Child’s Play

Everything thirteen-year-old Eden Jones knows, she learned from watching television. Bethanne Swanson learned her lessons from fifty years in the school of hard knocks. Both feel like losers. Yet a tragedy in small-town West Virginia brings them together and forces them to tap resources they never knew they had. Eden’s best friend and Bethanne’s sister are found dead in a yellow Mercedes at the bottom of Lake Charles. Why would the poverty-stricken teen, Ray-Jean, have been riding with Mary Margaret, the town’s wealthiest woman? Did someone tamper with the car, causing it to plunge into the lake? Eden and Bethanne pool their talents and follow clues that no one seems to want discovered. What secrets are Mary Margaret’s family hiding? Did Ray-Jean’s snooping go too far? What role do the town’s most prominent citizens play? As these two unlikely partners unearth the sordid facts, their bond grows beyond a bumbling collaboration between amateur sleuths. Despite their differences in age and experience, they end up not just friends but true soulmates.