Point Thriller: The Window (Carol Ellis)

Sasha and Cal are twins and friends with Kate, who invited Jody, our main character, on a skiing vacation. Kate couldn't go at the last minute but she pressed Jody to go without her, even though she doesn't really know anyone else. Along for the ride is the hunky Drew, his friends Billy and Chris, and Ellen who has a crush on him. This is way too many people to introduce in the first three pages of a book!

Jody makes a comment about the town being smaller than she thought, which causes Chris, who turns out to be a girl, to snap at her. They finally get to the cabin, and Drew does a little flirting with her. Apparently Chris has the hots for him, and this sets her off too. I get the feeling these two won't like each other very much.

After telling everyone that she planned a party, Sasha takes them all out on the slopes. She comes up with this crazy game where she leaves an orange peel in the middle of the slope. They all have to ski down and try to grab it with their poles, but they all end up knocking it around and give up. A woman suddenly comes down the slope and snags it. They all whisper about Leahna but shut up quickly.

Later that day, Kate calls to check on her. When she hangs up, Ellen comes in the room. Even though she thought Ellen wanted Drew, she actually has a crush on Cal, who apparently has a thing for Leahna. Also, Leahna and Drew once dated. Ellen talks about how she once stole an essay she wrote for some state contest and submitted it on her own. She refused to tell on her, but she does make it clear that Leahna will get what's coming to her. Well okay then.

At the party, she finds Billy on his hands and knees cleaning a rug. He spilled something on it and Sasha flipped out because it was an authentic Navajo rug. They talk for awhile before heading to the party in the living room. Sasha wants to play a game called Truth. Someone stands in the center of the room, everyone writes down something about that person, and the person has to admit if it's true or not. Billy goes first and after answering a few truths, he reads a card that says he hates Sasha. He freaks out, says it's not true, and runs from the room after asking Jody when she would do that to him.

Jody goes to find him to tell him it wasn't her. They're really making this too big of a deal. He says that he kind of does hate Sasha because she constantly lies to him and makes him feel bad. She even lied to him about the rug and made him clean it just to laugh at him. They make up and go back to the party to find Ellen in the center of the room. One of her cards says she loves Drew and one says Cal. Cal tries to change the subject and pulls out the next card, which says that she hates Leahna.

Later that night, Jody hears someone wandering around her room and flips out, but it's just Chris. When Jody went to sleep, everyone at the party took off for the slopes, and Chris wants to go too. After she leaves, she wanders over to the window and sees Leahna at her cabin across from them. Someone goes up to her, they fight a little, the person grabs her, and then leaves. Jody ducks down before Leahna sees her and thinks that she needs to be careful about the way she treats people.

After a trip the cafeteria the next day for lunch, Chris ditches her and Drew disappears. She goes skiing by herself, loses her balance, and falls down. Leahna finds her and goes for help, and Sash then shows up. Turns out that she sprained her ankle and might have a concussion but they let her go home after Sasha promises to take care of her.

Despite making that promise five minutes ago, Sasha immediately gets ready to go to some party that everyone else plans to do to. Drew brings her some magazines, Billy brings her some food, and they all take off. They do agree to call her every hour to check on her, which I guess is just as good as someone actually staying there with her. She hears from Ellen, Sasha, Chris, and pretty much everyone else.

The pain pills the doctor gave her knocks her out for a bit, and when she wakes up, she sees someone moving in Leahna's house. She sees the two fighting over a piece of paper, gets distracted by a noise outside, and looks back to see the figures gone. She tries to call Kate, who is supposedly sick with the flu, but she doesn't answer, and Cal pops up long enough to scare the crap out of her.

When she wakes up the next day, she notices a weird red stain on Leahna's house that almost looks like blood. She tries to find out if she was at the party the night before but no one can really remember or really answer her. Hm, I wonder if this will end like Freeze Tag did. Kate calls, gets super defensive about why she didn't answer the phone, and claims she knows nothing about Leahna. Jody gets so down that she contemplates taking the bus back home. The others talk her out of it because, hey, there's another party and if she's lucky, she can hobble over there on her crutches.

Then comes the part that really annoys me. Drew rings her some flowers and asks for her phone number so he can call her when they get home. The whole group then goes to the lodge. Drew calls to see if he can bring her back something to eat and acts super concerned about her. Then Kate calls, and Jody hears someone listening on the phone and hears the same person downstairs.

She gets so scared that she ends up sleeping on the couch. Drew comes back four hours later and seems surprised that she doesn't want the food he brought her. Gee, thanks for bringing me ice cold ribs? He was also the last one to leave, which means that if someone got in, they got in because he left the door unlocked. He kind of tries to apologize the next day, but he also leaves her completely alone on crutches again. These are some awesome people! Leave a poor girl who is absolutely terrified alone in a house. Oh, and did I mention that a storm came through and knocked out the phone lines?

Jody really wants to go home, but the storm knocked out the roads. Only emergency vehicles are allowed out. While trying to calm herself down, she turns on the radio and hears a report that law enforcement found the body of a dead teenage girl the night before. When she looks out at Leahna's house, she suddenly realizes that if she saw the killer that night, the killer saw her.

The phone starts working again, but just as she gets hold of an operator, the line goes out again. Then Chris shows up just to scare her before leaving again, and she finds out that someone drugged her tea. Sasha pops up and after like four pages of her being super annoying, it turns out that she was the killer. It was something about how she didn't like how Leahna treated her brother, ugh.

Cal shows up and tries to stop her, but she has a knife and attacks him. She tries to attack Jody, who tries to hit the knife out of her hand with a pair of binoculars. Jody actually ends up whacking her in the head, but she keeps coming. Suddenly the whole group pops back up. Billy pins her to the ground and holds her down while everyone else just kind of stands around in shock.

Drew gets her a blanket, and they all wait for the cops. The next day, Chris gets a ride from someone else, kind of apologizes for being a bitch, and takes off. Drew arranges for a friend of his to take him and Jody back home. He tells her that he would understand if she didn't want to see him again because he's a reminder of what happened. Even though he was kind of an ass to her, she has stars in her eyes. She tells them that he's a good reminder, they kiss, and I vomit.