The Girl Upstairs is the second book in the Kite Strings series. In June of 1990, Gabrielle Vansant drowns suspiciously in the gulf bay off of her father's fishing boat, forever changing the lives of her family and her two best childhood friends, Rory and Holden. Gabrielle's father John disappears, accused of her murder, and everyone involved in the beach summer vacation scatter, becoming mute shadows living in fear. Rory and Holden's budding romance stagnates when they are forced apart by Rory's overprotective and controlling brother, Rhett Peacock. Twenty years later, Gabrielle's mother Lexie dies, leaving the beach house to Holden and Rory in hopes of reuniting the children from her neighborhood she had forsaken. Gabrielle had secrets that Holden and Rory would unearth in her upstairs childhood bedroom. They would discover that Gabby was everywhere and nowhere.