Since the time Mickey had moved to this town at the beginning of Harlan Coben’s Shelter, something or other kept happening, and he was not the kind of person who could turn a blind eye to it and just lead his life pretending that nothing had happened. At the beginning of the series, we saw that Ashley had vanished suddenly, and Mickey kept searching for her, putting his life at stake, until he found her. There were a lot of things that he didn’t know about his father, and he had a feeling that Brad was still alive, though no one really believed him. The town had a lot of secrets, and together with Ema and Spoon, Mickey started divulging them one by one. There were a lot of things going on in their lives simultaneously, but these teenagers were headstrong, and they kept moving ahead no matter what.
Spoiler Alert
Mickey still wasn’t able to understand what the bat lady, aka Lizzy Sobek, was up to, and that is why, in the seventh episode of Harlan Coben’s Shelter, he had gone back to her house to confront her. Luther had arrived there unannounced and set the entire house on fire. Mickey was able to escape from there somehow, but he wasn’t able to save the bat lady. When he reached back home, he told his friends that, in all probability, the Bat lady wouldn’t be able to escape out of there alive, as not only was there a fire, but she was brutally stabbed by Luther. Mickey had been able to save Ashley, but he still didn’t know if his father was still alive or if it was a mere figment of his imagination. He didn’t know what the bat lady wanted to tell him about Luther and why he was after his life when he had done no harm to him. So let’s find out if Mickey is able to get closer to the truth during Harlan Coben’s Shelter‘s ending, i.e., Season 1 finale.
What did Whitney confess about?
Troy, after finding out that his mother was having an affair with Shira Bolitar, was distraught, and the fact that hurt him the most was that his mother had been lying to them all this time. Hannah got worried as Troy was not home, and she asked Rachel if she knew where he was. Rachel knew that Troy was at this party, and she immediately went to meet him there and inform him that his mother was searching for him. Troy, in an inebriated state, had an argument with Rachel, and they broke up there. Rachel was asking him to sober up and tell her what was happening with him, but Troy had reached his threshold, and in anger, he ended up saying that he didn’t want to be with her.
Rachel had earlier bumped into Whitney at the party itself, and she told her that she didn’t deserve to be with Ema as she had been the worst friend one could ask for. Whitney was shattered, and Troy was out of his mind, and in that state, they made the most terrible decision: getting intimate with each other. The next day, Whitney went on social media and confessed that she had bought her followers and that she had indulged with the best friend of her brother. Rachel, Ema, Buck, and everybody else came to know about it, and Whitney received a lot of backlash from her followers.
Rachel and Ema didn’t know how to react to the information, and even Buck had not expected this kind of behavior from his best friend and his sister. Troy was in a very chaotic state of mind, and if given the option, he would have cried his lungs out and cut off from everybody for some time, but he had a match to play, and he had to inevitably face everyone there. Kasselton High lost the game because Troy was just not able to concentrate. Tory confronted his mother, and he broke down in front of her, telling her that he knew what was happening between her and Shira. Hannah realized that it was about time she told Ken about everything that had been happening, because if she didn’t do it now, then she would end up ruining everything.
Was the bat lady still alive?
Mickey, Ema, Spoon, and Rachel had figured out earlier that the bat lady probably was still alive, as she would have escaped through the underground tunnel, which Mickey had discovered in Harlan Coben’s Shelter Episode 7. They had gone inside the tunnel and found stains of blood there, which made them believe that the bat lady might have made a miraculous escape and not died in the fire. Mickey and others found footage kept in one of the rooms in the tunnel, and they saw a video where it looked like Brad, Mickey’s father, and the bat lady were keeping Luther and other kids in captivity.
Mickey and his friends didn’t realize that if Abeona Group was rescuing the kids, then in that video, it felt like Luther was being held against his wishes. It was all getting very complicated for the teenagers, and they didn’t know who was right and who was wrong. The kids knew that the Abeona Group had rescued Ashley, but then again, Luther’s reaction in the video just didn’t make sense. Dylan Shakes came to pick up Mickey in Harlan Coben’s Shelter Episode 8, yet again, and he told him that someone was waiting for him. Mickey found out that his speculations were right and that the bat lady was still alive. Mickey asked her what the meaning of the video was, and that is when the bat lady gave him the complete context and told him what they were trying to do there.
Why did Luther want to kill Mickey?
The bat lady finally revealed why Luther wanted to take revenge on Mickey and why he hated his father. After rescuing a number of kids back in the day, Brad brought all of them to the tunnel beneath the bat lady’s house. Luther and his younger brother Ricky were also among that group of kids, and Brad had made sure that he rescued and saved them from the wrath of their abusive father. While escaping, Luther’s face accidentally got cut by a broken piece of glass, and due to all the commotion, someone informed the police, and they came to search the place. Brad took the initiative and hid all the kids in a soundproof room inside the tunnel, which was stocked with all the things one might need for survival. Ricky, Luther’s brother, had asthma, and he got an attack there, and he couldn’t survive. Brad didn’t know about it, and when he came back to take the kids out, he noticed that Luther was sitting with the dead body of his younger brother on his lap. From that day on, taking revenge was the only thing that Luther thought about, as he blamed Brad and the bat lady for his brother’s demise. So now, Mickey knew that Luther was still out there, and he wouldn’t stop unless and until he killed him.
Is Brad dead or alive?
After talking to the bat lady in the Harlan Coben’s Shelter season-ending episode, Mickey realized that his father was not alive. The bat lady said that she had told him that Brad was alive because she could hear his voice in her head, and she believed that he was trying to reach out to her from the parallel realm. Mickey went back to his friends, and he told Shira too that there was no point in exhuming Brad’s body, as now he was sure that his father had actually died in that accident. But just then, something struck Mickey, and he remembered that the bat lady had told him that Luther wanted to subject Brad to a similar fate as his brother’s.
Mickey thought that maybe his father was not trying to reach out to the bat lady from another realm, but he was stuck inside the house itself. He remembered how Spoon had told him how he could hear all the teachers as their voices traveled through the pipes, and that’s when Mickey realized where his father could be. Mickey, Ema, Rachel, and Spoon once again went back to the underground tunnels in Bat Lady’s house, and they figured out where that soundproof room was, where Brad had once kept Luther and his brother Ricky. The teenagers broke open the door, and Mickey saw a shadowy figure approaching him. It was Brad! Mickey’s father was, after all, alive, and his intuitions weren’t wrong at all. At the end of Harlan Coben’s Shelter, Shira also got a call from Hannah, who told her that Brad’s body had been exhumed, and when Shira reached there, she too would have known that someone had played a dirty trick on them.
The first season of Harlan Coben’s Shelter left us on a cliffhanger, and there is clearly a second season on the cards since there is still a lot to be ascertained. Ema has to figure things out with Whitney, and Rachel and Troy have yet to have a confrontation. Spoon has to find a way to get over his grief, and he will probably once again be able to find love in his life. Now that Brad has come back, it would be interesting to see what he and Mickey end up doing, considering the predator, Luther, was still out there and waiting for an opportunity to hurt Mickey. Though there hasn’t been any confirmation of season 2 as of yet, we believe that we will be visiting Kasselton once again and witnessing how things pan out for the various characters from hereon.
