Carter Price

Quick Facts

• Role: Bel’s cousin (later revealed to be her full sister); grounding force and quiet investigator within the Price family mystery
• Age: Fifteen
• First appearance: The cemetery scene, sharing a private ritual and unspoken shorthand with Bel
• Guardians: Raised by Jeff Price and Sherry Price
• Key relationships: Cousin to Annabel 'Bel' Price and niece to Rachel Price—relationships that transform as the truth emerges
• Aspirations: A disciplined, Juilliard-bound ballerina
• Timeline: Born four months after Rachel disappeared
• Central themes: Identity and Self-Discovery, The Complexity of Family Bonds, and Truth, Lies, and Deception
• Notable details: “Price eyes”; waist-length coppery-brown hair; an athlete’s poise and muscle definition from years of training

Who They Are

Bold but understated, Carter Price is the novel’s paradox: a latecomer to the Rachel mystery who proves to be its hidden center. She is Bel’s emotional ballast—calm where Bel is caustic, hopeful where Bel is guarded—and the one person Bel trusts without question. A life of pliés and pressure has taught Carter discipline, but her defining strength is moral clarity. When the reappearance of Rachel throws the family into chaos, Carter’s instinct is neither to provoke nor to retreat; it’s to seek the truth, even if that truth remakes her.

Personality & Traits

Carter blends tenderness with steel. She rarely escalates conflict, yet she refuses to be managed. Her composure isn’t passivity; it’s a chosen stance that lets her see clearly—about Bel, about Rachel, and eventually about herself.

• Loyal and supportive: Her cemetery ritual with Bel and their “secret language” mark a bond that predates and outlasts the documentary’s staged scenes. She’s the person Bel consistently trusts, even when they disagree about Rachel.
• Level-headed and optimistic: Carter nudges Bel toward kindness, tries to see the good in people, and offers Rachel a fair hearing. At the filmed family dinner, she absorbs Sherry’s public criticism without lashing out, signaling a controlled, resilient temperament.
• Ambitious and disciplined: Years of grueling rehearsals, restrictive diets, and Sherry’s pressure shape her identity. The visible “lines of muscle along her calves” and her Juilliard dream embody how rigor—sometimes imposed, sometimes chosen—has defined her.
• Brave and protective: In the cliffside climax, she acts first and unequivocally to protect Rachel. That decisive physical intervention is courage sharpened by love, not adrenaline.
• Perceptive and quietly ingenious: Welcoming at first, she registers subtle inconsistencies and initiates a secret DNA test. This private investigation rivals Bel’s more overt sleuthing and shows Carter’s preference for action over accusation.
• Poised and striking: “Waist-length coppery-brown hair,” “sharp cheekbones,” and “Price eyes” visually underline her connection to the family she will later claim as her own.

Character Journey

Carter begins as Bel’s steady cousin, hovering just outside the blast radius of the Price family legend. Rachel’s return complicates that balance: Carter is kinder to Rachel than Bel can bear to be, exposing the first fissures in their seamless intimacy. Refusing to accept either the documentary’s narrative or the family’s silence, she runs a DNA test in secret and learns the truth—that she and Bel share both parents. The revelation detonates her identity but also clarifies her loyalties. At Point Lookout, she stops being the observer in someone else’s story and becomes its moral agent, choosing action over fear and love over obligation. In the aftermath, Carter rejects roles scripted by ambition and secrecy, staking out a self defined by truth and chosen family.

Key Relationships

• Bel Price: With Bel, Carter’s bond reads as sisterhood long before it is proven. Their humor, rituals, and wordless understanding make them a unit; even when Rachel’s return strains that unity, Carter’s honesty (the DNA test, the cliffside confession) rebuilds it on firmer ground.
• Rachel Price: Drawn to each other from their first meeting, Carter and Rachel move from tentative curiosity to urgent kinship. Carter’s openness allows a genuine connection to form—and when danger arrives, she puts her body between Rachel and harm, transforming affinity into action.
• Sherry Price: Sherry’s love is filtered through control—caloric counts, rehearsals, and public critiques. Carter’s discovery of her true parentage exposes how Sherry has curated her life on a lie; the resulting break is painful but necessary, freeing Carter from ambitions that were never entirely hers.
• Jeff Price: Jeff is affectionate and well-meaning, but often unaware of what Carter endures. The truth devastates him, and his final attempt to shield his brother ends in tragedy. For Carter, grief for Jeff complicates her new clarity, reminding her that truth can heal and wound at once.

Defining Moments

Across the novel, Carter’s quiet choices become turning points for the entire family. Each moment nudges her from compliant daughter to self-directed sister.

• Cemetery conversation with Bel: Their first scene together—easy, intimate, and deeply rooted—establishes Carter as Bel’s true confidante. Why it matters: It grounds the narrative in a relationship sturdy enough to be tested and rebuilt.
• Filmed family dinner: Under the glare of cameras, Sherry publicly polices Carter’s body and training, while Rachel’s gaze turns focused, almost maternal. Why it matters: The scene crystallizes competing claims on Carter—ambition versus care—and primes her to interrogate which “family” is acting in her best interest.
• The DNA test reveal at Point Lookout: Carter confesses she ran the test and that she and Bel are full genetic sisters. Why it matters: This secret investigation converts suspicion into certainty, reorients every relationship in the book, and explains why Carter came to the cliff prepared to act.
• Saving Rachel at the cliff: Carter physically intervenes to stop Charlie Price, an act that precipitates both Charlie’s and Jeff’s deaths. Why it matters: It’s Carter’s moral thesis in motion—choosing truth and chosen family over fear, and accepting the consequences of that choice.

Essential Quotes

"I never really knew her either."

Carter aligns herself with Bel’s bewilderment, refusing easy nostalgia about Rachel. The line collapses generational distance—niece and daughter both lack a mother—and underscores Carter’s refusal to pretend certainty where there is none.

"Urgh, Uncle Charlie. I guess you can’t choose your family, can you?"

Early cynicism about inherited ties foreshadows her later rejection of blood-as-destiny. The irony is deliberate: by the novel’s end, Carter proves that you can choose your family—and that choice can outweigh origin.

"It said that me and Bel were full genetic sisters, that we shared both the same parents."

The plainspoken phrasing mirrors the starkness of the fact. Carter doesn’t dramatize; she accepts, and in accepting, she reframes every memory, from her “Price eyes” to Sherry’s training, as evidence of a story misnamed.

"You can choose your family. And I choose them. I’m sorry."

This is Carter’s credo and her turning point. She articulates an ethic—love plus truth over obligation—and in the same breath apologizes, acknowledging the pain her choice causes without retreating from it.