From critically acclaimed author Kit Frick, this electrifying suspense novel explodes convention to deliver two interlocking thrillers in one, following a pair of sisters into a family’s dark past and illuminating how a single choice can drastically alter the trajectory of our lives.
Intrigued? Well read on to discover the synopsis and an excerpt from Kit Frick’s The Split, which releases on February 13th 2024.
Jane Connor is resigned to being the “plain Jane” of her family—pragmatic and dependable—so unlike her beautiful and impetuous younger sister Esme. When Esme calls Jane during a flash summer storm, announcing she’s left her high society husband, Jane is shocked to learn that her sister wishes to stay with her. Could this be an opportunity for them to become close again? The only catch: Esme needs a ride from the city to their small Connecticut hometown, and Jane is terrified of getting on the highway…because of what she did when they were teens.
Jane must either let Esme stand on her own two feet for once or jump to her flighty younger sister’s rescue—and her choice cleaves her life in two.
In one reality, Jane can’t overcome her fear and tells Esme to crash with a friend. Twenty-four hours later, her sister is missing. Tortured by regret, Jane dedicates herself to piecing together Esme’s life before her disappearance, unraveling a web of lies, broken relationships, and, finally, the truth.
In the other reality, Jane swallows her fear and offers her less-than-grateful sister a ride. But while Jane hopes living together in their childhood home will be healing, Esme is aloof and increasingly reckless. The tension between the sisters builds until they are finally forced to reckon with the explosive secret from their past that could destroy their fragile bond—and both their lives.
With a rollicking pace and shocking twists and turns, The Split captivatingly explores how little we know the ones we love—and how one small choice can change everything.
Esme’s name flashes across the screen, and I hurry to answer. Sometimes, I miss our old closeness with a ferocity that knocks the breath from my lungs. But it’s been years since my sister and I talked every day, since we went to each other with our problems, since she called me out of the blue.
It’s not surprising, given what I did . . .
“Hello?”
“Jane, thank god you picked up.”
Phone cradled to my ear, I step out of the car and clamber up the stairs to the kitchen, thankful to be in for the night.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
“I left Mark.”
The almost flawlessly Michelangean face of my sister’s husband flashes across my mind—the chiseled jawline, not a hint of stubble to be found; straight nose; icy blue eyes; closely clipped brown hair. It’s nearly impossible to picture Mark Lloyd cast aside, his confidence shaken.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
“I need some time to clear my head,” she says, “and nothing exciting ever happens in Branby.”
My chest swells with the knowledge that she wants to come here, to me, to weather the storm. Is it too much to hope that her return home will open a new chapter for us, one in which we start to mend? I want it so badly, my throat aches.
“You can stay as long as you want,” I say.
Esme doesn’t respond right away, and it hits me that she didn’t actually say she wanted to stay at Old Boney, with me. Laughter erupts in the background, and the clinking of glasses. It sounds like she’s at a party, or out at a restaurant, and the noise reminds me I haven’t gone out on a Saturday night since Jamie ended things between us.
My sister and I have always been so different. While Esme is a social butterfly, I am reserved; while she thrives on drama and secrecy, I am practical and measured. Even our names are uncanny reflections of the women we’ve become—plain Jane after my paternal grandmother; then Esme, Mom’s fanciful choice for her second daughter after ceding to Dad’s strong will when naming their first.
Just as her silence is becoming unbearable, Esme clears her throat. Then her voice cuts through the background noise, carrying an obvious note of tension. “Thanks, Janie. I might take you up on that. But I need you to come get me.”
“You still haven’t told me what happened with Mark,” I urge, pressing the phone to my ear, hoping she’ll open up to me, like she always used to.
“I did though.”
“You realized it was a mistake,” I say. But something tangible must have happened to prompt her to leave him. “Did you have a fight?”
“No fight.”
“If Mark was hurting you, you’d tell me, right? If he did something—”
“It’s nothing like that,” she cuts in, voice clipped. “I left Mark on Thursday, and I’ve been figuring things out. I said I’d meet him for dinner tonight. He wanted to talk.”
“Okay,” I say slowly. “It went badly?”
“It didn’t go at all. Mark wants the impossible; I’m done. Dinner would have been a senseless agony. And now I really need a ride.”
My eyes travel again to the back of the house, rain pummeling the picture window. Water streams down the glass in sheets. “Where are you?”
“Thanks so much,” she says, although I haven’t agreed to anything. “I’ll text you the address.”
The call ends, and a moment later, my phone chimes with a new text.
420 Madison @ E 48.
Txt me when you’re here.
I blink at the screen, pulse ticking in my throat. It feels good to be needed, like old times.
But this is a bad night for a drive. I squeeze my eyes shut, and I can almost feel the steering wheel bucking in my grasp, the tires beginning to hydroplane. Then I’m back there, fifteen years ago. Scared out of my mind, totally out of control, screaming at the top of my lungs while Mom’s car spins and spins, hurtling toward the grim promise of impact . . .
I pry my eyes open and shake the memory away, but I’m left with the reality that Esme’s not exactly nearby; it’s an hour’s drive to Midtown Manhattan in the best of weather. My fingers hover over the screen.
It’s storming! I can’t drive into the city
right now. Don’t you have a friend you
can stay with for the night?
Jane, come on! I have nowhere to go.
That cannot possibly be true. After all, she’s been staying somewhere for the last two nights. But something is going on with her, more than she’s letting on. My stomach clenches with nerves—for what she’s not telling me, for what I need to do. Because I am incapable of ignoring her cry for help, a truth as elemental to our relationship as the molecules of our DNA.
I picture her then in the days after Mom and Dad’s divorce, a fragile ten-year-old in black leggings and a shimmery gold tank top that makes her look older than her age. She sits outside, on the patio wall, looking away from the house and chewing her fingers raw. I join her, and for a moment, we sit there in silence, staring at the lawn, the stone cottage in the back, the unblemished blue sky. Then she rests her head on my shoulder, a signal I can wrap my arm around her, draw her close to me, that she will let me absorb some of the hurt into my skin.
The memory fades and I head back into the foyer for my keys, torn between two competing urges: to tell my sister firmly but gently no for the first time in my life, or to get in the car and rescue her.
