Before We Were Innocent

Before We Were Innocent Plot Summary

Introduction

# Echoes of Guilt: When the Past Rises from Dark Waters The desert heat shimmers like a mirage when Bess Winter opens her cabin door to find the ghost of her past standing on the porch. Joni Le Bon—now a polished media personality with sharp cheekbones and designer clothes—looks nothing like the wild teenager who once shared secrets and sins on a Greek island ten years ago. Yet Bess recognizes her instantly, the way you recognize a scar that never quite healed. Ten years have passed since their names were splashed across headlines as the Hollywood Heathens, since the world decided they were cold-blooded killers who got away with murder. Bess has spent that decade hiding in Imperial County, moderating dating app complaints and keeping her head down. But now Joni stands at her threshold with desperate eyes and a missing fiancée, and the past is about to drag them both back into the undertow of violence and lies that destroyed their lives once before.

Chapter 1: The Ghost Returns: A Desperate Plea for Protection

Joni's request seems simple enough—she needs an alibi for three hours on a Monday night. Her fiancée Willa Bailey, a vibrant activist with pink hair and a million Instagram followers, has discovered Joni's affair and disappeared in a rage. But Joni has been telling Willa she was visiting Bess during her secret liaisons, and now she needs that lie to hold. "Just say I got here around nine," Joni pleads, her hands shaking as she pours wine in Bess's kitchen. The story feels rehearsed: Willa found a compromising photo, they fought, Joni left to give her space. Simple. Except when the police arrive at Bess's door two days later, nothing feels simple anymore. Detective Frost and Detective Jenkins sit on Bess's threadbare sofa, asking careful questions about Joni's whereabouts. Willa has been missing for a week, they explain, and her parents are worried. The questions feel familiar—too familiar—like echoes of another interrogation in another life. When they ask what time Joni arrived, Bess hears herself lie with practiced ease: "Around nine." The words taste like ash, like the beginning of the end all over again. But the detectives reveal something Joni hadn't mentioned—a neighbor saw Willa on her deck at seven p.m., the same time Joni claims to have left for Bess's house. The timeline doesn't add up, and suddenly Bess realizes she's not just covering for an affair. She's covering for the hours when Willa Bailey vanished. The desert wind rattles the windows as the police car disappears down the dirt road, leaving Bess alone with the weight of another lie. She stares at the wine glasses on her counter, still stained with Joni's lipstick, and wonders how many times a person can make the same mistake before it destroys them completely.

Chapter 2: Blood on Ancient Stones: The Greek Island Tragedy

The memories come flooding back like a riptide. Bess, Joni, and Evangeline Aetos—three eighteen-year-old girls drunk on freedom and cheap wine on the Greek island of Tinos. They were supposed to be having the summer of their lives before college, but the isolation had turned toxic. Evangeline, beautiful and wealthy, controlled every aspect of their trip with passive-aggressive manipulation. Joni, sharp-tongued and restless, plotted their escape to livelier islands. And Bess, caught between them, harbored secret feelings for Evangeline's golden-boy brother Theo. The tension exploded on Mykonos, where they'd fled for excitement. At a villa party high on the cliffs, the three friends finally said the cruel things they'd been thinking all summer. Evangeline accused Bess of being a user, a fake friend who wanted to steal her brother. Bess retaliated with vicious words about Evangeline's privilege and loneliness. When Evangeline stormed off into the night, choosing a treacherous cliff path back to town, Bess followed—not to help, but to hurt her more. They stood on that rocky trail above the Aegean Sea, two teenagers drunk on alcohol and rage, saying things that could never be taken back. Evangeline revealed that Theo had changed his mind about their romantic getaway, that Bess had been nothing more than a convenient distraction. The words cut deep, and Bess struck back with surgical precision, targeting every insecurity she'd ever noticed in her friend. Then she turned and walked away, leaving Evangeline alone on the crumbling path. Hours later, Joni found Bess sitting beside Evangeline's broken body on the beach below. The girl who had once danced on tables and laughed at everything lay twisted on the rocks, her neck bent at an impossible angle. In that moment, staring at their dead friend, Joni made a decision that would bind them together forever. They would lie. They would tell the police they had all been together when Evangeline fell. It was meant to be protection, but it became a prison with bars made of their own words.

Chapter 3: Patterns in the Dark: Another Woman Vanishes

The past and present collide when Willa's vigil airs on the news. Bess watches from Joni's Malibu mansion as hundreds of candles flicker on the pier, friends and strangers demanding answers. But it's the media coverage that makes her blood run cold—every report mentions the connection to Evangeline Aetos, the Greek island tragedy that made Joni and Bess infamous a decade ago. The old photos resurface like evidence from a crime scene: two teenage girls posing with bottles and joints, all glossy lips and arched eyebrows. The leaked emails and handwritten notes that once painted them as callous killers. The timeline of their "odd behavior" before Evangeline's death. Reporters camp outside both their homes, and Bess realizes she's trapped in the same nightmare that destroyed her life once before. Joni seems eerily calm, practicing yoga on her deck while the media circus swirls around them. She's built an empire on radical honesty and personal transformation, turning their shared trauma into a career. But now her carefully constructed image is cracking, and Bess can see the frightened teenager underneath the polished exterior. They're both older, supposedly wiser, but the world still sees them as the Hollywood Heathens—privileged girls who got away with murder. The similarities between Willa and Evangeline are impossible to ignore. Both young, both beautiful, both connected to Joni in ways that ended in violence. When a reporter follows Bess to a grocery store, filming her panic with predatory glee, she understands that hiding is no longer an option. The story has found them again, and this time there might be no escape. Lightning doesn't strike twice, Joni's ex-boyfriend tells a reporter, but his tone suggests he's not so sure. The internet explodes with theories and accusations, amateur detectives dissecting every photo and timeline with obsessive precision. History is repeating itself, and Bess can feel the undertow pulling her back toward the rocks.

Chapter 4: Unraveling Alibis: When Lies Multiply Like Shadows

The lies multiply like cancer cells. Joni reveals that Willa had been cheating too, carrying on an affair with a high school English teacher named Lucien Miller. Their relationship was a battlefield of mutual betrayal, each using infidelity as a weapon against the other. But Joni's timeline keeps shifting—first she claims ignorance about Willa's affair, then admits it was "an ongoing discussion." Bess discovers inconsistencies everywhere. Joni said Willa's paddleboard was pink, but a photo shows her with a blue one. The neighbor who saw Willa at seven p.m. poses a problem Joni can't explain away. Most disturbing of all is the fresh scratch on Joni's chest, a red welt she claims came from their final fight. During a tense dinner with Bess's brother Steven and his fiancée Nova, the web of connections becomes clear. Nova knew Willa from college, remembers her as vibrant and loyal—not the type to disappear without a word. Steven has spent years defending his sister on internet forums, fighting trolls who still believe she's a killer. The weight of their shared guilt hangs heavy in the suburban dining room, a reminder of how many lives their past has touched. But it's Nova's revelation that cuts deepest: Steven has built a shrine to their Greek tragedy, a room filled with evidence photos and timelines, desperately trying to prove his sister's innocence to strangers on the internet. Bess realizes she hasn't just been hiding from the world—she's been hiding from the people who love her most. The conversation turns to Willa's final days, her growing desperation to escape Joni's suffocating control. She had been planning to leave, to start fresh with Lucien, to break free from the golden cage that had become her life. But Joni couldn't let go, couldn't bear the thought of being abandoned again. The pattern was becoming clear, and Bess wondered if she was seeing the same dynamic that had destroyed Evangeline all those years ago.

Chapter 5: The Ocean's Second Victim: History Repeats in Violence

The call comes at dawn: Willa's body has been found on a beach south of Redondo, her head injured, her life stolen by violence. The news hits like a tsunami, washing away any pretense that this was just another missing person case. Foul play, the reporters say with barely concealed excitement. Murder, they whisper with the hunger of vultures. Bess watches the coverage from Joni's living room, seeing her own past reflected in every breathless report. The same language, the same assumptions, the same rush to judgment. But this time there's a body, evidence, a clear victim of violence. This time the stakes are higher than reputation or career—this time it's life and death. The media draws the inevitable parallels: two young women dead, both connected to Joni Le Bon. The internet explodes with conspiracy theories and amateur investigations. Security footage shows Willa leaving her house alive at 9:35 PM, while traffic cameras place Joni thirty-five miles away by 9:45. The timeline seems to exonerate her, but Bess knows how easily timelines can be manipulated by those who understand the weight of evidence. Detective Frost's investigation slowly peels back the layers of deception. The discovery of Willa's phone in Joni's bedroom is damning, but Joni has an explanation for everything. She's learned from their past mistakes, knows exactly what to say and how to say it. But the scratch on her chest tells its own story—evidence of a struggle, a fight that went too far. As night falls, Joni suggests they go to the water—the same impulse that drove them to the cliffs of Mykonos all those years ago. They strip to their underwear and paddle out into the dark Pacific, two women haunted by the ghosts of their choices. The ocean is cold and unforgiving, and Bess can't shake the feeling that she's swimming with a killer. The waves crash against their bodies as they float in the darkness, and Bess realizes that some people are drawn to water not for cleansing, but for the way it hides evidence, the way it swallows secrets whole.

Chapter 6: Truth Beneath the Crescent Moon: Final Confrontations

Under the thin crescent moon, Joni finally tells the truth—or a version of it. She and Willa fought that night, not just about the affair but about everything that had been festering between them. In her rage, Joni threw a rose quartz ornament that caught Willa above the eye, leaving the scratch that would become evidence. But she swears she left Willa alive, that whatever happened next was beyond her control. The confession hangs between them like smoke, impossible to grasp or dismiss. Bess studies her oldest friend's face in the firelight, searching for signs of deception or truth. The scratch on Joni's chest tells its own story—evidence of a struggle, a fight that went too far. But how far? And what really happened in those missing hours? "Did you take her out to the water?" Bess asks, her voice barely a whisper. The question contains multitudes—not just about that night, but about who they've become, what they're capable of, how far loyalty can stretch before it snaps. Joni's eyes are black in the moonlight, unreadable as the ocean that took both Evangeline and Willa. The past and present merge in that moment, two teenage girls on a Greek cliff becoming two women on a Malibu deck, connected by secrets that could destroy them both. Bess realizes she's standing at the same crossroads she faced ten years ago—protect her friend or save herself. But this time she knows the cost of choosing wrong, and the weight of that knowledge might be enough to finally break her. Reading the old police transcripts later, Bess discovers the final betrayal. Joni had been there when Evangeline fell, had watched their friend die and then constructed an elaborate lie to hide her own presence. The protection Bess thought she had received was actually a prison, designed to keep her grateful and compliant. Even their friendship had been built on deception, another casualty of Joni's desperate need to control the narrative of her own life. The woman who had spent years teaching others how to heal had never learned to heal herself, and now the pattern was complete. Two women dead, both victims of Joni's inability to let go, to accept abandonment, to face the truth of what she was capable of when cornered.

Chapter 7: Into the Pacific: The Price of a Lifetime of Deception

Joni's disappearance is as calculated as everything else she has ever done. She vanishes into the Pacific on her paddleboard, leaving behind only questions and the faint hope that somewhere, in some other life, she might finally be free. The woman who built an empire on radical honesty and personal transformation reveals herself to be the same frightened girl who once lied to protect herself, who sacrificed others to avoid being abandoned again. The search teams find her board floating empty in the kelp beds, no body, no closure, just another mystery for the internet to dissect. But Bess knows better than to believe in easy endings. Joni has always been a survivor, always found a way to reinvent herself when the walls closed in. The Pacific is vast and full of hiding places for those who know how to disappear. Standing on the beach where Willa's body washed ashore, Bess finally understands the pattern that has defined their lives. Joni doesn't kill out of malice or premeditation—she kills when cornered, when faced with the unbearable prospect of being left alone. Evangeline threatened to expose her manipulations, Willa threatened to abandon her, and in both cases, Joni chose violence over vulnerability. The media circus eventually moves on to fresher tragedies, but the damage is done. Bess's carefully constructed life in the desert is shattered, her anonymity stripped away by the hungry cameras and probing questions. She finds herself facing the same choice she made ten years ago—hide from the world or find a way to live with the truth. But this time, she chooses differently. Standing in Theo Aetos's kitchen in Oregon, she finally tells the story she should have told a decade ago. The lies that bound them together are finally broken, replaced by something harder but more honest—the acknowledgment that they had all been children playing with forces they didn't understand. The shadows cast by crescent moons eventually fade, but the scars they leave behind serve as reminders of the price of loyalty misplaced and trust betrayed.

Summary

In the end, some stories never truly end—they just pause between waves, gathering strength for the next crash against the shore. Bess and Joni's friendship was forged in the crucible of shared guilt and mutual protection, but even the strongest bonds corrode under the weight of too many secrets. The ocean that claimed Evangeline has now taken Willa too, and the tide of consequences rises higher with each passing year. The truth remains as elusive as it was on that Greek cliff—scattered across decades and buried under layers of self-preservation and selective memory. But the dead don't stay buried forever, and the past has a way of surfacing when you least expect it, waterlogged and demanding answers. In trying to escape their history, Bess and Joni only ensured its repetition, proving that some sins echo across time like ripples on dark water, growing stronger with each return to shore. The greatest tragedy is not that people die, but that they die believing themselves unloved and abandoned, victims of someone else's inability to face the mirror of their own making.

About Author

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Ella Berman

Berman connects the psychological complexities of personal reinvention and societal pressures through her work. Raised amidst the cultural richness of Los Angeles and London, she developed a nuanced understanding of human behavior by studying psychology, which deeply influences her narrative style. Her novels often delve into themes of resilience and identity, reflecting her background with influences from the 1960s and 70s music and art. These thematic explorations allow her readers to engage with the complexities of self-discovery and healing, offering insights into overcoming adversity.\n\nIn her debut novel, "The Comeback," Berman delves into the intricacies of recovery and empowerment. This work, recognized by the Read with Jenna book club, highlights her ability to create compelling characters who navigate the challenges of personal redemption. Her follow-up, "Before We Were Innocent," selected for Reese’s Book Club, extends these themes by probing into the remnants of innocence and the weight of past choices. Berman’s narrative methods—character-driven plots and psychological depth—engage readers who are interested in understanding the human psyche. Therefore, her books resonate with those seeking to comprehend the delicate balance between personal growth and societal expectations.\n\nThe impact of Berman's storytelling is further amplified by her ability to weave relatable experiences with profound insights, making her work appealing to a diverse audience. Her stories not only entertain but also provide a mirror for readers to reflect on their own lives and choices. This bio captures the essence of Berman's literary journey, illustrating how her background and thematic focus contribute to her success as an author who provides both narrative intrigue and emotional depth.

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