Summit Lake

In Summit Lake, North Carolina, law student Becca Eckersley is sexually assaulted and fatally attacked at her family's lakeside vacation house. Investigative journalist Kelsey Castle arrives from Miami to investigate the town's first recorded homicide while recovering from a recent assault of her own. State investigators withhold key information, and Becca's influential parents avoid publicity. With help from local police commander Stan Ferguson, physician Peter Ambrose, and coffeehouse manager Rae, Kelsey uncovers evidence of a secret marriage, an advanced pregnancy, and a missing personal journal.

The novel alternates Kelsey's March 2012 investigation with Becca's last years at George Washington University. Becca falls in love with Jack Covington but keeps their relationship from her friend Brad Reynolds, who mistakes her affection for romantic interest. Brad and Jack steal a Business Law examination, and Brad distributes it widely. When the cheating is discovered, Jack takes responsibility to protect the group, costing him his Harvard Law admission. Brad's law-school rejections and Becca's relationship with Jack precipitate a suicide attempt that he survives. He then withdraws to his father's hunting cabin, where his fixation on Becca intensifies.

Jack becomes a speechwriter for presidential candidate Senator Milt Ward. After Becca learns she is pregnant, she and Jack marry quietly in Washington, DC, but conceal the marriage and pregnancy from both families. On February 17, 2012, Becca travels to Summit Lake expecting to meet Jack and finally plan their disclosure to her parents. That evening, Jack and Ward die when the senator's private jet crashes near Omaha. Becca has not heard the news when Brad appears at the house. Believing an early arrival might be Jack, she opens the door. Brad confronts her over their past and violently attacks her after learning she is married and pregnant. Becca dies at the hospital the following morning. Brad takes her purse and a letter she wrote to her unborn daughter; her journal had been left at the coffeehouse.

Kelsey and Peter access withheld autopsy and toxicology information, including evidence of a single attacker and a female fetus estimated at five months' gestation. Kelsey recovers Becca's journal from a recipe binder at Millie Mays's house, which identifies Jack as her husband and points toward the men in her past. Peter learns from Becca's former roommate, Gail, that Jack died in the plane crash and that Brad survived an earlier suicide attempt. Meanwhile Kelsey and Rae reach Brad's hunting cabin, where they find Becca's purse, stalking photographs, letters, and a threatening message. The arriving truck belongs to Peter and Ferguson, who have come to find them. In a nearby shed, Kelsey discovers Brad's decomposing body and a note acknowledging his love for Becca. He has died by suicide, leaving no criminal trial.

Kelsey reconstructs the murder and Becca's life in a three-part magazine article, then personally returns Becca's journal and her letter to the Eckersley family. She grows closer to Peter and remains friends with Rae. Back in Miami on the day her article appears, Kelsey runs through the wooded trail where she was assaulted, passing the site without stopping and emerging toward sunlight and a rain shower. The ending links her progress in recovering from trauma to her investigation, without suggesting that Becca's death can be undone.