Find Courtney

Find Courtney, Melissa Clark, Bridge Works Publishing Company, 2004

Fanoy is a self-absorbed, mid-twenties college student going to school in Miami. She gets to move in with Courtney Armorault, a beautiful and wealthy fellow student with her own beachfront apartment. The two aren't friends; they lead totally separate lives. They just happen to live in the same apartment. One day, Courtney goes for her morning jog, and doesn't return.

Fanoy doesn't do anything, figuring that Courtney will be right back, or will call to say that she ran off with one of her many male admirers. To be honest, Fanoy is also enjoying the peace and quiet with Courtney not around. After two weeks, Bret Armorault, Courtney's father, shows up. He is more the Inconvenienced Father than the Distraught Father. He is a free-spirit type who gives the impression that he made his money in the drug business. The two speak to the school administration, and to Courtney's friends and classmates, looking for clues.

Bret convinces Fanoy to move in with him, to an inland Italian villa that was to be part of a housing complex that never happened. It belonged to a famous fan dancer named Crystal Lalique, and is now like living in a museum. After getting the impression that Bret is keeping her there for some reason, Fanoy flees back to Miami. Bret finds her, and convinces her to return with him (with her car, this time).

Bret admits to Fanoy that his name really isn't Bret Armorault. He admits that he kidnapped Courtney when she was little, and has raised her like his own daughter, things that she never knew. Sex between them had been going on for quite a while. "Bret" has known where Courtney is the entire time. Fanoy also has a secret or two of her own.

This is a really good psychological thriller. It's a fast read, the characters are well done, and it's an interesting story of people not being what they seem. This is well worth reading.