Sweet Valley High Super Thriller: Double Jeopardy
Sweet Valley High Super Thriller: Double Jeopardy
For our Halloween week!
This book was sitting on the bed, and my husband saw it and said, “Oh my God, are they trying to put her on trial again?” HA!
In case you’re interested, I think it’s called Double Jeopardy because the twins are in jeopardy and there are two of them. Clever!
Also, Liz's outfit is fug.
It’s summer vacation, and Jess and Liz have copyediting internships at the Sweet Valley News. It was Liz’s idea, of course, but Ned and Alice made Jess do it too. Jess was pretty annoyed, until she got an eyeful of Seth Miller, the sexy ace reporter. Jess snooped in their boss’s files for Seth’s resume, and discovered that he has an MA in investigative journalism and writes mystery novels under a fake name. She tried to get them from the library, but they were checked out. Jess is determined to get him by the end of the summer (wouldn’t he be way too old for her?) and her strategy will be to give him mysteries and then help him solve them. She can be like Watson to his Holmes! Brilliant plan! Liz is dating Jeffrey right now, but he’s working as a counselor at sleepaway camp. Jess is a little concerned that Liz will want to go after Seth too, since they’re both smart and like writing, but she doesn’t have to worry: Liz is determined to be faithful. That’ll last.
Steve is home to intern at Ned’s litigation firm. His friend Adam will be interning at a criminal firm. He couldn’t afford to rent a place in Sweet Valley, so he’ll spend the summer sleeping on a cot in Steven’s room. Jess is very unhappy at this. She thinks their house is cramped enough as it is, and she’s annoyed at having to clear her extra clothes and records out of Steve’s closet, since he needs it now. But when Liz tries to make her feel better by saying that Adam’s hot, Jess has her brainwave: if she can hook Liz up with Adam, then (a) she won’t have to worry about Liz chasing Seth; (b) she won’t have to feel guilty about having more fun with boys than Liz does; and (c) she can break Liz up from Jeffrey, since monogamy is futile. Hee. She's got Liz's number, for sure.
The twins, Enid, and Lila hang out at the beach. Jess has obviously enlisted Lila in her plan, because Lila is all, “Hey, Liz, this Adam guy sounds nice and hot! But poor. But okay for you!” Liz reads a letter from Jeffrey that his campers are tormenting him: they put toothpaste in his shoes and a frog in his trunk. Jeffrey is such a dork. Lila is all, “Nobody acted that way at my camp,” and Enid points out, “That’s because you went to finishing camp. They don’t have frogs in Switzerland.” Ha! Now I’m imagining Lila weaving lanyards with diamonds in them.
Adam is indeed nice and hot, but also kind of an oversharer. In his first scene, which is only about four pages long, he tells the Wakefields all of his business: first off, his parents are farmers. He has an orphan fi-girlfriend (the ghostwriter’s subtle way of indicating a secret fiancée, I believe) named Laurie who was raised by her billionaire grandfather’s servants. Grandpa wants her to marry the unstable son of a business associate - Just like a merger, but with sex and insanity! - and has threatened to cut her off if she stays with Adam. She says she doesn’t care, but she and Adam are keeping the relationship a secret, so she totally does care. Adam’s lack of boundaries with these people he just met clearly weirds out Ned and Alice, which is kind of funny. They’re just like, “Um…well…if you ever want to talk….” He begs them not to tell Grandpa about Laurie and him, and they’re all, “Um…okay…we don’t even know him, so…I mean…why would we?” Hee.
Jess spies on their neighbor, who’s transplanting a bush or something. She’s tells Liz, “He’s been digging for so long! With some imagination, I could turn this into a way to get to know Seth.” Liz tells her that good reporters don’t snoop and accuse people of things. Somewhere, Woodward and Bernstein polish their Pulitzers and nod sagely in agreement: no good investigative journalism ever came from snooping. Jess plays up how lonely Adam must be, and Liz agrees that she should make an extra effort to be friends with him. Jess is pleased: Laurie sounds depressing, and she thinks Liz would be much better for him. Oh, and also, Adam’s law firm is in the same building as the twins’ newspaper. They plan to get together for lunch. The parking garage in the building is creepy. Foreshadowing ahoy!
God, there has been so much exposition in these first two chapters. Everyone is so chatty.
At the newspaper, Jess tells Seth that according to a “source” of hers, a fire at the Box Tree Café was actually arson. Seth jumps right in his car to go check it out, dragging Jess with him. When they get there, though, the manager laughs in their faces. A pan caught on fire and ignited a few dishtowels, that’s all. Seth is annoyed, but Jess, though embarrassed about being laughed at, insists she never would’ve wasted his time. Seth is a good sport about it, and they’re chatting easily by the time they get back to the paper.
A plot on Lila’s favorite soap opera gives Jess an idea: it’s always easier to fall in love with someone if you think he likes you back, so she’s going to plant a love letter from Adam in Liz’s room. Jess uses Liz’s typewriter and slaves over the note, working hard to make sure it sounds like something Adam would write. When she’s finished, even she acknowledges that the letter is a little insane, but she leaves it under Liz’s pillow anyway. Liz is really weirded out when she finds it: she thinks that things must have gotten so tough with Laurie that Adam temporarily snapped:
Dear Liz,
Please don’t think I’m a terrible coward to write to you instead of bringing this up in person. I guess I am a coward. If I weren’t, I would have broken up with Laurie the minute I met you.
Liz, it’s true. I’m in love with you. I know I haven’t shown it, and the truth is, I won’t be able to show it to you. Not yet. Not until I figure out what to do about Laurie. She’s so vulnerable-I don’t want to hurt her until I have to. So please be patient with me if I treat you like just another friend while I’m trying to get it all sorted out. You know you’re not just another friend to me. I love you. I can’t live without you. You’re all I really want in this whole world, and if I can’t figure out something soon, I may have to do something drastic.
Love,
Adam
Liz decides to pretend the letter never happened, so Adam will know she’s not interested. Wouldn’t it be better to talk to him about it? Guess not.
For such an ace reporter, Seth sure is bad at his job. When Jessica comes up to him the next day, saying she knows who committed some bank robbery, he opens a blank document and just starts typing her story. She spins out this whole crazy fiction about her next door neighbor, the gardener, burying the money in his yard, inventing sources and evidence and everything. Seth doesn’t even check anything out; he just hits print and turns it in. The editor busts them right away, of course, and they both almost get fired. Jess begs him to take it all out on her, though. Seth gets to keep his job (even though he shouldn’t) and Jess is transferred from the features department to fiscal services or something, entering numbers on a spreadsheet all day. When she and Seth get out of the editor’s office, delusional Jessica thinks Seth owes her a thank you for taking all the responsibility. He’s like, “You little snot, you were responsible. I almost lost my whole career just now!” Well, he’s the adult who checked his journalistic ethics at the door, here. She’s just a stupid kid. Jess says, “I’m sure once you think about it you’ll realize how unselfishly I behaved, and you’ll probably want to take me to dinner or something.” Hee! Can’t blame a girl for trying. Seth tells her to get lost, and poor Jess heads sadly off to her spreadsheets.
She works on them for so long that she doesn’t get out of the office until late at night. As she heads to her car, she notices the parking attendant is gone. Adam’s car, a silver VW, is still in the garage, and Jess briefly thinks about calling him to have dinner with her, but decides she’s tired and just wants to go home. As Jess gets to the Fiat, she hears a loud noise and turns. A blond guy at the other end of the floor has just slammed the trunk of his white Trans Am shut (she notices that the car has an S-shaped rust stain on the door). The guy carries a big bundle wrapped in a green blanket. Jess thinks for a moment…but no, it’s just her overactive imagination again. He shifts the bundle, and a woman’s hand drops out. Not a dismembered hand or anything. It’s still attached to her arm, which is still attached to the rest of her.
Jess realizes, all at once, that she was right. He’s carrying a dead body, and at the same moment that she sees his face, he looks up and sees hers. She jumps in the Fiat, terrified, and speeds out as fast as she can, her only thought to get to someone who can protect her. Good instinct, considering so often these kids want to handle everything themselves and never involve their parents.
Jess speeds home. She knows she has to call the police, but she doesn’t want to do it until someone’s with her, because she’s scared to be questioned alone. This seems pretty realistic to me, how a terrified girl would act. Her family is at the movies, though. Freaking out, the first person Jessica calls is Lila! Aw! Unfortunately, Lila’s not home, and neither is Amy. Truly panicked, not knowing where else to turn, Jess calls Seth. He chews her out some more, but her frantic sobbing convinces him that something’s frightened her badly, so he finally agrees to come over. Jessica wants to call the police as soon as he arrives, but he doesn’t let her. Instead, he loads her into the car and drives her back to the garage. Seth insists that it’s important they go back, in case the guy is still there. That way, they can get his license plate number. For a man who’s supposed to be a genius, Seth is pretty dumb.
The guard at the parking lot tells them that he was there the whole time, but finally admits that he left for ten minutes to make a phone call. The Trans Am is gone. Seth kind of doesn’t believe Jess, but he can see that something upset her. The rest of the family is home when Seth and Jess get back to the Wakefields’ house. Seth won’t come in with her, even though she asks him to; he just tells her to explain to her parents what happened and then have her dad take her to the police station to file a report, and drives away. He’s pretty nonchalant about this whole thing. People must get killed around Seth all the time. He’s like Miss Marple.
Jess comes in sobbing, and tells her whole family the story. Liz is skeptical, and Jess is infuriated that her sister thinks she’s a liar. (Well, Jess, you kind of are a liar. If only Ned and Alice had read Jess “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” when she was little!) Ned makes her slow down and tell the story again, encouraging her to remember every detail and chose her words carefully. Jess does, and then cries that the guy saw her and will probably come after her, so they have to call the police right away. Steve is weird here: it’s late and he’s tired, so he thinks they should all go to bed and call the police in the morning. Jess is like, “I don’t think you get that this is murder and is an important emergency, Steven!”
Steve is a little more motivated when the phone rings, though. It’s Adam, and he’s been arrested for first degree murder. The dead girl? Was Laurie! Adam found her strangled in his trunk and called the police right away. They found a rope (the murder weapon) in his glove box and have booked him; they need Jess to come downtown right away to give her statement. Steven is enraged. Adam loved Laurie! He would never hurt anyone!
I can’t imagine how traumatic it was for poor Adam to find his dead fi-girlfriend in the trunk of his car. Sweet Valley Pathos.
The police take Jess’s statement and have her describe the man she saw to a sketch artist. They say they’ll try to find him, but Adam is still their prime suspect because Laurie was in his trunk. It turns out they were secretly engaged, because her trust fund, worth millions, was going to pay out in two weeks when she turned 18. The police think Adam was marrying her for her money to - I’m not even kidding - pay off the credit card debt he ran up buying textbooks. Hee! Unless his textbooks were made of gold, that’s the worst motive ever! The police tell Jess that they’re all scared too, because nothing like this has ever happened in Sweet Valley before. Well, think of it this way: it’ll be great practice for them for when Psychotic Margo shows up.
Adam can’t afford the half million dollars bail, and neither can the Wakefields, so he’ll have to stay in custody. When she finally gets home, Jess is so scared of the killer coming for her that Liz sleeps in Jess’s bed with her. Aw!
The next morning, news about Laurie’s murder has broken to the general public. Seth is suddenly very interested in Jessica, and offers to let her help him research the story. She swears that Adam couldn’t have done it, and so they decide to start by talking to everyone who knew Adam and Laurie, to figure out who might have motive.
Liz agonizes over that crazy letter Jess wrote from Adam (“I don’t want to hurt her until I have to. I may have to do something drastic.”) and finally decides to show it to her dad. After all, what if Adam murdered Laurie because he couldn’t live with the guilt of loving Elizabeth? Someone sure thinks a lot of herself. That’s even crazier than killing Laurie for textbook money.
Reporters keep calling the house to talk to Steve, wanting the scoop on Adam, making Steve very unhappy. Steve tells Jess that nobody would ever want to hurt Adam and Laurie, but Jess has a better memory than her brother: she suggests the crazy kid Grandpa wanted Laurie to marry. She and Steve take off for the jail to badger Adam about it. Adam doesn’t buy their theory: the crazy kid loved Laurie, and though he was indeed quite crazy, he wouldn’t have hurt her. That means he did it, y’all. I can tell because I’ve read a book before. Adam doesn’t feel like fighting his legal battle. Since Laurie is dead, he doesn’t see the point. He’s pretty depressed, and understandably so, crying through most of Jess and Steve’s visit.
When Jess fills the family in on Adam’s depression, Ned hilariously says: “Adam’s a country boy, used to fresh air and open spaces. To be locked up like that must be torture.” Country boys are like ponies that way.
Ned does some actual responsible parenting, telling the twins they’re not allowed to go anywhere alone until this is all over, and tells Liz the killer might come after her because he doesn’t know Jess is a twin. Liz hadn’t thought of that, and is extra scared now. Ned also tells them they’re not allowed to take the Fiat anywhere, because the killer might recognize it. If they need to go somewhere, they can get a ride from their parents or Steven, or take the bus. (The bus!) Ned also says that, though the police and DA are going through with indicting Adam, they’re still looking for the Trans Am guy and not discounting the possibility that he’s the real killer.
Worst police force ever? Y/N?
Well, look on the bright side. Adam’s lawsuit after they let him go will pay for all the textbooks he could ever want.
Steve tells Jess about the fake letter from Adam that Liz and Ned gave to the police, and Jess is like, “Oh, crap.”
Jess can’t bring herself to confess to her family that she wrote the letter, but she goes to the police station and tells them the whole story about Jeffrey going to sleepaway camp and Lila’s soap opera and how Jess was trying to get Liz and Adam together. The cop thinks she’s insane. He believes her, but says the DA would just think she’s lying to protect Adam, especially since she’s the one who’s claiming she saw the Trans Am guy too. He asks Jess to sign an affidavit swearing that she wrote the letter, but to keep the fact that she wrote it quiet for now, because they don’t want it getting out and making the Trans Am guy nervous. Jess is happy to do that, because it’ll postpone her getting in trouble with Elizabeth. Hee. Why does Jessica make me like her so much in this book? She finally does tell her dad too, who says he’ll leave it up to her whether she wants to come clean to her sister.
At the paper, Seth is depressed because a reporter named Dan wrote a front page story about the letter. Seth wants to be the one covering the murder, and he would be if he hadn’t turned in Jess’s fiction about the bank robbery. Seth has no one to blame but himself, I think. To make Seth feel better, and because she feels guilty for hampering his career, Jess breaks her promise to the cop and tells Seth that she was the one who wrote the letter, but even though he asks why, she won’t tell him because she’s a little embarrassed, which I find kind of endearing. Seth decides to try to scoop Dan, and tells Jess she can help if she wants. She says she will, if he’ll help her find the Trans Am guy. He's like, “I thought you wanted to hide from that guy?” but agrees anyway. It’s the story of the decade, after all.
Until Psychotic Margo comes to town, that is.
Seth and Jess fret about how they’re going to get any info out of Adam as long as he’s depressed, and finally Jess decides the thing to do is make him angry to snap him out of it. So they march down to the jail to antagonize the boy with the dead fiancée. Jess gets in his face all, “Are you just going to let this happen to you? Don’t you want the person who murdered Laurie and framed you to suffer?” That’s all it takes; Adam’s not depressed anymore. He tells them the crazy kid Grandpa wanted Laurie to marry does have blond hair. The crazy kid also knew Laurie was with Adam. Adam’s confused by the alleged motive, though: Grandpa was going to cut Laurie off for being with Adam, so Adam doesn’t get the allegations that he killed her for money or whatever. Well, that’s why your marriage was going to be a secret, Adam. Duh. We’ll have to assume Adam hasn’t heard the portion of the crime theory where he somehow gets textbook money by killing Laurie, since that’s the convincing part.
Jess is supposed to meet Lila at the Dairi Burger, but Liz and Steve are out with Steve’s car. They’re late and Jess really misses Lila (Aw!), so Jess gives in to temptation and takes the Fiat. She happily drives along until she checks her rearview mirror and sees the Trans Am driving behind her. Smart Jessica heads right for the police station and calls her parents, who come get her. They’re enraged and terrified, as you would be, and ground her until the Trans Am guy is caught. I am bewildered by Ned and Alice’s responsible parenting. Isn’t this supposed to be Sweet Valley?
Throughout this book, the newspaper has been planning an office party. Jess is allowed to go, even though she's grounded, because it's a work thing. The night of the party, Steve, Ned, and Alice are all going out. Steve leaves his car keys for the twins in case they need them - “NO FIAT!” Ned reminds them - but tells the girls to be careful of the clutch because it’s not working right. Of course it isn’t. Jess thinks that maybe, after the party, she could get Seth to take her to Miller’s Point for some makeout time. Hee. Good luck with that.
Seth is supposed to pick the girls up, but he calls and begs off because he’s stuck working on a story. Then the police call and need Jess to come to the station to look at something important. Jess tells them she can’t tonight because of the office party, but she could come by in the morning. They insist she has to come now. She doesn’t want to, because then she’d have to bring Liz. Jess thinks the police want to see her because of something to do with her affidavit about the letter, and she wants to postpone Liz knowing about that as long as she possibly can. The cops offer to pick her up and then drive her to the party after. What service! The Sweet Valley taxpayers must be thrilled! Jess finally agrees, so she takes off for the station in a cop car.
The police have a photo they want Jess to ID. Sure enough, it’s a photo of the Trans Am guy, aka the crazy kid Grandpa wanted Laurie to marry. You may be interested to know that, in Sweet Valley, even the murderers are hot.
Liz can't get Steve’s broken car to start. The cab company won’t be able to pick her up for at least an hour. Liz is in a bind: she can either take the bus (The bus!), which would mean walking to the bus stop alone, which her dad told her not to do, or take the Fiat, which her dad also told her not to do, or disappoint her boss at the newspaper by not coming to the party, in which case he probably wouldn’t let her write a little story by the end of the summer, which she’d been hoping to do. So, thinking that she’s being pretty reasonable, all things considered, she goes through all her dad’s stuff until she finds the Fiat keys and takes off.
The police drop Jess off at the party, and Jess freaks out to see the rusty Trans Am in the parking lot. She runs upstairs to tell Seth, and who do you think Seth is talking to? The crazy kid! Who is very handsome and friendly to Jess. Crazy kid looks at her like he’s trying to place where he’s seen her before, and she pulls Seth aside with a weak excuse and tells him he’s just been talking to the murderer. Seth tells her to act natural, keep crazy kid there, and not leave the party for any reason. He’s going to go call the police.
Crazy kid, who's there because his dad is friends with the sports editor, chats Jess up, but she’s terrified and comes off really rudely. He tries to get her to leave with him (he still doesn’t realize where he’s seen her before; he thinks probably at the Country Club), but she refuses. Steven calls and tells Jess that the Fiat is gone, so Jess had better make Liz come right back home when she gets to the newspaper, because Ned is going to kill her. Not the same way crazy kid will, though. Jess realizes that, if Liz is driving the Fiat, and crazy kid is about to leave, he’ll see her in the parking lot, recognize the car, think that Liz is Jess, and try to hurt her. Jess almost cries as she spells the whole story out for Steve. She looks frantically around for Seth, but Seth is still off calling the cops.
While Jess is freaking out to Steve, crazy kid leaves. As he’s pulling his car out, he sees Liz pull in and park the Fiat. She, of course, doesn’t even notice him.
He blocks the Fiat with his car, gets out, and, thinking Liz is Jess, starts crazying at her about how he knows exactly who she is, and that he’s never had a girlfriend, because the one girl he ever loved cared for someone else. He picks up a lead pipe from the floor of the garage - Excuse me while I crack up! - and tells Liz to get out of the car. She’s smart, and leans on the horn instead, and then steps on the gas and rams the Fiat into his Trans Am. He whacks her window and the whole side of her car with the pipe, and then hauls her out of the car by her hair.
The security guard comes running up with a tire iron, but crazy kid whacks him with the pipe and he crumples to the floor. Then crazy kid slams Liz’s head into the roof of her car. I thought the Fiat was a convertible? Somehow, anyway, this knocks Liz unconscious.
Jess gets there just in time to see him knock Liz out, and is almost sick with fear. She picks up the guard’s tire iron, runs up behind crazy kid, and swings like a baseball bat, right at his temple. Liz might have been knocked out by the fabric top of her car, but a tire iron to the head only dazes crazy kid. He’s down, but still conscious. Jess tries desperately to revive Liz, even slapping her face, but it’s no use. Jess is freaking out; they have to get away before crazy kid gets up again.
Liz finally comes to, and they run for it. Crazy kid catches up with them, and Jess whispers to Liz to run for the stairwell and get help; she’ll distract the killer. Liz bolts for the stairs and Jess lunges at crazy kid. Liz makes it: she pulls the fire alarm, and then passes out again from her bump on the head.
Just then, Seth and the building’s security guards show up. Crazy kid is about to bash Jess’s head in with the lead pipe, but Seth tackles him and the guard ties him up with rope. Rope? I don’t know why I find that funny, but I do. Jess tells them that Liz is in the stairwell, and the cops finally show up and arrest the real murderer.
Adam is a free man all thanks to the twins. Yay! Jess convinces the editor to let Seth write the story about catching the real murderer, since he was the one involved, and the editor agrees and says Jess can help him with it. They all go home, and Liz feels bad because she fainted right when Jess needed her. Jess is all blasé about it, like, “Eh, whatever. Let me make you some tea.”
Liz is also pissed off that Jess gets to write a story, since that was Liz’s big dream all summer long. Jess rightly points out that Liz has bigger things to worry about, like how much trouble she’s going to be in when Ned finds out she took the Fiat and almost got murdered. Liz realizes Jess is right, especially since the Fiat is all bashed up now. She’s in so much trouble. Hee. Just then, Ned and Alice come home and are like, “Fiat? What?” Jessica makes their parents some tea to steady their nerves - they probably would’ve preferred scotch - and the twins tell their parents what happened.
The next morning, crazy kid has confessed and is going to plead insanity. Ned was on the phone all night with the police and Adam’s lawyer and parents, nosing into their business and finding out when Adam was going to be released. We know now where Liz gets it from. The one thing Liz and Steve don’t get is the letter, but after a few seconds, Liz realizes that Jess was the only one who wanted Liz and Adam to hook up. She accuses Jess of writing it, and Jess can’t deny it while her dad is sitting right there; she doesn’t want to lie in front of him. Dammit, why is she so freaking cute in this story? I usually hate her!
Anyway, Liz tells Jess that what she did was disgusting, and Steve helpfully volunteers “Most loathsome!” Hee. Liz is all, “Adam should sue you!” Jess informs them that she told the police and their dad, even if she didn’t share it with Liz, but Liz is still furious. Jess points out that she did get Adam out of jail and save Liz’s life, so maybe they should chill.
Liz does not chill.
At the paper the next day, Jess gives Seth a hard time about not believing her. He gets to write the story of his career about this murder, and he was such a doubter about it at first. He apologizes to her and offers to take her out to dinner at the most expensive restaurant in Sweet Valley to make it up to her (not in a romantic way, though; there’s no vibe from him like that) but that’s not good enough for Jessica. She guilts him into agreeing to make her the main character in his next mystery novel: “You can change my name if you have to, but make sure you leave enough stuff in so my friends know it’s me, all right? And make sure I’m the heroine.” Hee. He promises.
Adam’s mom is a nice lady: she tells him she knows he’s still suffering, because he might be out of jail but Laurie’s still dead. Adam’s more determined than ever to be a lawyer, to keep people like crazy kid off the streets. A vigilante attorney! Awesome! Adam says that he saw Laurie’s grandfather at the police station as he was being released, and Grandpa shook his hand and said he was wrong about Adam. Well, duh. You wanted your seventeen year old granddaughter to marry the guy who murdered her, and wouldn’t listen to her when she tried to tell you he was unbalanced. Good luck sleeping at night, Laurie’s grandpa.
Jess is pissed off that the paper ran the story with Seth’s byline, but no mention that she helped write it too. Liz points out that it makes sense: after all, Jess is just an intern. And, also, that it serves Jess right for forging letters. Hee.
And that’s the end!
For our Halloween week!
This book was sitting on the bed, and my husband saw it and said, “Oh my God, are they trying to put her on trial again?” HA!
In case you’re interested, I think it’s called Double Jeopardy because the twins are in jeopardy and there are two of them. Clever!
Also, Liz's outfit is fug.
It’s summer vacation, and Jess and Liz have copyediting internships at the Sweet Valley News. It was Liz’s idea, of course, but Ned and Alice made Jess do it too. Jess was pretty annoyed, until she got an eyeful of Seth Miller, the sexy ace reporter. Jess snooped in their boss’s files for Seth’s resume, and discovered that he has an MA in investigative journalism and writes mystery novels under a fake name. She tried to get them from the library, but they were checked out. Jess is determined to get him by the end of the summer (wouldn’t he be way too old for her?) and her strategy will be to give him mysteries and then help him solve them. She can be like Watson to his Holmes! Brilliant plan! Liz is dating Jeffrey right now, but he’s working as a counselor at sleepaway camp. Jess is a little concerned that Liz will want to go after Seth too, since they’re both smart and like writing, but she doesn’t have to worry: Liz is determined to be faithful. That’ll last.
Steve is home to intern at Ned’s litigation firm. His friend Adam will be interning at a criminal firm. He couldn’t afford to rent a place in Sweet Valley, so he’ll spend the summer sleeping on a cot in Steven’s room. Jess is very unhappy at this. She thinks their house is cramped enough as it is, and she’s annoyed at having to clear her extra clothes and records out of Steve’s closet, since he needs it now. But when Liz tries to make her feel better by saying that Adam’s hot, Jess has her brainwave: if she can hook Liz up with Adam, then (a) she won’t have to worry about Liz chasing Seth; (b) she won’t have to feel guilty about having more fun with boys than Liz does; and (c) she can break Liz up from Jeffrey, since monogamy is futile. Hee. She's got Liz's number, for sure.
The twins, Enid, and Lila hang out at the beach. Jess has obviously enlisted Lila in her plan, because Lila is all, “Hey, Liz, this Adam guy sounds nice and hot! But poor. But okay for you!” Liz reads a letter from Jeffrey that his campers are tormenting him: they put toothpaste in his shoes and a frog in his trunk. Jeffrey is such a dork. Lila is all, “Nobody acted that way at my camp,” and Enid points out, “That’s because you went to finishing camp. They don’t have frogs in Switzerland.” Ha! Now I’m imagining Lila weaving lanyards with diamonds in them.
Adam is indeed nice and hot, but also kind of an oversharer. In his first scene, which is only about four pages long, he tells the Wakefields all of his business: first off, his parents are farmers. He has an orphan fi-girlfriend (the ghostwriter’s subtle way of indicating a secret fiancée, I believe) named Laurie who was raised by her billionaire grandfather’s servants. Grandpa wants her to marry the unstable son of a business associate - Just like a merger, but with sex and insanity! - and has threatened to cut her off if she stays with Adam. She says she doesn’t care, but she and Adam are keeping the relationship a secret, so she totally does care. Adam’s lack of boundaries with these people he just met clearly weirds out Ned and Alice, which is kind of funny. They’re just like, “Um…well…if you ever want to talk….” He begs them not to tell Grandpa about Laurie and him, and they’re all, “Um…okay…we don’t even know him, so…I mean…why would we?” Hee.
Jess spies on their neighbor, who’s transplanting a bush or something. She’s tells Liz, “He’s been digging for so long! With some imagination, I could turn this into a way to get to know Seth.” Liz tells her that good reporters don’t snoop and accuse people of things. Somewhere, Woodward and Bernstein polish their Pulitzers and nod sagely in agreement: no good investigative journalism ever came from snooping. Jess plays up how lonely Adam must be, and Liz agrees that she should make an extra effort to be friends with him. Jess is pleased: Laurie sounds depressing, and she thinks Liz would be much better for him. Oh, and also, Adam’s law firm is in the same building as the twins’ newspaper. They plan to get together for lunch. The parking garage in the building is creepy. Foreshadowing ahoy!
God, there has been so much exposition in these first two chapters. Everyone is so chatty.
At the newspaper, Jess tells Seth that according to a “source” of hers, a fire at the Box Tree Café was actually arson. Seth jumps right in his car to go check it out, dragging Jess with him. When they get there, though, the manager laughs in their faces. A pan caught on fire and ignited a few dishtowels, that’s all. Seth is annoyed, but Jess, though embarrassed about being laughed at, insists she never would’ve wasted his time. Seth is a good sport about it, and they’re chatting easily by the time they get back to the paper.
A plot on Lila’s favorite soap opera gives Jess an idea: it’s always easier to fall in love with someone if you think he likes you back, so she’s going to plant a love letter from Adam in Liz’s room. Jess uses Liz’s typewriter and slaves over the note, working hard to make sure it sounds like something Adam would write. When she’s finished, even she acknowledges that the letter is a little insane, but she leaves it under Liz’s pillow anyway. Liz is really weirded out when she finds it: she thinks that things must have gotten so tough with Laurie that Adam temporarily snapped:
Dear Liz,
Please don’t think I’m a terrible coward to write to you instead of bringing this up in person. I guess I am a coward. If I weren’t, I would have broken up with Laurie the minute I met you.
Liz, it’s true. I’m in love with you. I know I haven’t shown it, and the truth is, I won’t be able to show it to you. Not yet. Not until I figure out what to do about Laurie. She’s so vulnerable-I don’t want to hurt her until I have to. So please be patient with me if I treat you like just another friend while I’m trying to get it all sorted out. You know you’re not just another friend to me. I love you. I can’t live without you. You’re all I really want in this whole world, and if I can’t figure out something soon, I may have to do something drastic.
Love,
Adam
Liz decides to pretend the letter never happened, so Adam will know she’s not interested. Wouldn’t it be better to talk to him about it? Guess not.
For such an ace reporter, Seth sure is bad at his job. When Jessica comes up to him the next day, saying she knows who committed some bank robbery, he opens a blank document and just starts typing her story. She spins out this whole crazy fiction about her next door neighbor, the gardener, burying the money in his yard, inventing sources and evidence and everything. Seth doesn’t even check anything out; he just hits print and turns it in. The editor busts them right away, of course, and they both almost get fired. Jess begs him to take it all out on her, though. Seth gets to keep his job (even though he shouldn’t) and Jess is transferred from the features department to fiscal services or something, entering numbers on a spreadsheet all day. When she and Seth get out of the editor’s office, delusional Jessica thinks Seth owes her a thank you for taking all the responsibility. He’s like, “You little snot, you were responsible. I almost lost my whole career just now!” Well, he’s the adult who checked his journalistic ethics at the door, here. She’s just a stupid kid. Jess says, “I’m sure once you think about it you’ll realize how unselfishly I behaved, and you’ll probably want to take me to dinner or something.” Hee! Can’t blame a girl for trying. Seth tells her to get lost, and poor Jess heads sadly off to her spreadsheets.
She works on them for so long that she doesn’t get out of the office until late at night. As she heads to her car, she notices the parking attendant is gone. Adam’s car, a silver VW, is still in the garage, and Jess briefly thinks about calling him to have dinner with her, but decides she’s tired and just wants to go home. As Jess gets to the Fiat, she hears a loud noise and turns. A blond guy at the other end of the floor has just slammed the trunk of his white Trans Am shut (she notices that the car has an S-shaped rust stain on the door). The guy carries a big bundle wrapped in a green blanket. Jess thinks for a moment…but no, it’s just her overactive imagination again. He shifts the bundle, and a woman’s hand drops out. Not a dismembered hand or anything. It’s still attached to her arm, which is still attached to the rest of her.
Jess realizes, all at once, that she was right. He’s carrying a dead body, and at the same moment that she sees his face, he looks up and sees hers. She jumps in the Fiat, terrified, and speeds out as fast as she can, her only thought to get to someone who can protect her. Good instinct, considering so often these kids want to handle everything themselves and never involve their parents.
Jess speeds home. She knows she has to call the police, but she doesn’t want to do it until someone’s with her, because she’s scared to be questioned alone. This seems pretty realistic to me, how a terrified girl would act. Her family is at the movies, though. Freaking out, the first person Jessica calls is Lila! Aw! Unfortunately, Lila’s not home, and neither is Amy. Truly panicked, not knowing where else to turn, Jess calls Seth. He chews her out some more, but her frantic sobbing convinces him that something’s frightened her badly, so he finally agrees to come over. Jessica wants to call the police as soon as he arrives, but he doesn’t let her. Instead, he loads her into the car and drives her back to the garage. Seth insists that it’s important they go back, in case the guy is still there. That way, they can get his license plate number. For a man who’s supposed to be a genius, Seth is pretty dumb.
The guard at the parking lot tells them that he was there the whole time, but finally admits that he left for ten minutes to make a phone call. The Trans Am is gone. Seth kind of doesn’t believe Jess, but he can see that something upset her. The rest of the family is home when Seth and Jess get back to the Wakefields’ house. Seth won’t come in with her, even though she asks him to; he just tells her to explain to her parents what happened and then have her dad take her to the police station to file a report, and drives away. He’s pretty nonchalant about this whole thing. People must get killed around Seth all the time. He’s like Miss Marple.
Jess comes in sobbing, and tells her whole family the story. Liz is skeptical, and Jess is infuriated that her sister thinks she’s a liar. (Well, Jess, you kind of are a liar. If only Ned and Alice had read Jess “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” when she was little!) Ned makes her slow down and tell the story again, encouraging her to remember every detail and chose her words carefully. Jess does, and then cries that the guy saw her and will probably come after her, so they have to call the police right away. Steve is weird here: it’s late and he’s tired, so he thinks they should all go to bed and call the police in the morning. Jess is like, “I don’t think you get that this is murder and is an important emergency, Steven!”
Steve is a little more motivated when the phone rings, though. It’s Adam, and he’s been arrested for first degree murder. The dead girl? Was Laurie! Adam found her strangled in his trunk and called the police right away. They found a rope (the murder weapon) in his glove box and have booked him; they need Jess to come downtown right away to give her statement. Steven is enraged. Adam loved Laurie! He would never hurt anyone!
I can’t imagine how traumatic it was for poor Adam to find his dead fi-girlfriend in the trunk of his car. Sweet Valley Pathos.
The police take Jess’s statement and have her describe the man she saw to a sketch artist. They say they’ll try to find him, but Adam is still their prime suspect because Laurie was in his trunk. It turns out they were secretly engaged, because her trust fund, worth millions, was going to pay out in two weeks when she turned 18. The police think Adam was marrying her for her money to - I’m not even kidding - pay off the credit card debt he ran up buying textbooks. Hee! Unless his textbooks were made of gold, that’s the worst motive ever! The police tell Jess that they’re all scared too, because nothing like this has ever happened in Sweet Valley before. Well, think of it this way: it’ll be great practice for them for when Psychotic Margo shows up.
Adam can’t afford the half million dollars bail, and neither can the Wakefields, so he’ll have to stay in custody. When she finally gets home, Jess is so scared of the killer coming for her that Liz sleeps in Jess’s bed with her. Aw!
The next morning, news about Laurie’s murder has broken to the general public. Seth is suddenly very interested in Jessica, and offers to let her help him research the story. She swears that Adam couldn’t have done it, and so they decide to start by talking to everyone who knew Adam and Laurie, to figure out who might have motive.
Liz agonizes over that crazy letter Jess wrote from Adam (“I don’t want to hurt her until I have to. I may have to do something drastic.”) and finally decides to show it to her dad. After all, what if Adam murdered Laurie because he couldn’t live with the guilt of loving Elizabeth? Someone sure thinks a lot of herself. That’s even crazier than killing Laurie for textbook money.
Reporters keep calling the house to talk to Steve, wanting the scoop on Adam, making Steve very unhappy. Steve tells Jess that nobody would ever want to hurt Adam and Laurie, but Jess has a better memory than her brother: she suggests the crazy kid Grandpa wanted Laurie to marry. She and Steve take off for the jail to badger Adam about it. Adam doesn’t buy their theory: the crazy kid loved Laurie, and though he was indeed quite crazy, he wouldn’t have hurt her. That means he did it, y’all. I can tell because I’ve read a book before. Adam doesn’t feel like fighting his legal battle. Since Laurie is dead, he doesn’t see the point. He’s pretty depressed, and understandably so, crying through most of Jess and Steve’s visit.
When Jess fills the family in on Adam’s depression, Ned hilariously says: “Adam’s a country boy, used to fresh air and open spaces. To be locked up like that must be torture.” Country boys are like ponies that way.
Ned does some actual responsible parenting, telling the twins they’re not allowed to go anywhere alone until this is all over, and tells Liz the killer might come after her because he doesn’t know Jess is a twin. Liz hadn’t thought of that, and is extra scared now. Ned also tells them they’re not allowed to take the Fiat anywhere, because the killer might recognize it. If they need to go somewhere, they can get a ride from their parents or Steven, or take the bus. (The bus!) Ned also says that, though the police and DA are going through with indicting Adam, they’re still looking for the Trans Am guy and not discounting the possibility that he’s the real killer.
Worst police force ever? Y/N?
Well, look on the bright side. Adam’s lawsuit after they let him go will pay for all the textbooks he could ever want.
Steve tells Jess about the fake letter from Adam that Liz and Ned gave to the police, and Jess is like, “Oh, crap.”
Jess can’t bring herself to confess to her family that she wrote the letter, but she goes to the police station and tells them the whole story about Jeffrey going to sleepaway camp and Lila’s soap opera and how Jess was trying to get Liz and Adam together. The cop thinks she’s insane. He believes her, but says the DA would just think she’s lying to protect Adam, especially since she’s the one who’s claiming she saw the Trans Am guy too. He asks Jess to sign an affidavit swearing that she wrote the letter, but to keep the fact that she wrote it quiet for now, because they don’t want it getting out and making the Trans Am guy nervous. Jess is happy to do that, because it’ll postpone her getting in trouble with Elizabeth. Hee. Why does Jessica make me like her so much in this book? She finally does tell her dad too, who says he’ll leave it up to her whether she wants to come clean to her sister.
At the paper, Seth is depressed because a reporter named Dan wrote a front page story about the letter. Seth wants to be the one covering the murder, and he would be if he hadn’t turned in Jess’s fiction about the bank robbery. Seth has no one to blame but himself, I think. To make Seth feel better, and because she feels guilty for hampering his career, Jess breaks her promise to the cop and tells Seth that she was the one who wrote the letter, but even though he asks why, she won’t tell him because she’s a little embarrassed, which I find kind of endearing. Seth decides to try to scoop Dan, and tells Jess she can help if she wants. She says she will, if he’ll help her find the Trans Am guy. He's like, “I thought you wanted to hide from that guy?” but agrees anyway. It’s the story of the decade, after all.
Until Psychotic Margo comes to town, that is.
Seth and Jess fret about how they’re going to get any info out of Adam as long as he’s depressed, and finally Jess decides the thing to do is make him angry to snap him out of it. So they march down to the jail to antagonize the boy with the dead fiancée. Jess gets in his face all, “Are you just going to let this happen to you? Don’t you want the person who murdered Laurie and framed you to suffer?” That’s all it takes; Adam’s not depressed anymore. He tells them the crazy kid Grandpa wanted Laurie to marry does have blond hair. The crazy kid also knew Laurie was with Adam. Adam’s confused by the alleged motive, though: Grandpa was going to cut Laurie off for being with Adam, so Adam doesn’t get the allegations that he killed her for money or whatever. Well, that’s why your marriage was going to be a secret, Adam. Duh. We’ll have to assume Adam hasn’t heard the portion of the crime theory where he somehow gets textbook money by killing Laurie, since that’s the convincing part.
Jess is supposed to meet Lila at the Dairi Burger, but Liz and Steve are out with Steve’s car. They’re late and Jess really misses Lila (Aw!), so Jess gives in to temptation and takes the Fiat. She happily drives along until she checks her rearview mirror and sees the Trans Am driving behind her. Smart Jessica heads right for the police station and calls her parents, who come get her. They’re enraged and terrified, as you would be, and ground her until the Trans Am guy is caught. I am bewildered by Ned and Alice’s responsible parenting. Isn’t this supposed to be Sweet Valley?
Throughout this book, the newspaper has been planning an office party. Jess is allowed to go, even though she's grounded, because it's a work thing. The night of the party, Steve, Ned, and Alice are all going out. Steve leaves his car keys for the twins in case they need them - “NO FIAT!” Ned reminds them - but tells the girls to be careful of the clutch because it’s not working right. Of course it isn’t. Jess thinks that maybe, after the party, she could get Seth to take her to Miller’s Point for some makeout time. Hee. Good luck with that.
Seth is supposed to pick the girls up, but he calls and begs off because he’s stuck working on a story. Then the police call and need Jess to come to the station to look at something important. Jess tells them she can’t tonight because of the office party, but she could come by in the morning. They insist she has to come now. She doesn’t want to, because then she’d have to bring Liz. Jess thinks the police want to see her because of something to do with her affidavit about the letter, and she wants to postpone Liz knowing about that as long as she possibly can. The cops offer to pick her up and then drive her to the party after. What service! The Sweet Valley taxpayers must be thrilled! Jess finally agrees, so she takes off for the station in a cop car.
The police have a photo they want Jess to ID. Sure enough, it’s a photo of the Trans Am guy, aka the crazy kid Grandpa wanted Laurie to marry. You may be interested to know that, in Sweet Valley, even the murderers are hot.
Liz can't get Steve’s broken car to start. The cab company won’t be able to pick her up for at least an hour. Liz is in a bind: she can either take the bus (The bus!), which would mean walking to the bus stop alone, which her dad told her not to do, or take the Fiat, which her dad also told her not to do, or disappoint her boss at the newspaper by not coming to the party, in which case he probably wouldn’t let her write a little story by the end of the summer, which she’d been hoping to do. So, thinking that she’s being pretty reasonable, all things considered, she goes through all her dad’s stuff until she finds the Fiat keys and takes off.
The police drop Jess off at the party, and Jess freaks out to see the rusty Trans Am in the parking lot. She runs upstairs to tell Seth, and who do you think Seth is talking to? The crazy kid! Who is very handsome and friendly to Jess. Crazy kid looks at her like he’s trying to place where he’s seen her before, and she pulls Seth aside with a weak excuse and tells him he’s just been talking to the murderer. Seth tells her to act natural, keep crazy kid there, and not leave the party for any reason. He’s going to go call the police.
Crazy kid, who's there because his dad is friends with the sports editor, chats Jess up, but she’s terrified and comes off really rudely. He tries to get her to leave with him (he still doesn’t realize where he’s seen her before; he thinks probably at the Country Club), but she refuses. Steven calls and tells Jess that the Fiat is gone, so Jess had better make Liz come right back home when she gets to the newspaper, because Ned is going to kill her. Not the same way crazy kid will, though. Jess realizes that, if Liz is driving the Fiat, and crazy kid is about to leave, he’ll see her in the parking lot, recognize the car, think that Liz is Jess, and try to hurt her. Jess almost cries as she spells the whole story out for Steve. She looks frantically around for Seth, but Seth is still off calling the cops.
While Jess is freaking out to Steve, crazy kid leaves. As he’s pulling his car out, he sees Liz pull in and park the Fiat. She, of course, doesn’t even notice him.
He blocks the Fiat with his car, gets out, and, thinking Liz is Jess, starts crazying at her about how he knows exactly who she is, and that he’s never had a girlfriend, because the one girl he ever loved cared for someone else. He picks up a lead pipe from the floor of the garage - Excuse me while I crack up! - and tells Liz to get out of the car. She’s smart, and leans on the horn instead, and then steps on the gas and rams the Fiat into his Trans Am. He whacks her window and the whole side of her car with the pipe, and then hauls her out of the car by her hair.
The security guard comes running up with a tire iron, but crazy kid whacks him with the pipe and he crumples to the floor. Then crazy kid slams Liz’s head into the roof of her car. I thought the Fiat was a convertible? Somehow, anyway, this knocks Liz unconscious.
Jess gets there just in time to see him knock Liz out, and is almost sick with fear. She picks up the guard’s tire iron, runs up behind crazy kid, and swings like a baseball bat, right at his temple. Liz might have been knocked out by the fabric top of her car, but a tire iron to the head only dazes crazy kid. He’s down, but still conscious. Jess tries desperately to revive Liz, even slapping her face, but it’s no use. Jess is freaking out; they have to get away before crazy kid gets up again.
Liz finally comes to, and they run for it. Crazy kid catches up with them, and Jess whispers to Liz to run for the stairwell and get help; she’ll distract the killer. Liz bolts for the stairs and Jess lunges at crazy kid. Liz makes it: she pulls the fire alarm, and then passes out again from her bump on the head.
Just then, Seth and the building’s security guards show up. Crazy kid is about to bash Jess’s head in with the lead pipe, but Seth tackles him and the guard ties him up with rope. Rope? I don’t know why I find that funny, but I do. Jess tells them that Liz is in the stairwell, and the cops finally show up and arrest the real murderer.
Adam is a free man all thanks to the twins. Yay! Jess convinces the editor to let Seth write the story about catching the real murderer, since he was the one involved, and the editor agrees and says Jess can help him with it. They all go home, and Liz feels bad because she fainted right when Jess needed her. Jess is all blasé about it, like, “Eh, whatever. Let me make you some tea.”
Liz is also pissed off that Jess gets to write a story, since that was Liz’s big dream all summer long. Jess rightly points out that Liz has bigger things to worry about, like how much trouble she’s going to be in when Ned finds out she took the Fiat and almost got murdered. Liz realizes Jess is right, especially since the Fiat is all bashed up now. She’s in so much trouble. Hee. Just then, Ned and Alice come home and are like, “Fiat? What?” Jessica makes their parents some tea to steady their nerves - they probably would’ve preferred scotch - and the twins tell their parents what happened.
The next morning, crazy kid has confessed and is going to plead insanity. Ned was on the phone all night with the police and Adam’s lawyer and parents, nosing into their business and finding out when Adam was going to be released. We know now where Liz gets it from. The one thing Liz and Steve don’t get is the letter, but after a few seconds, Liz realizes that Jess was the only one who wanted Liz and Adam to hook up. She accuses Jess of writing it, and Jess can’t deny it while her dad is sitting right there; she doesn’t want to lie in front of him. Dammit, why is she so freaking cute in this story? I usually hate her!
Anyway, Liz tells Jess that what she did was disgusting, and Steve helpfully volunteers “Most loathsome!” Hee. Liz is all, “Adam should sue you!” Jess informs them that she told the police and their dad, even if she didn’t share it with Liz, but Liz is still furious. Jess points out that she did get Adam out of jail and save Liz’s life, so maybe they should chill.
Liz does not chill.
At the paper the next day, Jess gives Seth a hard time about not believing her. He gets to write the story of his career about this murder, and he was such a doubter about it at first. He apologizes to her and offers to take her out to dinner at the most expensive restaurant in Sweet Valley to make it up to her (not in a romantic way, though; there’s no vibe from him like that) but that’s not good enough for Jessica. She guilts him into agreeing to make her the main character in his next mystery novel: “You can change my name if you have to, but make sure you leave enough stuff in so my friends know it’s me, all right? And make sure I’m the heroine.” Hee. He promises.
Adam’s mom is a nice lady: she tells him she knows he’s still suffering, because he might be out of jail but Laurie’s still dead. Adam’s more determined than ever to be a lawyer, to keep people like crazy kid off the streets. A vigilante attorney! Awesome! Adam says that he saw Laurie’s grandfather at the police station as he was being released, and Grandpa shook his hand and said he was wrong about Adam. Well, duh. You wanted your seventeen year old granddaughter to marry the guy who murdered her, and wouldn’t listen to her when she tried to tell you he was unbalanced. Good luck sleeping at night, Laurie’s grandpa.
Jess is pissed off that the paper ran the story with Seth’s byline, but no mention that she helped write it too. Liz points out that it makes sense: after all, Jess is just an intern. And, also, that it serves Jess right for forging letters. Hee.
And that’s the end!