The initial insult
(Book)

First book of a duology--Jacket.

Ostracized by the elite community of Amontillado, Ohio, after the disappearance of her parents, Tress organizes a Halloween costume party at an abandoned house, where she launches a macabre plan to force a popular former friend to confess what she knows.

Tress Montor's parents disappeared seven years ago while driving her best friend home. The entire town shuns her now that she lives with her drunken, one-eyed grandfather at what locals refer to as the 'White Trash Zoo,' a wild animal attraction featuring a zebra, a chimpanzee, and a panther, among other things. Felicity Turnado has worked hard to make everyone forget that she was with the Montors the night they disappeared. She buried what she knows so deeply that she can't even remember what it is-- only that she can't look at Tress without having a panic attack. At a Halloween costume party at an abandoned house, Tress wants either the truth-- or revenge. She tries to pry the truth from Felicity by slowly sealing her former best friend into a coal chute... with a drunken party above them, and a loose panther on the prowl. -- adapted from jacket.