Diane Lambright Berry is a Wake County Writer in Residence. She is a member of the writing residency program at Weymouth Center in Southern Pines, NC, and a member of the Writers’ Group of the Triad, in Greensboro, NC. She has published short stories in three anthologies: Candle in the Attic, Deadly Plots, and Short and Sinister. She lives in Dunn, NC with her husband, Don.

Eighth-grader Kaitlin Kennedy is invited to spend summer vacation on the coast of North Carolina, in the creaking eighteenth-century mansion recently inherited by her aunt and uncle. She becomes obsessed with the legend of Lucille Driscoll, a tragic young girl whose ghost has been seen for two centuries in or near Driscoll House. The legend includes the untimely death of her father, and the baffling disappearance of the man she had pledged to marry against her father’s wishes.

Cameron Garner, a handsome ninth-grader, helps Kaitlin and her new friend Justina Stewart discover a secret room, hidden passageways, and forgotten tunnels. Together they unravel past murders and encounter present dangers. All the while, Kaitlin and Cameron are becoming more than just friends