Sharp Objects meets The Appeal in this “atmospheric and chilling” (Flynn Berry, New York Times bestselling author) novel—based on a shocking true story—about a crime writer who risks everything as she investigates a decades-old mystery at a crumbling orphanage. On a blistering summer day in 1968, nine-year-old Tommy vanishes without a trace from Coram House, an orphanage on the shores of Lake Champlain. Fifty years later, the opportunity to investigate his disappearance and the orphanage’s eerie lore is just the break that struggling true crime writer Alex Kelley needs. Arriving in Vermont for research, Alex grows obsessed with Tommy’s disappearance, until her investigation takes a chilling turn with the discovery of a woman’s body in the lake. Alex is convinced this new death is somehow connected to Coram House’s dark past, even if Officer Russell Parker thinks she’s just desperate for a story. As the body count rises, Alex must prove that the key to finding the killer lies in a decades-old murder—or else she risks becoming the next victim herself in this spine-tingling debut that “is not to be missed” (Tessa Wegert, author of The Coldest Case ). Bailey Seybolt grew up in New York City and studied literature at Brown University and creative writing at Concordia University. She now lives with her family in Vermont, not far from Lake Champlain. Coram House is her debut novel. Find out more at BaileySeybolt.com. Chapter 1 1 I leave Brooklyn before the rest of the city is awake. The day is bitter and damp. No snow. Just wet sidewalks and mounds of slush clogging the storm drains. Usually, I find the brick townhouses cheerful and bright, but today the gray sky drains the color from everything around me. I pull the building’s door shut and hoist my suitcase down the stairs. Patches of confetti glitter on the sidewalk. Soon they’ll be washed into the river along with the slush. It’s unusually quiet this morning. As if, a day later, the city is still sleeping off its New Year’s hangover. New Year’s Eve was particularly cold and clear, so the sounds of people celebrating carried all the way up to my empty third-floor apartment. A knot of girls passed beneath my window, laughing and drinking tiny bottles of champagne through straws. I’d shivered to see their bare legs glowing white. I’ve always hated New Year’s. A few days ago, Lola had come over with a bottle of wine to toast my new book. She knew the rough details: the old orphanage, the church, all the usual horror and abuse, the case that had finally broken everything open and then the settlement that had shut it back in the dark. Sounds like bestseller material was all she said, even after I told her about the fine print: six months in Vermont and someone else’s name on the cover. Ghostwriter. After everything that had gone wrong with my last book, the word appealed to me. Like I wasn’t there. And besides, I had a pile of unpaid medical bills in a drawer. Three years since Adam died and they still keep coming. No one tells you about that part. All right , Lola had said, I’ll help you pack. And she did try, pulling clothes out of my closet and holding them up. A chunky striped sweater. A long red dress with flowers. I hadn’t worn any of it in years. She refilled my glass, tried to make it fun, but I’d begged off. After she left, I drifted around, finishing the bottle on my own. It seemed impossible to take things off the shelves. Like, over the years, they’d grown roots. Adam’s closet was already empty, at least. Alone, I’d made a pile of the things I cared about. Photos from our wedding. The cone of a giant sequoia tree, tiny as an acorn, from a trip to California. A perfectly round stone I’d found in a Peruvian temple and smuggled home. It’s an ancient Ping-Pong ball, I’d told Adam. Each object came with a memory that I shoved into the locked cabinet in my mind to be dealt with later—on the advice of a therapist I’d seen a few times after Adam died. I’d never asked her what happened if you just leave the memories in there, the door firmly locked. My pile had fit inside a single box. The box went into Lola’s basement. Everything else went to the curb. The tiny bottles of vinegar. Brass candlesticks. A set of ugly brown sheets. Objects that had piled up over the years as if washed ashore. Today, my car is parked right in front of the building—a small miracle I found the spot. I bought the car in some New Jersey suburb the day after I signed the book contract. A used Toyota with seventy thousand miles and two matching dents in the roof where the previous owner drove it into a garage with a bike on the roof. I like that the car comes with its own story. I load my suitcase into the trunk next to the boxes of work stuff. Laptop and reference books. Blank pads of paper, my favorite highlighters, index cards, empty binder. My stomach growls. It’s just past six in the morning, but the OPEN sign at the deli promises hot coffee. I