1st 5 Pages October Workshop- Rowley Rev 2

Name: Mary Rowley
Genre: Young Adult Mystery
Title: The Secrets That Divide Us

Pitch:

Sixteen-year-old Lizzie Lowe is a plucky girl from the wrong side of Santa Monica Boulevard. Her life is upended when a millionaire grandfather she's never heard of shows up. What’s more, he wants Lizzie's bone marrow for her secret twin sister in England. Her dad loathes the old man for stealing away one of his daughters in the wake of their mom’s death, but Lizzie jumps at the chance to help the sibling she’s always wanted. 

The sisters’ reunion is amazing, but everything inside grandfather’s Gothic mansion—from the gun room to the sinister housekeeper—gives Lizzie the creeps. And Lizzie finds a letter that implicates multiple suspects in her mother’s murder. Since grandpa quashed the police investigation, she has no idea whom to trust.

When her sister is hospitalized, Lizzie has no one to turn to but Teddy, her sister’s gorgeous but cocky prep-school classmate. Though they clash at first, attraction flares as they race to unravel the family mystery. But everyone at Blackweald Hall is hiding something, and digging up old secrets may provoke the murderer to kill again.

THE SECRETS THAT DIVIDE US is a 65,000-word YA mystery with romantic elements.

Pages:

It was rush hour in West Los Angeles, and belching car exhaust was conspiring with an end-of-summer heatwave to suffocate me. There wasn’t even a breeze to stir the towering palms on Santa Monica Boulevard as I pedaled my Schwinn home from the library. On the up side, I was zipping past the six lanes of crawling traffic. On the down side, sweat plastered my shirt to my chest and soaked my bra. I raced across the Boulevard as the light was about to change.

“Get out of the way, kid!” yelled a guy in a beat up El Camino. 

“Sure thing!” I called back with mock cheerfulness, resisting the urge to flip him the bird. “But I’m not a kid—I’m sixteen.” I flashed him a grin, but he scowled back, gunned his engine, and drove away in a cloud of black smoke. The heat was making everyone cranky.

I had been hiding out in the cool refuge of the library all day. There were about a million reasons it had become my favorite haunt over the summer. First, unlike our tiny apartment, the library was air conditioned. Second, I was almost guaranteed not to run into anyone from Santa Monica High there. (News flash: Punching your gropey football player date on prom night does not boost your social life.) Third, I was avoiding the hella awkward situation at home with my dad and his new wife, Sonia. 

Okay, that was only three reasons, but no matter how much I wanted to stay at the library, my dad insisted I come home for “family dinner” every night. So I was sweating my way toward the deafening roar of the 405 freeway and our dishwater-toned stucco building. Skidding to a halt in our lot, I locked my bike to a pipe and trudged up the cement steps. 

The spicy aroma of fajitas enveloped me as I opened the door, and my mouth gushed saliva. Stupid traitorous taste buds.

“Hi, Lizzie.” Sonia turned from where she was stir-frying meat and vegetables. Somehow, despite being eight months pregnant, Sonia managed to make glistening with perspiration look beautiful. “I’m almost done here, if you want to set the table.” 

“Uh-huh, let me just set my stuff down.” I only had to walk a few steps to reach my coat closet of a room. Between the bed, desk, and window, there wasn’t much real estate for anything else, but I’d decorated with a Pride and Prejudice print and world map, so I could dream of my escape in a couple years. Despite how cramped my room was, I was grateful to have a quiet place to settle in with a book, whether it was one of my dad’s classics or a juicy murder mystery. I eased my book-laden bag off my back, dropped it on my desk, then tugged my shirt to release it from my sticky skin.

Back in the kitchen, I grabbed mismatched plates and silverware, fanned them across the table, and plonked down into my chair. I picked at a new chip in the table’s Formica while I waited.

My dad came out of his room, his surfer’s hair a jumble of waves and reading glasses still on. He’d probably been doing some lesson planning for his big new job at UCLA. He’d been stressing over it for weeks. 

“Lizzie, glad you could make it.” He smiled at me as sat.

“Yep. Here I am.” To me the joke of it was calling it family dinner. My mom had died soon after I was born, so my dad and I had been our own little family ever since—a team. Then Dad met Sonia last year when they were both teaching at Santa Monica College. He’d started dating her without telling me, then he’d gotten her pregnant and married her, like, two seconds later. As stepmothers go, she treated me okay, but I’d felt completely betrayed. And I’d never felt less like a family.

Sonia set the sizzling fajita pan and plate of warm tortillas in front of us. Dad beamed up at her as he thanked her. I made a tight-lipped face that could have been either a smile or a grimace and mumbled my thanks. 

We started eating. Sonia’s cooking was frustratingly delicious.

“Alex, were you able to finish your syllabus?” She was asking, when a knock sounded at the door.

“You expecting someone?” Dad nodded at me.

“Nope.” I shrugged. Hadn’t he noticed I hadn’t had anyone over since my best friend Shauna moved away last year?
 
He got up and opened the door. After a heavy moment of dead air, he said, “What the hell are you doing here?” 

I arched my body to see who was at the door. A snowy-haired stranger was staring back at me. He had crisply ironed trousers, a suit jacket folded over his arm, and a leather briefcase. His hair still showed tiny precise lines from a recent combing. Everything about his appearance screamed money—the exact opposite of our dingy apartment and its chipped plaster walls. 

He faced my dad and spoke with a posh British accent. “I’m here for Elizabeth. I need to bring her to England to help Anne.”

Okay, what was that? Go to England? Who's Anne?

My dad jammed his index finger into an old man’s chest. “You can’t show up here after sixteen years and expect me to help you with anything. Does Annie even really need help?” 

The stranger looked past my dad, and his lips curved into a smile. “Is that Elizabeth I see?” 

I got up and stood beside my dad. “Hey, are you gonna tell me who this is?”

“Elizabeth, dear,” the old man said, “You’ve grown into such a beautiful young lady. And you look so much like your mother did at your age—except Philippa’s hair was longer.” He reached out as if to stroke my head, but I shied away like a boxer ducking a jab.

I ran my fingers through my shaggy blonde mane. I was light-years out of the loop and needed someone to fill me in.

“He’s nobody—” Dad said.

“I am your grandfather, Archer Cavendish,” the man said at the same time.

“Oh, really?” I said it like he’d just told me he was Santa Claus. “‘Cause my dad said all my grandparents died years ago.”

“If Alexander told you I was dead, he lied.” Archer eyed my dad, jaw tight.

“Is that true, Dad? Is this my grandfather?” My dad stood ramrod straight with his fists balled tight next to his body. I’d never seen him this mad—he was generally pretty chill for an English professor.
 
“Yes—technically—Archer is your grandfather,” he said. “Your mom was his daughter. But Archer lost any right to claim you as family years ago.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“Your father is angry because of what happened with your sister after my sweet Philippa died.”
 
“Wait. Hold up. What? Did you say I had a sister?” No way. There had to be a mistake. I didn’t have a sister—even though I’d always talked about wanting one. Dad never would have kept that from me.

“No, dear, you have a sister. A twin sister called Anne,” Archer said. “She lives with me in a lovely country house south of London. Now she’s terribly ill and needs your help, which is why I’ve come.”