The book starts out with Ffion waking up on New Years Day next to a man that she met at a bar the night before. As she sneaks out, she tries to remember his name – Marcus.
‘She hates it when she can’t remember their names. It feels…. slutty.’
When she arrives home, she chats with her mom and sister and finds out that a man was found floating in the lake for the New Year’s Day swim.
The book the transfers over to Leo Brady’s point of view. He is a Detective Constable for Cheshire Major Crimes Unit. He is off to identify the body that has washed up. It is believed to be a missing person that was reported from The Shore, Rhys Lloyd.
On his drive over, he calls his ex-wife to talk to his son and wish him a happy new year. She eludes to an incident that she could turn him over to social services. Upon arriving at the morgue, he sees a woman ‘Harriet’ that he had a one night stand with. It turns out the ‘Harriet’ is Ffion and Lloyd is ‘Marcus’, from the first chapter. Izzy Weaver, the pathologist at the morgue, shows them the body and they confirm is is Rhys. Ffion and Leo head over to The Shore, a fancy property owned by Rhys, to inform his family he has been found. When they arrive, Ffion tells Leo the backstory of the property and why it is not viewed highly by the locals. Leo and Ffion break the news to Rhys’ wife, daughters and mother that he has been found dead and need someone to make an identification.
Leo and Ffion take to interviewing the residents of The Shore. They don’t get anything useful about Rhys’ evening. Ffion goes to watch the CCTV of the entrance to the Shores – and deletes it, leaving us wondering why.
We then flash back to New Years Eve, 10pm, and in Rhys point of view. He is feeling very intoxicated and wants the party to be over. The chapter ends with him throwing up and promising to be a better man.
Flash forward to Ffion, January 2. She is telling her mother she can’t let her mom know anything about the case. She heads out of the house when Glinys calls – she is being harassed by reporters. Ffion tricks the reporters to go on a difficult trek, then heads to talk to the boat house owner, Steff Edwards, with Leo. We find out the Steff really hated Rhys and that the current would not have taken his body from The Shores to where he was found. They head back to The Shores for some more investigating. They get more information on the party that happened.
The next day, Leo looks into the stalking and threats that Rhys filed complaints about. His ex wife Allie shows up to tell him she is moving to Australia with her boyfriend and taking Harris with. We find out that Leo left Harris alone and he was scared – that’s what Allie is holding over his head.
Back at the morgue, Izzy is narrowing down the cause of death. It appears he was tied and weighted with ropes to keep him under water. He was dead before going in the water.
Flashback to New Years Eve. 9pm – Jontys point of view. He has an altercation with Steff Edwards and pushes him out of the party. Then he joins Ashleigh to snort Coke in the bathroom. He runs into Rhys, who is inebriated and it seems like the two aren’t on the best of terms. Rhys blames Jonty for his life falling apart.
Back in the present – Leo and Ffion are at Leo’s workplace for breifings. Leo’s boss keeps saying mean things about Leo. The tech report comes back from Rhys Apple Watch saying his heart rate stopped just before midnight and that hours before, his heart rate had spiked (wait – can they actually get that data that quickly?). They are looking into elim fingerprints and Caleb Northcote, Jonty and Ffion’s sister all refused to give theirs. Ffion and Leo head to get dinner to look over instagram pictures from the night and notice that Bobby has his fingers intertwined with someone’s in the background of a picture. They notice there is an award missing in Rhys’ office.
Flackback to New Year’s Eve and Ffion’s friend Mia. We find out she was a cleaner for The Shore. She is helping with the party, acting as a waitress. She is having an affair with someone and hoping to make time with them that evening. She runs into Huw (who we later find out is Ffion’s ex husband) coming in from the pontoon and trying to find Rhys. The chapter ends with Mia’s hatred towards Ashleigh.
January 4 – Ffion runs into Mia and they get into a little spat. She says she is covering up from Mia. Ffion and Leo head to The Lodge and inspect the medicine cabinet of Rhys and check out the missing award. They head to Glynis’ house and the twins and Yasmin are also there. They show Yasmin the medicine list and she seems to react to it. We find out there was an incident in his high school years where he was bullying a classmate, Ceri – who is now the postwoman. She ended up trying to overdose because of it. They then head to interrogate Jonty again about the business. The lodges were harder to sell than originally planned. They had to lower the price. They also had to lay off multiple workers and ended up hiring in Huw Ellis to finish the job and owe him 30k. Jonty holds 49% stake while Roy had 51% – at his death, 2% moved over to Jonty to make them the main share holder. Leo runs into Seren and asks her to give her fingerprints – she says she was never asked, even though Ffion said she refused.
New Year’s Eve, mid-day, Yasmin. Yasmin sees Rhys talking to someone in a car – the car leaves and he is sobbing. She tells him they are over and she is leaving him
Ffion goes to visit Huw (we find out that he is her ex!!) and asks him about being at the party. He still has the keys to The Shores since they haven’t paid him the 30k. Ffion starts looking to Number 36 – assuming it is a ‘club’ that Rhys had frequented, but it has not digital footprint. Leo goes to visit Allie and she tells him she is leaving for Australia with Harris and that Leo is a bad dad – while Leo had been taking Harris back to Allie he had seen a wanted pedophile at a bus stop. Leo decided to call it in.
At the morgue – the pathologist informs them that there was no drugs in his system and that he didn’t have a lot of alcohol either. The cut on his face wouldn’t have killed him either, but might have been enough to trigger the heart attack he ended up having that killed him. Her coworker Elijah mentions toxins that might have brought on the same symptoms. Leo and Ffion find out that the Club 36 is a brothel as they get an alert that they have find out that Yasmin Lloyd was the stalker.
December 27, Ceri. Rhys previously had tricked Ceri into bringing the mail up into his office while he is near naked on the bed. Now he gives invitations to her to deliver (for free) to ‘high class’ locals. She ends up bringing the invites to the pub and make it a free invite to all the locals instead of the high class ones that Rhys had intended to invite
Ffion and Leo are back at The Shore. Leo gets CCTV from Bobby’s door cam. They go and arrest Yasmin. Back at the station, they find out that Rhys had put a woman in the hospital at the brothel, Number 36, with taking things too roughly. We find out that Yasmin lied about the woman coming to their house in London and that she enjoyed sending the stalker messages to Rhys to make him feel squirmy. Rhys life insurance policy is worth 1.5 million dollars. It also comes out that Yasmin is having an affair with Johnty. Leo and Ffion found a burner phone and read the inappropriate texts between them. Leo gets a call from Elijah that he took some samples home and found ricin in the sample, which is a poison that can be easily grown in North Whales. Leo also sees Ffion’s car on the CCTV that Bobby gave him in the half hour span the that had been deleted on the other source. He also finds out that Huw, a main suspect, was her ex husband. Yasmin has an alibi for when Rhys died – she was singing for the group.
Christmas Day. Clemmie. They do the Christmas Day swim. After, when she is feeling happy, Rhys confronts her and tells her she needs to pay the balance (400k!) on her lodge.
Leo and Ffion head to The Shores, they find out Johnty was doing coke with Ashleigh all night and had an alibi for the murder time. They also tell Blythe that Johnty and Yasmin were having an affair. Caleb is Ashleigh’s dealer.
Christmas Eve. Blythe. Dinner with the Lloyds and the Charltons. Blythe sends Johnty to put the kids to bed with his magic touch. She suspects that Johnty is having an affair – she goes looking for evidence and finds crushed up powder.
Ffion and Leo head to talk to Angharad. Her boat is in the shop, it was dropped off the day after New Years.
October before. Rhys. They get to the Shore for mid-term break. No one is happy to be there. He sees Mia cleaning in Bobby’s lodge and makes a move on her – from his point of view, she really wants it. They are interrupted by something. Later, Clemmie goes to take a swim but needs to get rescued by Angharad, who says she will teach her and Caleb how to sail. We find out that Rhys is doing poor financially and his agent Fleur has made a campaign to have Rhys send a signed photo to his fans and they take a picture of them with the autograph and post it with a hashtag to get sales stirring.
Leo finds out that Elijah has been suspended because it seems the tests he is running were compromised by other tests he has going on at his place – he has been stealing all sorts of samples to run. Leo also admits to Ffion about what happened with his son and leaving him in a locked car to capture the perp – which earned him a commendation.
Late August. Rhys. Steffan brings over a rowboat that was hand made for the the twins in exchange for a boat rental program for residents. He hires Seren to help with his fan mail.
Ffion take Leo to her house to get Seren’s old things to give to Leo to get his apartment suitable for Harris to live with him. After he has gotten the room set up, he reaches out to a lawyer to start the process to keep his son from moving out of the country with his ex. He then scans Rhys’ phone records and finds that Rhys had called Ffion on New Year’s Eve.
Mid-August. Seren. Seren has been watching Tabby and Felicia and Caleb all summer. Caleb catches up to her in the woods and they start to hang out.
“She watches them for a bit. Clemmie is not bendy. Seren sympathizes. They did yoga in PE, and Seren spent the whole time trying not to fart.”
Ffion goes to the lake for a freezing swim to get her mind cleared. Leo goes to talk to her.. he finds out that Seren is Rhys Lloyd’s daughter with Ffion and not actually her sister.
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