You Can Tell Me by Melinda Leigh

 

Three years ago, Olivia was abducted from the safety of her home. Who encroached her space? What did they do to her? How did she escape? These are questions you are immediately forced to ask, to which there are very vague answers. We know she survived. 

On the anniversary of that very traumatic incident, Olivia was to meet her best friend Zoe and record an interview for a podcast. Zoe and Olivia have been friends from their journalistic days and to be with the times, Zoe had moved on to record true crime podcast. She researched on missing persons cases. Olivia's interview would surely add value to her podcast. As Zoe wrapped up her podcast for the evening, she received a message on her phone, paralyzing her with fear. Olivia had received a message from Zoe the previous evening that she would like to meet to discuss the questions to be asked during the interview, but that meeting never happened, because Zoe did not turn up to the decided place. Super unlikely of Zoe to not keep an appointment, Olivia reaches out to Zoe's husband, who was found fumbling and slightly inebriated when the cops came to question. 

No sign of Zoe. Olivia, along with her niece go in search of her. By the looks of it, Zoe has gone into hiding. Or was she running away from someone? Why? Is someone looking for her? Is she in danger? Did Zoe go away on purpose? 

Parallely, Nicki was out on a date one day which went completely wrong by the end of it. She threw up and was immediately taken to hospital. It was confirmed to be a date r*pe drug that was administered to her drink. Who would do that and why? 

In the mean time, we are also reading about Zoe going to some abandoned place. Why is she there? 

Answering all these questions open up a Pandora's box. As much as I like Melinda Leigh's writing, I was slowly losing patience of how much the story was stretching against one backdrop. I would have liked a few chapters be edited or deleted. Brevity is king sometimes.

Anyways, once Olivia has found a trail of mishaps, finding Zoe was not going to be difficult. A big showdown later, Zoe is in safe hands, the guy who drugged Nicki is in custody and the people who threatened Zoe have met their fate.

Overall an okay story. It was going well and then suddenly the story got very stretchy in between. It has a decent ending too. This book deserves a one time read and without any discontinuation. Pass through the middle of the story fast to avoid frustration. 3/5 for me.