This book is an AUDIBLE ORIGINAL- Currently included for Free with the Audible Plus Catalogue at the time of this review.
🎧 Reviewed by LD | Rating: 4.2/5 | Steam: 🔥
⚠️ This is a full spoiler review. If you haven’t read After You’ve Gone yet — go read it first. We’ll be here when you’re done.
The Opening
Charlie’s week starts with a stray dog she doesn’t know what to do with. She tries to reach her friend Tessa to help spread the word online — no answer. The next morning she walks the dog around the neighbourhood looking for the owner, comes up empty, gets home, and realizes she still hasn’t heard from Tessa. That’s strange. Tessa posts at least four photos a day and has gone completely quiet. Charlie goes back through her social and sees a comment on Tessa’s last post: rest in peace Tessa. Then another: I hope they catch the creep who did this.
Then her mom knocks…
The Full Story — Spoilers Included
Finding Gus
Charlie finds a loose dog on the street and brings it home. She doesn’t know what to do with it. She tries to look up missing dog posts online, can’t find anything, and decides to reach out to her friend Tessa, who has way more followers and could help spread the word. No answer. She sends a message. Nothing back.
Something Is Very Wrong
Tessa not responding is strange. She usually posts at least four photos a day and there’s been nothing. Then Charlie goes back through her social media and sees a comment on Tessa’s last post: rest in peace Tessa. Then another one: I hope they catch the creep who did this.
Her mom knocks on the door. She’s been crying. Tessa has been murdered. Found strangled in a hotel room in New Orleans. Police have their theory and they’re locked in on it — but Charlie knows something that changes everything, because Tessa told her she had a date that night with a man she met at a coffee shop that morning. A man with excellent eyebrows.
The Police Have Their Theory
Police believe Tessa was killed by a man who had been targeting women in the area that night. He had followed another woman all the way back to her hotel room before she managed to get away. That’s their lead and they’re committed to it.
Charlie doesn’t think that’s what happened. She had spoken with Tessa earlier that same day. Tessa told her she had met someone that morning over beignets and coffee and was going on a date with him that night. She specifically mentioned his eyebrows. Charlie reports this to the police. Her phone was stolen along with her laptop, so she can’t easily produce evidence, but she gives them everything she knows.
They don’t take it seriously.
Visiting Tessa’s Mom
Charlie visits Tessa’s mom, who looks like she has aged years in just two months. She tells her about the date tip and that she had already passed it along to police but nobody seemed to follow up on it.
The Funeral
At the wake, it seems like half their graduating class has shown up. Charlie is missing Tessa badly. She runs into Aaron, Tessa’s ex-boyfriend.
At the funeral, she asks Tessa’s mom if there are any developments in the case. Nothing. The mom mentioned the tip about the date to her liaison and they were supposed to follow up. They never did. She asks Charlie to try again.
Shut Down
Charlie calls the police. She gets a different officer who basically tells her to stop wasting their time. They are getting plenty of tips. Duplicate reports are not helpful.
She feels completely useless. So she goes to social media and makes a video. It has been twenty-three days since Tessa was murdered. No arrests. Police seem completely locked in on the area harasser and aren’t paying any attention to who Tessa actually spent that night with. Charlie posts a photo of Tessa and asks if anyone saw her.
Stargirl Z
Through the same app where she posted the video, Charlie gets a message from someone called stargirl_z. “We need to talk about Tessa. Video call tomorrow at 1600 hours.” No other information. They don’t respond to her follow-up question.
The next day she waits. Four o’clock comes and goes, she is starting to think it was a joke. Then an app notification — a video call. Three people on the screen including Charlie. One is a teenage girl. The other is an older man named Gerald.
They ask for her alibi. They thought she might be a suspect and Charlie is floored!
Stargirl_z and Gerald are a team. They solve cold cases. Three out of four solved, technically four but the last one had no arrest because it couldn’t be proven in court. They clearly have a long history together and their back-and-forth is sharp.
They had already decided to take Tessa’s case before they reached out. They just needed to make sure Charlie wasn’t trying to get famous off her dead friend. They are in. Is she in?
She’s in.
They send her everything they’ve pulled together. They’ve already been through her app data. They also found grainy CCTV footage from the bar where cell tower data placed Tessa that night and they want Charlie to go through it. How did they get this? It’s probably best not to ask.
The College Story
Charlie goes through the footage and finds images of Tessa with a man whose face isn’t visible. Just the back of his head. She posts another video asking if anyone recognizes the area or what Tessa was wearing.
Gerald and stargirl_z call back. They enhanced an image of the man’s shirt and can make out a barely-known band name printed on it. Danger Monkey. The band has a show coming up in New Orleans in a couple of days.
They want Charlie to go. She says she can’t.
Stargirl_z asks if it has anything to do with what happened to her in college. Charlie wants to know how she knows about that. Deep background check, naturally. Anyway, is that what’s keeping her from going to New Orleans?
Charlie tells the story. She was walking when two men blocked her path. One had a gun. They followed her back to her apartment, pushed her into a closet, and shoved a chest of drawers up against the door. Then they robbed the place and left, all while debating SA or even killing her. She was trapped in that closet for over twenty hours. Everyone reading that — and probably Charlie in the retelling — assumes they know where it’s going. It doesn’t go there. Just the robbery.
Going to New Orleans
They have already booked her a plane ticket and a room at the same hotel where Tessa was killed. Charlie is still not sure she can do this when police announce an arrest in Tessa’s murder.
Something about the timing and the announcement feels completely wrong to her.
So she gets on the plane and pushes through her fears.
At the Hotel
The concierge shuts her down immediately. Not talking about this. The doorman is more willing. He lets things slip — Tessa came back to the hotel alone that night, which means nobody walked in with her. Charlie knows she would not have opened her room door for a stranger. It had to be someone she invited up herself. Charlie thinks about that. I personally think that hotel staff in uniform knocking on your door is also a scenario nobody seems to have considered.
The Concert
Charlie goes to the Danger Monkey show. She’s watching for that shirt, looking for someone who could fit. While she waits she overhears some girls in the crowd talking about how attractive the lead singer is. She takes a closer look. She doesn’t quite know him but he is a dead ringer for Aaron, Tessa’s ex-boyfriend. And he is absolutely wearing the Danger Monkey shirt. The man at the bar with Tessa that night was the lead singer.
Jake Shelton
Gerald pulls everything on him. His name is Jake Shelton.
Stargirl_z says she thinks they’re missing something. She brings up the eyebrows. Nice eyebrow guy and Danger Monkey guy. She thinks they’re the same person.
Jake leaves before Charlie can get to him at the venue. She tracks him down at his day job. The server asks if she’s one of his groupies. She says they have a mutual friend. He comes over, confused. She tells him they have photos of him with Tessa Mason.
He says it is not what they think. He was with her but he did not kill her. He met Tessa that morning at Cafe Dumont — so yes, he was in fact nice eyebrow guy. They agreed to meet at the bar later that night. He got stuck in traffic and was very late. They hadn’t exchanged numbers. By the time he got there she was already gone.
He walked Bourbon Street until he found her. He apologized. She told him he could buy her dinner to make up for it. They ate, they talked for hours, he called it a perfect first date. They were going to spend more time together when she suddenly got a text and said she had to go — something came up. They made plans to meet the next day.
She never showed. Never answered. He figured she had changed her mind. Then he saw the news. But he says he never went anywhere near her hotel. She told him she had someone to deal with and left it there. As for not telling the police — he assumed they would have figured out he had dinner with her. When they didn’t contact him, he was relieved. He knew exactly what he would have looked like to them and he would have ended up as the prime suspect.
Charlie gets back from New Orleans with Gus, the dog still at her side. She does not think Jake did it.
The Lobby Photo
Gerald and stargirl_z find footage from the hotel lobby on the night Tessa died. Stargirl_z asks if the man in it is Jake.
Charlie looks but it’s not Jake. It is Aaron. They look enough alike to confuse someone who doesn’t know them, but Charlie knows the second she sees it. Aaron killed Tessa. He had absolutely no reason to be in New Orleans.
Going Public
Charlie makes a video. She shows Aaron in the hotel photos and walks through what she’s put together. She also contacts the New Orleans police directly. They will not take her call, will not open an investigation, will not engage. They already have their man.
After the video goes up, police finally start looking for Aaron. They cannot find him, he seems to be on the run.
Aaron
Charlie is on the phone with stargirl_z and Gerald when Gus starts acting agitated. She takes him outside but something feels off so they stay on the line.
Then she screams. She’s been pushed down. Aaron is standing over her with a gun.
He wants to talk. He’s not himself — angry, off. He asks her if it ever occurred to her that the police had the right man in custody all along and she just made it impossible to convict the killer by blowing up the case.
He tells her what he knows about that night. He came to New Orleans as a surprise. This was a pattern with Tessa — she’d break up with him and then come around again a few days later. He clearly knew she had been on a date that night because he admits he had been following her.
He was the one who texted her. He said he wanted to see her. She said she needed to talk to him. He asked to meet at the bar but she said it had to be private. She sent him her room number and he went up but he claims she never opened the door when he knocked.
Then he says: it’s probably for the best that you didn’t answer that door that night.
Sure. That tracks…
He’s not going to admit he killed her. But she wasn’t willing to take him back, and she isn’t here anymore. We all know what happened.
Somehow they end up back inside at some point. I must have missed something because she was outside with Gus, knocked down and then room floods with light… inside? Door comes open. Police are there. They get Aaron on the ground and in cuffs.
Then Gus shows up at the porch desperately trying to get inside.
The Ending
Aaron pleads guilty to avoid the death penalty.
Gerald finally tells Charlie stargirl_z’s real name. It’s Emily.
Gerald and Emily are already on their next case.
Gus goes home.
A man calls Charlie — he thinks Gus might be his dog. She takes him to the address. Gus takes off running the moment he sees the man standing outside. The man is in tears. His name is James and Gus’s real name is Buddy.
James explains — he fell and broke his hip. He only just got home from the hospital a few days ago. He insists on giving Charlie a reward. She asks if she can just take Buddy for walks. He says absolutely yes.
Eight Months Later
It’s the one-year anniversary of Tessa’s death. Charlie has since adopted a dog from a shelter — Koda, who has been returned multiple times because he’s restless and hard to settle, and destructive. She still takes Buddy out a few times a week.
And Charlie is now working with Gerald and Emily on a new case.
The Steam Rating Breakdown
🔥 — Zero romance, zero heat. This one is grief, a stray dog, and a scrappy little team of internet detectives trying to get justice for a woman nobody else is fighting for. Content warnings for strangulation, stalking, being trapped, and gun violence.
The Ending — Satisfied or Disappointed?
Honestly? I expected a bigger twist coming off The Stone Sisters. I can’t say I suspected Aaron exactly, but once he went missing it was pretty obvious where things were heading — of course he was going to come after the person who just publicly exposed him. I wanted more of a gut punch there. That said, the book itself was a solid read and what I loved most was the trio Charlie put together with Gerald and Emily. That friendship felt real and it clearly helped her survive losing Tessa. That part of it worked.
Would I Relisten to It?
No.
Where to Get This Book
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Plot Twisted. 🔥
🎧 | Genre: Thriller, Mystery, Crime | Steam: 🔥
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