Moment of Truth
Chapters (47)
- Cover
- Dedication
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- 2 Months Later
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
- Books by Kasie West
- Back Ad
- About the Publisher
Cover
Dedication
To my soul mate sister, Stephanie Ryan. Love you!
One
I moved my arms in a windmill as I stared out over the pool in front of me. The water had calmed from the last race and the still night made it look like glass. I couldn’t wait to break through its surface. I rotated my head side to side to the beat of the music blasting through my headphones. My music was loud but I sensed a hush come over the watching crowd. That wasn’t normal. I brought my brows together, determined not to think about it. I needed to stay in the zone. No distractions.
The shrill sound of microphone feedback cut through my music. I tugged out a single earbud and looked up. The first thing I saw was my dad. He sat in the middle of the bleachers with a goofy grin on his face. He waved. Mom was next to him, typing something into her phone.
The feedback sounded again and then someone cleared their throat into the microphone. The noise wasn’t coming from the booth, where the announcer was looking around, just as confused as the crowd.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the voice said. “May I present Heath Hall.”
“What the—?” I mumbled. “No.”
A low buzz of chatter rippled through the audience.
“The guy from the movies?” someone behind me asked. “Is he here?”
I knew the real Heath Hall wasn’t here. Well, obviously. Heath Hall was a spy hero character played by the actor Grant James. But the person about to appear was neither the character nor the actor. The person about to appear was some attention-seeker who I’d successfully ignored until this point.
The coaches and officials moved around the pool, searching for the interruption. That’s when a guy in a Speedo and rash guard emerged from the locker room across the way, hands in the air. He was wearing a Heath Hall mask. Not one of those cheap, plastic, fake-looking masks but a high-quality, very realistic version of Heath Hall encased his head. The same exact mask I’d seen in online pictures classmates had posted over the years of him causing public disturbances. If I were closer I would’ve seen the electronic eyepiece and scar running along his right cheek that some mask maker had painted on so we wouldn’t mistake this mask for another one of Grant James’s characters.
The impersonator let out a guttural yell and charged straight for the pool. My mouth dropped open. The coaches rounded the pool but weren’t fast enough to catch him before he jumped in feetfirst. The voice over the rogue microphone said, “Go, go, go!”