Ellery and Ezra discover a dead man lying in the road as they arrive in Echo Ridge for the first time.

Malcolm follows a smell of fresh paint at the Lacey Kilduff charity gala and finds threatening graffiti on the cultural center sign.

Malcolm and Mia find three dolls hanging from a mausoleum and a threatening message targeting the homecoming queen candidates.

Ellery is announced as a homecoming queen nominee despite just arriving in town, and the next morning her locker is vandalized with a threat.

At the school pep rally, the LED screen flashes torn photographs of Lacey and the current homecoming queen nominees.

Ellery and Malcolm discover Brooke drunk and attempting to pick open a recycling bin lock at a Fright Farm party.

Malcolm drives Brooke home from Fright Farm, and she vanishes overnight and is reported missing the next morning.

Officer Rodriguez arrives to inform the family that Brooke Bennett never made it home after being dropped off the previous night.

The group follows Daisy to a neighboring town and discovers she and Declan Kelly are in a secret romantic relationship.

Ellery picks the lock on the Fright Farm recycling bin and finds a car repair receipt linking Katrin's BMW to Mr. Bowman's death.

Malcolm and Ellery finally kiss at his house on homecoming night before being interrupted by his mother walking in.

Nana informs Ellery that Brooke's body has been discovered in the woods near the Canadian border.

Peter returns home with a gun, locks Ellery and Malcolm in the basement, and starts a generator to poison them with carbon monoxide.

Officer Rodriguez rescues Ellery and Malcolm from carbon monoxide poisoning in the basement, and Peter is taken into police custody.

Ellery privately reveals the secret Peter whispered to her: he intended to kill Sadie that night, not her twin sister Sarah.

Ellery and Ezra Corcoran arrive in Echo Ridge only to immediately encounter a dead body on the road, plunging them into the town's dark history. A series of escalating threats targets the high school homecoming nominees, while Brooke Bennett's disappearance raises the stakes far beyond teenage drama. Ellery and Malcolm Kelly form an unlikely partnership, uncovering a car repair receipt that links Katrin's car to Mr. Bowman's death and points toward the real killer. Their investigation leads them directly into danger when Malcolm's stepfather Peter Nilsson traps them in his basement and attempts to kill them with carbon monoxide. Officer Rodriguez rescues them just in time, Peter is arrested, and decades of predatory violence are finally brought to a close. The novel ends with Ellery privately carrying one devastating final secret that threatens to undo all the healing the characters have begun to find.

Echo Ridge's deadly secrets from discovery to resolution.

Ellery and Ezra arrive at the Vermont airport with a missing suitcase and are driven to Echo Ridge by Nana and Melanie Kilduff.

Officer Rodriguez arrives to interview the twins about Mr. Bowman's death and startles upon seeing Ellery, dropping his coffee mug.

Malcolm and his family attend the Lacey Kilduff charity gala, where many guests still openly suspect Declan murdered Lacey.

Ellery beats Vance Puckett at a target shooting game at Fright Farm and meets Brooke Bennett, who offers to pass along their job applications.

Malcolm meets Declan at the town bar and finds his brother bitter and unwilling to explain why he has returned to Echo Ridge.

Malcolm and Mia follow Daisy, suspecting she is acting strangely, but she drives only to a therapist's office.

Malcolm and Mia observe Brooke confronting Vance Puckett on the street; she walks away from him with a look of determination.

Officer McNulty questions Malcolm about Brooke's disappearance, and Katrin unexpectedly hints at a romantic connection between Malcolm and Brooke.

Malcolm chooses not to tell Officer McNulty that Declan has returned to Echo Ridge during the interrogation about Brooke.

Ellery confronts Sadie during a phone call, and Sadie admits she was with a boy when Sarah disappeared, the root of her survivor's guilt.

Daisy confesses her survivor's guilt to the group and describes the mysterious antler bracelet Lacey was wearing at the time of her death.

Malcolm secretly records Katrin hanging a threatening sign at the high school in the middle of the night and sends the video to Ellery.

Declan intervenes when Kyle and Theo attack Malcolm outside school, knocking out Kyle and driving Theo away.

Officer Rodriguez confronts Declan and reveals that Declan's old class ring was found on Brooke's body.

Malcolm and Declan reconcile their long-strained brotherly relationship at the family gathering held at Officer Rodriguez's house.

The twins' arrival in Echo Ridge connects them immediately to the town's traumatic history through Melanie Kilduff and a rattled Officer Rodriguez, whose suspicious behavior creates an early false lead. Malcolm's strained relationship with Declan and the social dynamics of the high school create layers of tension as Brooke's disappearance forces everyone to confront the past. Clues are scattered through seemingly minor scenes: Brooke confronting Vance on the street, Daisy's hidden guilt over a mysterious bracelet, and Katrin caught vandalizing the school at night. Malcolm faces his own version of his brother's ordeal as McNulty treats him like a suspect, and he silently withholds information to protect Declan. The revelation of Declan's class ring on Brooke's body raises the pressure to a breaking point before a violent confrontation with Rodriguez clarifies the truth. The story closes with a hard-won reconciliation between Malcolm and Declan at a family gathering that offers genuine hope after years of painful estrangement.

The supporting moments and secondary characters that shape the mystery.

Nana reveals that Officer Rodriguez and Lacey Kilduff were close friends who both worked at the haunted park as teenagers.

During a video call from rehab, Sadie casually mentions she once dated Peter Nilsson when she lived in Echo Ridge.

Viv reveals to the cafeteria group that Declan Kelly has quietly returned to Echo Ridge, intensifying suspicion around recent threatening events.

Malcolm runs into Ellery on the street and thanks her for not assuming he was the vandal, beginning their real friendship.

While researching yearbooks at the library, Ellery finds a photo of Officer Rodriguez gazing longingly at Lacey, deepening her suspicion of him.

When visiting Mia's house, Ellery and Ezra watch Daisy sitting alone in her car, crying and struggling to compose herself.

Mia tells Malcolm that he and Ellery clearly like each other and suggests he invite her to homecoming as his date.

Vance Puckett tells Ellery that Brooke approached him asking how to pick a lock, and he directed her to use a paperclip.

Malcolm and Ellery agree to attend the homecoming dance together specifically to watch Katrin for suspicious behavior.

Ellery visits Officer Rodriguez's house with moving boxes and sees a photograph of his young father, who looks almost exactly like Ezra.

Officer Rodriguez admits to Ellery and Ezra that his late father is almost certainly their biological father, making Rodriguez their half-brother.

Sadie admits to Ellery that she lied about the twins' stuntman father and that Rodriguez's father is their real biological dad.

While talking with Peter at the Kelly house, Malcolm and Ellery determine that his alibi for Mr. Bowman's death is completely fabricated.

Peter leads Ellery and Malcolm to the basement at gunpoint and whispers a chilling secret into Ellery's ear before locking them inside.

Rodriguez explains in the hospital that the antler bracelet was traced to Peter through the local artist who made it, sealing the case.

From the beginning, small revelations accumulate that point toward the truth, starting with Nana's offhand remarks about Rodriguez and Lacey and Sadie's casual mention of once dating Peter Nilsson. Ellery's investigation keeps misfiring as she fixates on Rodriguez as a suspect, while a yearbook photo and a crying Daisy fuel her wrong assumptions. Emotional turning points between characters — Malcolm and Ellery's growing trust, Mia's encouragement, Sadie's candid admission — shift the dynamics of every relationship in the story and slowly redirect attention toward the real threat. The revelation that Rodriguez is the twins' half-brother reframes his strange behavior throughout the book and pulls Ellery toward trusting the police rather than working against them. Malcolm and Ellery piece together Peter's guilt just as he returns home, turning their quiet investigation into a life-threatening confrontation at gunpoint. The final chilling moment — Peter's whispered confession before locking them in the basement — leaves Ellery carrying a secret that could devastate her mother just as she begins to heal.