A girl searches for the truth when two of her classmates are caught in the crosshairs of a murder mystery in this Edgar Award­–winning novel from Willo Davis Roberts. Cici expected the summer to be special. She had no idea it would change her life forever. Two kids, two lives, ruined before they even began. One, a girl, dead—strangled in an empty cabin. The other, a boy, spending the rest of his life in jail for her murder. To Cici, it all seems so unreal. These were kids she had grown up with, whom she had known. She can’t believe Brody Shurik could have murdered Zoe Cyrek. Something’s going on here, and Cici’s going to find out exactly what it is. But Cici has an even harder time believing what she uncovers. Could the murderer really be someone close to her? Maybe even a member of her family? And if Cici’s on the right track, could she become the murderer’s target? Willo Davis Roberts wrote many mystery and suspense novels for children during her long and illustrious career, including The Girl with the Silver Eyes , The View from the Cherry Tree , Twisted Summer , Megan’s Island , Baby-Sitting Is a Dangerous Job , Hostage , Scared Stiff , The Kidnappers , and Caught! Three of her children’s books won Edgar Awards, while others received great reviews and other accolades, including the Sunshine State Young Reader’s Award, the California Young Reader’s Medal, and the Georgia Children’s Book Award. Twisted Summer chapter one I expected that summer to be special, because I was fourteen—to be fifteen in December—and maybe this year I’d be considered one of the “big kids” I’d always envied. I had no idea what forces of change would reshape my life. I had no hint that by the end of summer, nothing would ever be the same again. We had missed going to Crystal Lake the previous year, the way we’d done every summer as far back as I could remember, because Dad had a business trip to Hawaii and he wanted us to go with him. He extended the outing to include two weeks of vacation time, and we’d had a wonderful month on breathtaking beaches and going to luaus and scuba diving in perfect weather and water far clearer than Crystal Lake ever was. I’d missed seeing everybody at the lake, though, and I couldn’t wait to make up for lost time. We left home—Briar Hills, just north of Detroit—early enough to get us there by midafternoon of a hot, sunny day. “They’re all swimming,” my sister, Winifred, pointed out as we swung onto the gravel drive. We could see the dock through the trees, where tanned bodies in bright bikinis and trunks cavorted in the water and sat on the floating raft some distance out. It was impossible to tell from where we were who was who. My eyes swept over them eagerly. Was one of them Jack, I wondered? He’d be seventeen now. Maybe he wouldn’t regard me as a baby any longer. “Whew,” Mom said, turning off the ignition and the air-conditioning. “I’m ready for a tall glass of iced tea.” We opened the doors and inhaled the scent of pines and water and wood smoke. The cottage looked the same as ever, not a cottage at all by most people’s standards, but a huge rambling rustic building with wide porches front and back, where you could sit on cushioned rattan furniture with a book or rock in one of the white-painted swings. “I almost forgot how peaceful it is here,” Mom said. “Cici, warn them we’re here and dying of thirst, will you? Then come back and help me carry in luggage.” The cottage was the same inside, too: big, cool rooms with faded flowery chintz and rugs a kid could walk on with sandy feet and an acrid smell from the huge stone fireplace as if someone had recently burned papers. Nobody was around when I walked through the house, though I could hear voices in the distance. I paused at one of the windows overlooking the lake and tried again to pick out Jack’s head among all those bobbing in the water, but there were too many. I had an expectant and satisfied feeling, knowing that everybody out there would welcome us. Welcome me. It was like coming home. I backtracked swiftly along the wide corridor that bisected the first floor, crossed the deserted dining room where the table had been opened up so it could seat twenty people, and pushed through the swinging door into the kitchen. “Lina,” I said, “we’re here, and Mom’s hoping you have iced tea made—” I stopped. It wasn’t Lina Shurik who turned from the sink where she was scrubbing vegetables, but a stranger. A woman with iron gray hair and glasses, managing to look kind of dressed up even with an apron on. “Sorry. I was expecting Lina,” I said. Her voice was dry and calm. “You must be Cecelia. We were hoping you’d get here in time for dinner.” Not supper, I registered. Lina always cooked supper. “Mrs. Shurik doesn’t work here anymore.” Surprise held me there on the threshold. “She didn’t get sick, or . . . die, or anything, did she?” “She quit last summer,” the new housekeeper said, turning back to her ca