Liar's Beach

Contents Cover Other Titles Title Page Copyright Contents Dedication Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Acknowledgments About the Author Landmarks Cover Cover Title Page Contents Start Copyright Print Page List ii iii iv v 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 277 279 
 
 
 
 
 ALSO BY KATIE COTUGNO
 How to Love
 99 Days
 Fireworks
 Top Ten
 9 Days and 9 Nights
 You Say It First
 Rules for Being a Girl
 Birds of California
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
 
 
 
 
 
 Produced by Alloy Entertainment
 Text copyright © 2023 by Katie Cotugno and Alloy Entertainment
 Cover art copyright © 2023 by Ewelina Dymek
 All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
 Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.
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 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
 ISBN 9780593433287 (trade) — ISBN 9780593705766 (international edition) — ebook ISBN 9780593433300
 Produced by Alloy Entertainment
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 ep_prh_6.0_143319816_c0_r0
 
 
 
 Contents
 
 Cover
 Also by Katie Cotugno
 Title Page
 Copyright
 Dedication
 
 
 Chapter 1
 
 
 Chapter 2
 
 
 Chapter 3
 
 
 Chapter 4
 
 
 Chapter 5
 
 
 Chapter 6
 
 
 Chapter 7
 
 
 Chapter 8
 
 
 Chapter 9
 
 
 Chapter 10
 
 
 Chapter 11
 
 
 Chapter 12
 
 
 Chapter 13
 
 
 Chapter 14
 
 
 Chapter 15
 
 
 Chapter 16
 
 
 Chapter 17
 
 
 Chapter 18
 
 
 Chapter 19
 
 
 Chapter 20
 
 
 Acknowledgments
 About the Author
 
 
 _143319816_
 
 
 
 For Charles Jude, my favorite mystery
 
 
 
 
 1
 Ten days before the police cars cruised silently down the driveway at August House and we all became a national news story, Jasper picked me up at the ferry in Vineyard Haven.
 “There he is,” Jasper called, slouching elegantly against the driver’s side door of the Mercedes in sunglasses and a crisp white button-down rolled to the elbows. He looked like a magazine ad for a cologne called Entitlement. “What’s up, Linden?” He grabbed my duffel, tossing it carelessly into the back of the forest-green coupe. “I thought you were coming in last night.”
 The buttery leather of the passenger seat was cool through my T-shirt as I slid into the car. “Ferry was full,” I lied. In fact, one of the other checkers at the grocery where I’d been working since June needed a shift covered, and even though I was technically done for the summer—the dorms at Bartley opened in two weeks—I wasn’t in any position to be turning down the cash. It wasn’t the first money-related fib I’d told Jasper, or any of our friends from boarding school in Northampton. And, in all likelihood, it wouldn’t be the last.
 Jasper shrugged, incurious. “Well, I’m glad you’re here, anyway. How’s your foot?”
 I wiggled my pale, skinny-looking ankle, just recently liberated from its fiberglass boot. “Still attached.” Then, not particularly wanting to talk about it, I raised my eyebrows. “What about you? Summer as dire as you thought it would be?”
 “Total fucking snoozer,” Jasper said, peeling out of the parking lot. “Every day I think about committing a murder just to spice