Spotlight & Giveaway: Twisted Circles by Claire Contreras

Today, HJ is pleased to share with you Claire Contreras’s new release: Twisted Circles

When someone tells you who you are, do you believe them?

The first question the cops asked me was if anything out of the ordinary happened to me lately.

When I woke up this morning in the room of a mental institution I couldn’t remember a thing – not my name nor how I got there. Not how I left or how I ended up in that interrogation room.

The only thing I knew came from the contents inside my bag. A wallet, a student ID, a key that opened an unknown door, and two notebooks.

They tell me my name. It matches my IDs.

They tell me my story. I shut my eyes and try to piece it together, but can’t.

They tell me why they picked me up in the first place. They thought I was my sister. My brain stays stuck there. I try to rewind and fast-forward, as if my memories were on a videotape, but it’s no use. I can’t recall having a sister.

They put me back in the car and drop me off in front of a mansion they call The Manor and I discover what the mysterious key in my backpack opens the front door, and just as quickly wish I’d never unlocked it at all.

Enjoy an exclusive excerpt from Twisted Circles 

They say we’re all cut from the same cloth. That, if we examine the photographs that depict our lives, tilt them a certain way, maybe squint hard enough, we can see how similar we all are. People love to analyze every fiber of a person’s existence in an effort to understand them better. As if breaking down our stories and magnifying the faults in their paths will bring us answers as to why we end up the way we do. Maybe they’re on to something. Maybe others should be held accountable for our truths, our faults, and our actions. The problem is when the things we do don’t add up to the person they would like us to be, they stake us.
I was told that my life started in a prison cell, so it should come as no surprise that twenty years later, a prison holding cell is the very place it began to unravel. I’d been brought in two hours ago. No one had even bothered to glance in my direction, regardless of how loudly I demanded answers, because that cloth we’re all cut from shows no similarities in this lighting. I closed my eyes and thought back to two hours prior to this, when I was minding my own business and walking to my car before I was picked up by the police officer. My mind was so foggy, I could barely remember how that even happened. Had I argued with them? Was that why they’d arrested me? At the sound of dress shoes, I sat up straighter, and looked up when I saw the detective come full stop in front of the cage I was in.
“Miss Guerra, I’m Detective Barry, and I have a few questions for you.” He unlocked the door and held it open.
I stood, my joints complaining about the movement after the lack of it for so long, and walked over to him, following him as he led me into a room I knew for a fact was being recorded. It had a glass wall, a table, and two chairs. I may not remember much about last night or the night before, but I remembered watching enough docuseries to know I was being interrogated and I had no idea why. A prickle ran through me.
“Am I in trouble? I didn’t do anything.” I froze at the door. At least I didn’t think I did.
“Really?” His gaze swept to mine quickly, eyebrow arched. “I was told you were resisting an officer.”
“Because the officer had no right to arrest me. I was walking home. I’d done nothing.”
“Let me be the judge of that.”
My grip tightened on the doorknob. “I need a lawyer.”
“We’re just talking, Miss Guerra. You won’t need a lawyer for this.”
“That’s what they all say.”
“You’ve been arrested before. Trespassing.” He read off the papers in his hand and looked up at me.
“I was sixteen.” I’d been alone and hungry and temporarily homeless after Karen kicked me out, and yes, I’d squatted in an empty house. I wasn’t proud of it, but the beds were still in there and it was between owners.
“Still on your record.” He waved the papers in his hand.
They seemed endless. I wondered what else he had on me. Did he have my entire life story written on those pages? Was it as hopeless as the real story? As pathetic? I let go of the doorknob and walked inside, taking the side across from him at the table. He pulled out his chair and signaled me to sit in mine. I signaled him to sit first. He shook his head and took a seat. I followed suit. He seemed like the kind of man who let his daughters walk all over him. The kind of father Aisha had—stern but fair, and completely bendable.
“Are you going to tell me what I’m doing here now?”
“How do you know Chris?”
“Who’s Chris?”
“Chris Ryan. You were in his house last night.”
“Oh.” I felt myself frown. I was in someone’s house last night? That must have been before I ended up in The Institute.
“So, Chris Ryan,” Detective Barry prompted.
“I don’t know him.”
“You don’t know him?”
“This is going to sound extremely convenient.” I ran my hands over my face and exhaled. “But I have no memory of what happened last night. I woke up in The Institute this morning and checked myself out and I don’t even know how that happened either.”
“Chris says you met him on Tinder.”
I searched Detective Barry’s clear blue eyes. “Did something happen to Chris?”
“No. He’s fine.”
“So, why are we talking about some random guy I met on Tinder?”
“He called us about you.”
“Why?” I blinked. “Did he also drive me to The Institute?”
“No. He says you left in a Lyft and he didn’t know where you were going.” He flipped through his stack of pages and brought out a picture, sliding it over to me and tapping it twice. “Do you know this woman?”
I picked up the picture and stared at it, then looked at him, and at the picture again. “It’s . . . me.”
“Is it?”
“I mean, it must be.” The girl in the picture had my long, wavy, brown hair, brown eyes, caramel skin. She was wearing makeup, which I rarely wore, and a fancy-looking blouse I’d never seen before, but she looked just like me. I set the photo down. “Is someone trying to frame me for something?”
“Why would they do that?”
“I don’t know. Why does anyone do anything? Why did I wake up in a mental institution this morning with no memory of how my night went?”
“Do you have enemies? Someone who would try to frame you?”
“No. Of course not.”
“Who do you live with, Miss Guerra?”
“Alone and I keep to myself for the most part. My friend Aisha can attest to that.”
“What do you do on a regular basis, besides meet guys on Tinder and go to their homes? Hang out with Aisha?”
“I’m a teacher’s assistant at a small parish school and I’m studying elementary education. I hang out with my friends and drink occasionally.”
“Drink?” he raised an eyebrow. “That’s not legal.”
“I guess you have reason to arrest me then.”
“You clearly have no issues being arrested even though it’ll go on your record, and I don’t know about you, but I don’t know many teachers with records.”
“So, what’s up with this?” I nodded at the picture, ignoring his analysis of me.
“This is a missing girl.” He raised the picture up. “I just spent the last two hours trying to grasp what the possibilities could be and the only one I can come up with is that you’re sisters.”
“Yeah right.” I scoffed. “I don’t have a sister.”
“You were both adopted on the same day from the same place, St. Nicolas’ Orphanage. You have the same birthday. You both attend Ellis University. She lives a block away from campus, you live a few blocks down. Have you ever looked into who your birth parents were?”
I let myself process his words before nodding, unable to form words over the knot in my throat. Of course I’d tried to look for my birth parents. Tried and failed. I didn’t have the kind of money I needed to hire an investigator or lawyer who would actually fight with me against the orphanage I’d come from, especially since it was funded by the Catholic Church. Even Karen, who was a devout Catholic and had donated half of her measly paychecks to the church most of her life, had no pull in that department. I glanced at the picture again. A sister. A twin sister. Hope bloomed inside me. It was the kind of hope life had repeatedly squashed until I no longer believed it existed, yet there it was again, rearing its head and trying to seep through.
“Miss Guerra,” he said.
“The orphanage told us that it was a closed adoption. My mother—my adoptive mother—helped me once. She said they were pretty clear about not going back and asking more questions.”
“Are you close to her?”
“To Karen?” I pursed my lips. “I guess. Life has kicked her down a lot, to the point that she’s decided to self-medicate, but it’s okay since she’s drinking Jesus’s blood all day until she passes out.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“That’s life.” I shrugged again, then looked at the picture of the girl who wasn’t me. “So, she’s missing?”
“She was last seen leaving her apartment and headed to The Manor. Have you heard of The Manor?”
“Ummm . . . ” I paused, rummaging through my memory bank, which remains nearly blank. “I don’t think so. Is it a club?”
“It’s a house, actually.”
“Oh. I definitely haven’t heard of it.”
“Are you familiar with the secret societies at Ellis?”
“You mean the weirdos in cloaks? Yeah, who isn’t.”
“Well, the red cloaks, they live in The Manor. Or have parties there. I’m not really sure what else goes on there.”
“So, she’s part of the secret society?”
“We’re not sure. We know she got an invitation from them before she disappeared.”
“When was this?”
“On Friday.”
“It’s Sunday.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re already this deep into this?” I felt my brows rise. “What’s her name?”
“Who?”
“My sister.”
“Stella.”
“Stella,” I repeated. “Is she rich?”
“What?”
“My sister. Is she rich?”
“Why would you ask that?”
“Why else would the police be so heavily involved in the disappearance of a brown girl who’s only been gone a day, maybe two?”
He stayed quiet for a moment. “Let’s just say her father is very important, and besides the fact that he wants to find his daughter, he can’t have this happening now.”
“So, she’s rich.”
“We would do it for anyone.”
“Sure. What about her mother? What does she do?”
“Her mother isn’t in the picture.”
“She died?”
“No, she’s just not in the picture.”
“Hm.”
“Her father has a proposal for you.”
“Her father knows about me?”
“He does now. He knows we picked you up. He’s watching from the other room.” Detective Barry nodded his head toward the glass. I looked over and stared, wishing I could see the man on the other side.
“What’s the proposal?”
“He wants you to go to The Manor as Stella.”
“What?” I looked between Detective Barry and the mirror. “Did you already go to The Manor? Did you look around and ask and do your job?”
“Of course we did. They claim she never showed up there.”
“That sounds like bullshit.”
“It’s our word against theirs.”
“So you want me to pretend I’m her and show up there?”
“That’s the only plan we have right now.”
“Are you serious? What kind of a cop are you? If she really did disappear there or if they did something to her or whatever, they’d never buy it.”
“No, but they’d be spooked enough to talk.” The voice came from the overhead speaker and made me jump in my seat.
“With as much money and connections as you probably have, I’m sure you can think of another way to break them down.” I looked at the glass.
“This isn’t the first time someone has gone missing,” Detective Barry said.
“No shit. I know that. Didn’t a girl die last year because of one of the secret societies?”
“That was an unfortunate circumstance and nothing like this one.” That was the dad’s voice again.
“Why doesn’t he just come into the room?”
“Legalities,” Detective Barry said. “You can always just be yourself and go to The Manor and say you’re looking for her. I’ll drive you there myself.”
“Don’t you want a chance at having a sister?” the voice in the other room asked.
“Of course I do.” I shot the glass a pointed look and hoped the glare made its way to the other side. “But this is crazy and doesn’t make sense and I don’t want to die.”
“We’d wipe your records,” he said. “No school is going to hire someone with a record. We’ll pay off your student debt.”
“You’re just going to give me money, just like that?” I raised an eyebrow. “What if I don’t find her? What if she’s . . . ” I inhale the word before it spills out of my mouth.
“She’s not dead. As far as the money, you keep it and do whatever you want with it,” the man said.
“And the secret society pays fifty grand for joining,” Detective Barry added.
“What the . . . ? Fifty grand, just like that?”
“Just like that.”
“How do you know that?” I narrowed my eyes at Barry.
“We hear things.”
“But you can’t question for shit.”
“We questioned. We searched. We found nothing. We need answers and we need them fast and this is going nowhere quick.”
“And you can’t have another death on your hands less than a year after that Ly girl died.”
No one said a thing about that, which I took as confirmation. Fifty grand plus whatever Stella’s father was willing to give me and I’d come out with a sister and answers. I looked at the glass again.
“Do you know who our birth parents are?”
“We also tried and hit a wall, but if you do this, I’ll turn every stone and find out, since it’s important to both of you,” the man behind the glass said.
“I don’t know anything about her. I wouldn’t know where to start.”
“They don’t know much about her either, not really. I’ll give you her clothes, her apartment, her car, and you can go from there.” He paused. “They’re having a party tonight. She would have gone to that.”
“And you want me to go as her.”
“Please. The only way to find out what really happens in these societies is to join one of them. Detective Barry can’t do it. I can’t do it. You’re the only one who can. Stella needs you.”
“Stella,” I repeated.
“Stella Thompson,” he said.
“Stella Thompson.” I tried it on, then again. The third time I repeated it, I tripped over the last name. “Thompson as in the neuroscientist? Aren’t you running for office?”
“You’re up to date with current events.” Detective Barry raised an eyebrow.
“The signs are hard to miss. And he treated my father after he had a stroke,” I said, looking toward the glass. I’d been too young but Karen never let me forget that name. She’d felt indebted to him for working pro bono.
“I hope he’s well,” Dr. Thompson said.
“He’s dead.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” He paused for a beat before asking, “Will you do this? Will you help us find my daughter?”
“I have another question.”
“Ask.”
“If people know she’s missing and the cops alerted the people in The Manor, wouldn’t it be a little strange for me . . . or her . . . to show up?”
“No one else knows she’s missing. The reason I do is because she didn’t show up for breakfast yesterday and we always have breakfast together. And her phone stopped tracking the minute she got near that house.”
“You track her phone?” I balked at the mirror.
“Yes and I’ll track yours if you’re going to do this.”
“Seriously?” I blinked. “Are you going to pay for my phone bill too?”
“Sure, why not?”
“Oh. Okay then. I guess you can track it.”
“You’ll do this?” That was Detective Barry, who almost looked like he wanted me to turn it down, but wasn’t at the liberty to say that.
“That’s what I’m saying.”
Stella Thompson was a far cry from Eva Guerra, but then again, so was everything else about her life, it seemed. It didn’t matter though. She was my sister and I’d accept her for whoever she was, as I’m sure she’d do the same for me.

Excerpt. ©Claire Contreras. Posted by arrangement with the publisher. All rights reserved.
 
 

Giveaway: 1 Paperback copy of Twisted Circles by Claire Contreras, US only

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Meet the Author:

Claire Contreras is a New York Times Best Selling Author. Her books range from romantic suspense to contemporary romance and are currently translated in seven different languages.

She was born in the Dominican Republic, raised in Miami, and now lives in Charlotte, NC with her husband, two adorable boys, and French Bulldog. When she’s not writing, she’s usually lost in a book.

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