Ninth Key by Meg Cabot
The basics
Title: Ninth Key
Author: Meg Cabot
Series: The Mediator #2
- Shadowland (2000) - Ninth Key (2001) - Reunion (2001) - Darkest Hour (2001) - Haunted (2003) - Twilight (2004) - Remembrance (2016)
Add it: Goodreads
Goodreads Summary:
Ghosts ruin everything. Especially your love life. Everything is going great for Suze. Her new life in California is a whirlwind of parties and excellent hair days. Tad Beaumont, the hottest boy in town, has even asked Suze out on her very first date. Suze is so excited that she's willing to ignore her misgivings about Tad... particularly the fact that he's not Jesse, whose ghostly status - not to mention apparent disinterest in her - make him unattainable. What Suze can't ignore, however, is the ghost of a murdered woman whose death seems directly connected to dark secrets hidden in none other than Tad Beaumont's past.
Read a full summary of Ninth Key by Meg Cabot below. If you can’t remember what happened in Ninth Key and you need a refresher, then you’re in the right place.
A huge thanks once again to Rachel @ Rachel’s Reading Corner for writing this recap!
in short
Suze tries to find “Red” after a ghost wakes her in the middle of the night crowing that “Red” didn’t really kill her. Suze gets caught up in a crazy man named Beaumont’s affair – as his nickname is also “Red”. His brother turns out to be a serial killer, who kidnaps his nephew Tad and Suze. They manage to escape but Marcu disappears. “Red” turns out to be Doc and Suze’s has to “come out” to him about her abilities in order to relay his mother’s message.
what happened in Ninth Key?
- Suze attends Kelly Prescott’s pool party. She contracts a poison oak rash when she is spying on her stepbrother, Dopey, and slow dances with a boy named Tad, from another local school.
- That night she is awakened by a screaming ghost, a women crying hysterically. The women ask Suze to tell someone named “Red” that he didn’t kill her. Suze doesn’t’ know who either the woman or “Red” is. The ghost disappears before she can ask. Later, her friend CeeCee tells her a local businessman named Thasseus Beaumont goes by that nickname. Suze cannot get in touch with Beaumont.
- Suze sees the ghost of boy named Timothy, who tells her his parents abandoned his cat, Spike. Suze promises to find the cat, and give him a good home.
- Suze to pretends to be the school’s reporter and goes to Beaumont’s mansion to find him. When she meets him, she gives him the ghost woman’s message, saying that she saw in a dream. He doesn’t care about the message, only the fact that Suze can talk to this women. He is eager to speak to the other spirits of the people he says he’s killed. Freaked out, Suze tries to leave. She realises she is trapped though. She is rescued by Beaumont’s secretary, Marcus, who escorts her out the mansion.
- As they are leaving, Beaumont’s son, Tad from the party, asks Suze out for coffee and offer to drive her home afterwards. When he drops her off, he kisses her. Jesse interrupts the kiss and tells Suze to stay away from the Beaumont family.
- Suze explains the situation to Father Dom. He says that Beaumont might be a vampire, it would explain the weird claims and behaviour.
- A few days later, Suze finds Spike in a field and hides him in her room.
- CeeCee researches more about Beaumont for Suze. A string of disappearances are linked to his company. One of the missing women – Deidre Fiske – looks a bit like the woman ghost Suze saw.
- Adam takes CeeCee and Suze to CeeCee’s Aunt Pru’s to summon Mrs Fiske using Tarot cards – she’s a fortune-teller. Mrs Fiske appears and confirms a Beaumont killed her, but Suze realises that she isn’t the right ghost, she isn’t the one she saw.
- Tad and Mr Beaumont invite Suze to their house for dinner that night. Afterwards, Beaumont drugs tad and tries to talk telepathically to Suze, believing he is some sort of vampire. Suze stabs him in the chest with a pencil but doesn’t kill him. Marcus threaten Suze to never come back, and to never talk about Beaumont’s psychosis – his belief that he is a vampire.
- CeeCee calls to tell Suze that after the death of Tad’s mother, Beaumont gave most of his company to Marcus – who is actually his brother. Tad also calls to apologises to Suze. They have an argument when Tad denies the existence of his father’s illness and Suze claims Marcus had a role in the Beaumont killings.
- Suze is kidnapped by Marcus and his thugs. Marcus forces her into Mr Beaumont’s office and give her a swimsuit to change into. How bizarre! He plans on killing her and Tad by drowning them in the ocean during a storm. Suze smashes the aquarium when Marcus come back to check on her. He threatens her with a gun and Suze electrocutes him with a light bulb from the aquarium. As the building catches fire, Jesse appears. He claims Suze “called” for him. Jesse smashes a window so Tad and Suze can escape. Marcus remains missing after the incident.
how did it end?
When Suze gets home, her parents ground her. She cannot tell the full story as they don’t know about the mediator thing. “Red” turns out to be the name for Suze’s stepbrother, Doc. The woman ghost was Doc’s mother. Suze has to tell Doc his mother’s message, and admit to her abilities. Tad calls Suze to tell that he is moving to San Francisco while his fathers gets better. They break up.
anything else
Mediator = a person with the ability to see and talk to ghosts
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