The Inmate

“This is not where I want to be right now. At all. Who wants to be in a maximum-security penitentiary? I’m going to wager nobody wants that. If you are within these walls, you may have made some poor life choices along the way.”

Brooke’s description of a maximum-security prison suggests that she, too, has also made “poor life choices.” At this moment, it is unclear if she is a prisoner; the ambiguity adds to the suspense and touches on one of the requirements of a psychological thriller, the questionable mental state of the main character.

“There was an age when Mommy coming home was followed by the scrambling of little feet and a warm body hurling itself at my knees. Those kinds of greetings are less common now that Josh has turned ten years old. He still loves me, don’t get me wrong, just not so emphatically.”

Brooke is an attentive mother who has noted the differences between the greetings of toddlers, preschoolers, and older children. Brooke’s relationship with Josh is affectionate; even if he has outgrown running to her, there is still a caring response to her return home.

“If they knew I was sitting in a car a block away from my house with Shane Nelson, it would be bad. And if they knew it will actually be Shane’s house where I’ll be spending the night tonight…well, I don’t even want to know what they would do. For starters, I would be grounded. And not the kind of grounded where I don’t get to play video games or get deprived of an extra serving of dessert. I would be yanked out of high school, probably homeschooled, and never allowed to leave my bedroom ever again. That kind of grounded.”

Brooke’s description of how her parents would respond to her sleeping with Shane seems typical of a teenager’s overreaction to her parents’ protective behavior. However, as the novel progresses and more is revealed about Brooke’s parents, readers learn that Brooke’s parents are wary of Shane and his family for a different reason. They know more about Shane Nelson and his mother than Brooke does, and they are worried about the extremes Pamela could go to for revenge.