Six Little Secrets

by Katlyn Duncan

  Some secrets never stay hidden for long…

  Six teenagers meeting in Saturday detention: a brain, a beauty, a cheerleader, a rebel, a recluse and the new girl.

  But someone is watching. Someone has made sure that they are all in the same room at the same time. Someone knows that each of them is hiding a terrible secret…

  …and by the end of detention, everyone will know the truth.

  Don’t miss this thrilling new story from Katlyn Duncan, perfect for fans of Rob Aspinall, Sara Shepard and E. Lockhart.

  Praise for KATLYN DUNCAN

  ‘The epitome of a summertime read.’ Rather Be Reading on This Summer

  ‘Fans of sweet romances and light reads will flock to cheer on Hadley and Will.’ Pretty Little Pages on This Summer

  ‘I definitely recommend This Summer if you are looking for a great romance that’s not completely light and fuzzy. The writing is fantastic and the romance PERFECT.’ Lose Time Reading

  ‘I really loved this book from the beginning to the very end. It was a book that you couldn’t put down because you wanted to see if this couple would ever get together and fall in love.’ 4.5 stars from Once Upon a Twilight on This Summer

  ‘This Summer really reminded me of Colleen Hoover’s Hopeless that I loved and even though it wasn’t as intense, the writing itself was incredible.’ Spiced Latte Reads

  ‘This Summer was a sweet best-friends romance with a large dose of drama. It is an ideal summer read.’ Rampant Readers

  ‘Katlyn Duncan’s YA debut, Soul Taken, is a thrilling ride that will leave you breathless for the next page, and curious to find the true soul we nurture within.’ Jennifer Murgia, author of the Angel Star series and Between These Lines

  ‘Wow! Talk about a completely unique concept with tons of new ideas, roles, and characters that took me on an exhilarating adventure.’ 4.5 stars from I ♥ Bookie Nookie Reviews on Soul Taken

  ‘Soul Taken is a BRILLIANT read! . . . This is one of those books to look out for.’ 5 stars from A Diary of a Book Addict

  Also by Katlyn Duncan

  The Life After Trilogy:

  Soul Taken

  Soul Possessed

  Soul Betrayed

  This Summer

  This Christmas

  Darkest Dawn

  As You Lay Sleeping

  Six Little Secrets

  Katlyn Duncan

  ONE PLACE. MANY STORIES

  Contents

  Cover

  Blurb

  Title Page

  Author Bio

  Acknowledgements

  Dedication

  Chapter One: Zoe, Saturday

  Chapter Two: Zoe

  Chapter Three: Teddy, Five Days Earlier

  Chapter Four: Teddy, Saturday

  Chapter Five: Zoe, Saturday

  Chapter Six: Zoe

  Chapter Seven: Cece, Two Days Earlier

  Chapter Eight: Cece, Saturday

  Chapter Nine: Zoe, Saturday

  Chapter Ten: Jackie, Three Days Earlier

  Chapter Eleven: Jackie, Saturday

  Chapter Twelve: Zoe, Saturday

  Chapter Thirteen: Zoe, Saturday

  Chapter Fourteen: Q, Four Days Earlier

  Chapter Fifteen: Q, Saturday

  Chapter Sixteen: Zoe, Saturday

  Chapter Seventeen: Holly, One Year Ago

  Chapter Eighteen: Holly, Saturday

  Chapter Nineteen: Zoe, Saturday

  Chapter Twenty: Zoe, Saturday

  Chapter Twenty-One: Zoe, Monday

  Endpages

  Copyright

  KATLYN DUNCAN grew up in a small town in New England, but her head was always in the clouds. She wanted to travel and see the world but was happy enough to write her own characters and live through them. Katlyn started writing at a young age and never really stopped. Even if she wasn’t writing a novel or a movie script, she was jotting down ideas in her journal or on Post-it notes. She never thought (even though she dreamed) they would lead to her actually becoming published someday. One of her proudest moments was winning $50 for a writing contest in sixth grade. Katlyn bought her very own television with it. In that same grade, one of her most influential teachers taught her that reading was an escape and she hopes she can bring that to her readers as well.

  Katlyn currently lives in lower New England, a quick train ride to New York City, with her husband and adorable wheaten terrier in a Victorian fixer-upper.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  This little novella has lived with me much longer than it took to write. These characters took shape in my dreams and while writing other projects. They are the creative shadows of other fantastic characters, and I hope they jumped out on the page for you just as much as they took shape in my heart.

  A huge thank you to the SCAG for daily laughs and helpful suggestions for everything I throw at you.

  I want to thank my fab SCBWI crit group for your positivity and constructive thoughts for my books.

  Singling out Kierney Scott and Sarah Bennett, you two were so helpful in the early stages of SLS, your advice changed the book for the better!

  For Chelsea Ichaso and Jen Nadol, I’m grateful for you taking the time to read it from top to bottom and offering some great ideas to bring this book to another level.

  As always, big thanks to my family for your support and understanding when I’m lost in thought and when the house isn’t as clean as I’d like.

  To all of those at HQDigital, thank you so much for your advice and amazing cover design. We’ve been through eight books together, and I will forever be grateful.

  And to my readers, thanks for taking another journey with me. I hope this book sticks with you long after you finish.

  Dedication

  To Dad. Now you have to finish this one.

  CHAPTER ONE

  ZOE

  Saturday

  Zoe Walsh dropped her arms on the dark wooden table, tugging at the long sleeves of her gray and white striped shirt. Her shoulders relaxed for the first time that morning. Her foot bounced on the floor as she reached into her bag for her breakfast. She opened the foil wrapping of her Pop Tart and ate half of the sweet pastry before the door to the library opened. She dropped the tart into her lap. She knew better than most that food wasn’t allowed in the library, even during off hours.

  Mr. Curtis, the forty-year-old history teacher and Varsity football coach, lumbered past, nodding his full head of caramel brown hair at her in greeting.

  ‘Morning,’ he said, furiously typing on his cell phone, looking more like half of the kids in the school than a serious teacher. She smiled to herself. That was his way. He was the ‘cool’ teacher. The one who let most infractions slide and allowed Zoe to attend Saturday detention with no questions asked and nothing to atone for.

  It was the one place she could find peace. And while sometimes she shared the space with one or two delinquents, most Saturdays were spent alone with Mr. Curtis. He did his work in the library office, and she did hers out in the library, at least for most of the time. After Dad had passed, her grades had slipped to where she almost had to repeat freshman year. Now she was nearly at the end of her junior year, coasting by in the upper fifty percentile of her grade. She was happy there. She preferred to fly under the radar. At least with those grades, she had a shot at getting out of Pioneer Haven. At least from a distance, there would be an excuse for her mom ignoring her.

  ‘Good morning,’ she said.

  ‘We have some company today,’ he said.

  Her chest deflated, yet she tried to keep the disappointment from her face.

  After Mr. Curtis had walked into the office, Zoe went back to her food. She knew he’d turn a blind eye, and she was starving. Sin
ce Mom came home early the night before, Zoe skipped dinner and hid in her room. That morning, she rushed out of the house before her mom woke up, only having a few minutes to grab breakfast on her way out to the school.

  Movement from the back of the room caught Zoe’s attention. She turned to see Victor, the janitor, rolling a vacuum cleaner on the second floor of the library. One of the maintenance closets was up there. He lifted the vacuum as if it were a feather and came down the stairs.

  ‘You again?’ he asked with a crooked smile.

  He came up next to her. Zoe had to crane her neck to meet his eyes. He was the tallest man she’d ever seen. The hem of his pants rested a good inch above his shoes. Would it have killed Principal Killian to buy a bigger uniform for him?

  ‘I can’t seem to stay out of trouble,’ she said, smiling back. If the idiots at her school stopped to get to know the men who cleaned up after them, they’d realize the janitorial staff were good people, just trying to make a living. She tried to be as friendly as possible to them, when she could, to make up for the crap they had to deal with on a daily basis. Not all teens were entitled jerks.

  ‘How’s your daughter?’ Zoe asked. Whenever she stayed late at school to complete her homework, Victor always made sure to check on her. He had a daughter around her age, but she went to a different school. Zoe thought that was a blessing. If she heard the trash-talk from the kids about her own dad, she would have wanted to go to a different school. Zoe guessed it had been Victor’s decision too.

  ‘She’s on her own a lot lately, working on some big project for school,’ he said.

  ‘I know how that is,’ Zoe said, indicating her backpack. She was well ahead on a lot of her projects for the remainder of the semester since she had a lot of time to herself.

  Victor nodded and headed out of the room. ‘Have a good day, Zoe.’

  ‘You too.’ Zoe turned back to her breakfast.

  She took one bite just as a voice, clear as day, appeared on the other side of the door. She nearly choked on the chunk of her Pop Tart. The voice was one that blathered on and on every day at school, and now it was in the one place Zoe thought she could have peace. It belonged to the one person who could ruin her day.

  Zoe closed her eyes and wished the girl away. She sat up straighter and listened. She didn’t hear the voice again. Had she imagined it?

  The double doors flew open, and Zoe jumped, her eyes springing open as her worst nightmare walked through the door.

  Jackie King.

  Cheerleader. One of the ones that volunteered to be thrown into the air to perform some crazy death-defying flips. Her record was three flips in a row. A fact she told anyone who was within earshot every chance she could.

  ‘This sucks. Sucks! Sucks!’ Jackie whined as she sashayed into the room. Her signature ponytail of tight, springy black curls bounced with each step. She’d exchanged her cheer uniform for an outfit that resembled the tight cropped long-sleeve shirt and skorts that she wore on a daily basis. As if they needed reminding of her ‘status’.

  ‘Get over yourself,’ said Q, the class troublemaker, sauntering in behind her.

  Zoe tried hard not to roll her eyes at his bravado. He was the picture of a rebel with his shoulder-length greasy hair and leather jacket. She knew for a fact that his parents had enough money to buy him shampoo and he’d never ridden a motorcycle in his life. Zoe sat behind him in history. His hands were always impeccably clean.

  Then came Cece.

  How many other kids were coming to torture her today? If she knew, she would have skipped Saturday detention altogether this week. She glanced at the office where Mr. Curtis had his back to them. Why hadn’t Mr. Curtis prepared her for this? It would have been nice to receive a warning.

  Cece straightened the hem of her fuzzy light blue sweater—which most likely cost more than Zoe’s entire wardrobe—while simultaneously typing on her phone with her free hand. Even for a Saturday, not a hair was out of place in her short pin-straight bob.

  Teddy James stumbled into the room, balancing three textbooks in his hands. His backpack was bursting at the seams. Zoe had a feeling Teddy would roll into the auditorium in a wheelchair for his valedictorian speech if he kept up with lugging around his ridiculously heavy backpack. His brunette hair stuck out at all angles as if he’d rolled out of bed and into the library.

  She squirmed a little in her seat as their eyes met for a brief moment. She was the first to turn away.

  And the last was Holly Pickard. She’d arrived at PHHS several months ago. She didn’t waste any time getting to know everyone in Zoe’s class, mostly the boys. Zoe guessed it was the long blonde hair and big blue eyes that pulled the guys in. At least that was the starting point. Holly didn’t seem to have any trouble finding a place to sit in the cafeteria. She made more of an impact with Zoe’s classmates than Zoe did throughout all the years in school.

  These were five kids Zoe never saw in the same room together unless it was a school assembly. And even then, they were in completely separate groups. Other than Q, none of them seemed the type to get into enough trouble to earn a detention. So why were they all there?

  The others gave Zoe a once over as she did them, but no one greeted her. At least that part of their relationship hadn’t changed.

  Less than a minute later, Mr. Curtis came into the room and glanced at Zoe. She wouldn’t get the privacy she wanted this Saturday. And that sucked, but it was better than revealing the real reason for being there.

  Instead, she focused on the decorated box resting in her teacher’s hands.

  What’s he doing with that? Zoe wondered.

  ‘Take your seats around the table,’ Mr. Curtis said, plopping the box in the middle of one of the long six-foot tables usually reserved for group projects.

  Zoe got up from her seat at one of the smaller tables and shouldered her bag, sticking to the back of the group. She waited until everyone else took their seat before choosing the last empty one between Teddy and Holly.

  Holly twirled a chunk of her blonde hair around her finger while staring at Mr. Curtis. The neon-pink fingernail polish was striking against the golden strands.

  Teddy offered Zoe a small smile. It was the most interaction they had had in about a year. Zoe passed it off as just a circumstance of their current predicament.

  Q turned his chair around before sitting.

  ‘Please sit the correct way, Quentin,’ Mr. Curtis said.

  ‘It’s Q,’ Q said, not moving from his seat. Q gave every teacher a hard time which he thought was hilarious but most of the time was disruptive and made class go by so much slower than necessary.

  ‘My apologies,’ Mr. Curtis said, smiling. ‘As you are well aware we’re all here for four hours. As one of the newer teachers in school, Principal Killian selected me to run Saturday detentions for this semester.’ He looked at each of the kids as he gave his introduction. Everyone except Zoe, who’d heard it before.

  ‘Our same principal requested that I put you all to work this weekend since there are more of you than usual,’ Mr. Curtis continued. ‘If you recall, we held the underage-drinking chain event this week.’

  He ceremoniously lifted the box and hundreds of white strips of paper piled on the desk in front of them. He leaned toward the next table, grabbing six staplers and two full boxes of staples and placed those in front of them too.

  All last week, during lunch, students were encouraged by the student council to pledge not to drink. Three years ago, two of the more popular seniors died in a drunk driving car accident. Sure, Zoe felt sorry for their families, but she didn’t drink. And every day she was bombarded by the peppy Student Council members to sign a promise to continue with the same lifestyle she already chose. The Student Council wanted to beat the length of the chain from the previous year which meant they were extra aggressive with promises.

  ‘Your task for today is to create the chain from the promises,’ Mr. Curtis said. ‘It will be strung up in the cafeteria on
Monday, so you all need to finish this by the end of the day.’

  ‘You can’t be serious,’ Jackie said.

  ‘Who did you expect to do this, Ms. King?’ Mr. Curtis asked. ‘Weren’t you on the committee?’

  ‘Yeah, but the freshmen were supposed to do the stapling.’

  ‘Well, now you can take part in the rest of the project,’ he said. ‘Unless that’s a problem?’

  Jackie huffed loudly but said nothing else.

  ‘Listen, guys,’ he said, squatting next to the table, dropping down to their level as if they were members of his team. ‘Principal Killian needs this done today. On any other Saturday I’d let it slide, but if you help me out here, I’ll help you out.’

  ‘Can we get out earlier if we finish quickly?’ Teddy asked.

  Mr. Curtis considered that. ‘Maybe.’ He stood up and clapped his hands together. ‘So, if there are no other questions, you can get started,’ he added with a smirk.

  Zoe squirmed in her seat as Mr. Curtis rested his eyes on Jackie as if waiting for her to talk back.

  ‘What if I have to go to the bathroom?’ Cece asked, dropping her giant purse next to her chair.

  ‘Why? Do you have your period?’ Q asked.

  Jackie pulled a face.

  ‘Ew!’ Cece whined.

  And Holly groaned.

  Zoe cringed on the inside. Q knew how to cross a line.

  Q sat back, grinning at the rest of them.

  ‘You’re each allowed one five-minute bathroom break,’ Mr. Curtis said, ignoring Q’s crude comment. ‘Let’s not make this harder than it needs to be, okay?’

  Cece let out an exasperated groan.

  ‘And one more thing,’ Mr. Curtis said, placing the now-empty box in front of them. ‘Cell phones. Put them in the box.’

  ‘No friggin’ way,’ Jackie said.

  ‘What if there’s an emergency?’ Teddy asked.

  ‘Your parents are aware you’re here. They can call the school if something is wrong. This isn’t my rule.’