Locked in Time Read online

  Malinda Lo, a former entertainment reporter, is the author of Ash and Huntress, two young adult fantasy novels. She lives in Northern California with her partner and their dog. Her website is www.malindalo.com.

  Contents

  Front Cover Image

  Welcome

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Q&A with the Author

  Lois Duncan

  Also by Lois Duncan

  Praise

  Copyright

  LOIS DUNCAN

  Lois Duncan is the author of over fifty books, ranging from children’s picture books to poetry to adult nonfiction, but is best known for her young adult suspense novels, which have received Young Readers Awards in sixteen states and three foreign countries. In 1992, Lois was presented the Margaret A. Edwards Award by the School Library Journal and the ALA Young Adult Library Services Association for “a distinguished body of adolescent literature.” In 2009, she received the St. Katharine Drexel Award, given by the Catholic Library Association “to recognize an outstanding contribution by an individual to the growth of high school and young adult librarianship and literature.”

  Lois was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and grew up in Sarasota, Florida. She knew from early childhood that she wanted to be a writer. She submitted her first story to a magazine at age ten and became published at thirteen. Throughout her high school years she wrote regularly for young people’s publications, particularly Seventeen.

  As an adult, Lois moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she taught magazine writing for the Journalism Department at the University of New Mexico and continued to write for magazines. Over three hundred of her articles and stories appeared in such publications as Ladies’ Home Journal, Redbook, McCall’s, Good Housekeeping and Reader’s Digest, and for many years she was a contributing editor for Woman’s Day.

  Six of her novels—SUMMER OF FEAR, KILLING MR. GRIFFIN, GALLOWS HILL, RANSOM, DON’T LOOK BEHIND YOU and STRANGER WITH MY FACE—were made-for-TV movies. I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER and HOTEL FOR DOGS were box office hits.

  Although young people are most familiar with Lois Duncan’s fictional suspense novels, adults may know her best as the author of WHO KILLED MY DAUGHTER?, the true story of the murder of Kaitlyn Arquette, the youngest of Lois’s children. Kait’s heartbreaking story has been featured on such TV shows as Unsolved Mysteries, Good Morning America, Larry King Live, Sally Jessy Raphael and Inside Edition. A full account of the family’s ongoing personal investigation of this still unsolved homicide can be found on the Internet at http://kaitarquette.arquettes.com.

  Lois and her husband, Don Arquette, currently live in Sarasota, Florida. They are the parents of five children.

  You can visit Lois at http://loisduncan.arquettes.com.

  Also by Lois Duncan:

  DAUGHTERS OF EVE

  DON’T LOOK BEHIND YOU

  DOWN A DARK HALL

  I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER

  KILLING MR. GRIFFIN

  STRANGER WITH MY FACE

  SUMMER OF FEAR

  “From its deliciously creepy, Southern Gothic atmosphere to the characters’ dangerous flirtation with immortality, Locked in Time is—in a word—timeless. Lois Duncan is a master of young adult suspense.”

  —Malinda Lo, author of Ash and Huntress

  “There are a lot of smart authors, and a lot of authors who write reasonably well. Lois Duncan is smart, writes darn good books and is one of the most entertaining authors in America.”

  —Walter Dean Myers, Printz award–winning author of Monster and Dope Sick

  “She knows what you did last summer. And she knows how to find that secret evil in her characters’ hearts, evil she turns into throat-clutching suspense in book after book. Does anyone write scarier books than Lois Duncan? I don’t think so.”

  —R. L. Stine, author of Goosebumps and Fear Street

  “I couldn’t be more pleased that Lois Duncan’s books will now reach a new generation of readers.”

  —Judy Blume, author of Forever and Tiger Eyes

  “Lois Duncan has always been one of my biggest inspirations. I gobbled up her novels in my teens, often reading them again and again and scaring myself over and over. She’s a master of suspense, so prepare to be dazzled and spooked!”

  —Sara Shepard, author of the Pretty Little Liars series

  “Lois Duncan’s books kept me up many a late night reading under the covers with a flashlight!”

  —Wendy Mass, author of A Mango-Shaped Space, Leap Day and Heaven Looks a Lot Like the Mall

  “Lois Duncan is the patron saint of all things awesome.”

  —Jenny Han, author of The Summer I Turned Pretty series

  “Duncan is one of the smartest, funniest and most terrifying writers around—a writer that a generation of girls LOVED to tatters, while learning to never read her books without another friend to scream with handy.”

  —Lizzie Skurnick, author of Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading

  “In middle school and high school, I loved Lois Duncan’s novels. I still do. I particularly remember Killing Mr. Griffin, which took my breath away. I couldn’t quite believe a writer could DO that. I feel extremely grateful to Lois Duncan for taking unprecedented risks, challenging preconceptions and changing the young adult field forever.”

  —Erica S. Perl, author of Vintage Veronica

  “Haunting and suspenseful—Duncan’s writing captures everything fun about reading!”

  —Suzanne Young, author of The Naughty List series and A Need So Beautiful

  “Killing Mr. Griffin taught me a lot about writing. Thrilling stuff. It was one of the most requested and enjoyed books I taught with my students. I think it’s influenced most of my writing since.”

  —Gail Giles, author of Right Behind You and Shattering Glass

  “If ever a writer’s work should be brought before each new generation of young readers, it is that of Lois Duncan. The grace with which she has led her life—a life that included a tragedy that would have brought most of us to our knees—is reflected in her writing, particularly (from my point of view) in I Know What You Did Last Summer. Her stories, like Lois herself, are ageless.”

  —Chris Crutcher, author of Angry Management, Deadline and Staying Fat for Sarah Byrnes

  “Lois Duncan’s thrillers have a timeless quality about them. They are good stories, very well told, that also happen to illuminate both the heroic and dark parts of growing up.”

  —Marc Talbert, author of Dead Birds Singing, A Sunburned Prayer and Heart of a Jaguar

  Copyright

  Copyright © 1985 by Lois Duncan

  Author Q&A copyright © 2011 Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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sp; First eBook Edition: October 2011

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  ISBN: 978-0-316-19132-6

  Title and chapter number art by Jennifer Heuer