of the alcohol she had consumed that night. She usually loved Jason Wright’s parties but this one had taken a different turn.