Lady Killer (Dead Girls Club #2)

8. Luz

Chapter eight

Luz

A ccording to the information Alister had given me, Melody Thomson was born on April 17, 2004, to Henry Jr. and Celeste Thomson of Riverside, Connecticut.

Henry Jr. was a second-generation dentist, while Celeste was a homemaker. Henry’s family made their money by investing in small, regional businesses like laundromats and convenience stores. By the time Melody was born, she would want for nothing, except, of course, for the social connections that new money always seemed to obsess over.

What she lacked in social currency, she made up for with drive and ambition. She’d been at the top of her expensive prep school class in nearly every subject and spent her high school summers interning at an esteemed research facility dedicated to ending cancer. Prior to college, she was a two-season varsity athlete, with field hockey in the fall and golf in the spring, and she’d been the captain of the former in her senior year of high school. With a 1390 combined SAT score, Hollow Oak had been her third-choice school, behind Harvard and Yale. She’d also been accepted to the University of Pennsylvania and Middlebury but opted to stay closer to home.

She declared as a biochemistry major, with her sights set on medical school. Since freshman year, she’d been an undergraduate research assistant for the esteemed Dr. Jeffrey Reed in the pharmacology department, studying cardiac medications. She’d been studying to take the MCAT along with Aaron and had been similarly stressed about getting into medical school.

Until the Virgin Sacrifice Killer ripped out Melody’s heart and nailed it to her chest.

UNKNOWN: What is a sheep to the lion ?

The photos they sent me were more graphic and violent than ever before. While the other girls looked like sleeping angels, save for their bloody hearts, Melody had clearly died violently. She had been working with the killer, but why?

Nothing in her history gave me any clues.

When I shared the text and photos with Everest, he was disgusted.

“Ugh, how utterly unimaginative and cliché. I kind of dug the whole ritualistic heart removal thing, very old-school, but this? This is just embarrassing . . . ‘The lion and the lamb,’ ugh.”

I didn’t share the other text I received from the killer with him, the one I deleted immediately after reading it.

UNKNOWN: I miss you, Penelope.

Everest had insisted on escorting me back to my dorm while he furiously texted the twins calling for a “team meeting.”

“You have wildly misunderstood this arrangement,” I’d told him.

But here I was, a day later, seated in the formal living room of the twins’ townhouse on campus.

It was a newer build that blended elements of the university’s centuries-old aesthetic with clean, contemporary design, situated at the border the university shared with the town. Inside, the house was masculine, yet surprisingly . . . warm.

As expected, the walls were all a sterile white and the furniture was dark, minimalist, and overbearing.

But where I would have pictured glass and steel, I found wood and bold splashes of color. Bright paintings covered the walls. The style blended new school tattooing with pop art, lending an almost whimsical energy to them.

I sank into a charcoal boucle-covered loveseat and was nearly swallowed whole.

Everest was instantly at my side, deftly sliding a throw pillow behind my lower back.

He lingered with his arm wrapped around me, and I found myself wanting to pull deeper into his warmth.

Alister cleared his throat from across the room.

He was seated in a blocky, low-slung armchair that matched the sofa Everest and I sat on while Nixon hovered near a teakwood bar cart.

Alister’s eyes lingered on me, sending a small thrill through me, before Nixon broke the tension .

“So, what do we do now?” he said roughly, pouring himself a rather generous drink for three on a Friday afternoon.

I’d been chuffed when Everest told me there was a tiny piece of graphite that couldn’t be removed, stuck in his hand from the pencil-stabbing incident. There was something incredibly satisfying about Nixon Blackwell carrying a permanent mark from me.

When no one immediately responded to Nixon, he went back to his drink, muttering under his breath about “fucking idiotic fuckwits.”

Alister maintained his usual stony silence as he turned to stare down Everest at my side.

It would be impossible for me to mix the two twins up now. It wasn’t just the subtle tells, it was the way my body reacted to them. Alister’s kiss was imprinted on me, and I would never be able to forget how his lips felt claiming mine.

Heat flooded my face and chest, and I tossed my hair as I attempted to shake off the memory.

Everest propped up his chin with one hand and leaned back into the seat to curl up closer to me, looking positively bemused.

Don’t encourage the serial killer .

Alister’s nostrils flared as he shot another heated look in my direction, but he remained silent.

The weight of his attention had me crossing and recrossing my legs.

“Melody is dead,” I began, then paused before adding, “I believe she was one of the sheep.”

“Excuse me, who put the bitch in charge?” Nixon dropped himself dramatically into the armchair next to Alister’s.

Everest stilled at my side as the energy in the room snapped and tension bled into the air.

There was a flash of silver, and I turned to see Everest produce a small knife seemingly from nowhere. He danced the lethal-looking blade along his knuckles with careless grace.

“You won’t be calling her that again,” he said, the magnanimous smile on his face belying his tone.

“I’ll call her whatever I want—?” The tumbler in Nixon’s grasp exploded. “Motherfucker,” he cursed, leaping up and dropping the remains as he furiously shook out his bloodied hand. The crystal base hit the floor, shattering into a million pieces.

A silver blade sparkled between the shards.

“You could have taken off my fucking finger,” he roared at Everest, clutching at his hand .

“Please, I barely nicked you. However”—Everest’s voice dropped even lower, taking on an outright sinister tone—“the next time you call Starbright that word, you will lose more than a finger. Lucian would forgive me. It’s not like you need all ten.”

The promise in Everest’s voice was sublime. In that moment, he was every bit the dangerous killer I’d been told to fear.

“Enough, both of you,” Alister barked, turning to look at me.

Beneath his emotionless facade, he was warring over something.

“The police haven’t found her body,” he finally said.

What does that mean?

“Penny for your precious thoughts,” Everest whispered into my ear, breaking me out of my head.

“You know Aaron stalked me from my dorm and hunted me through the backwoods on campus,” I said.

“I told you that he didn’t suffer enough, didn’t I, darling?” Everest cooed, while Nixon rolled his eyes but kept his mouth shut.

“Aaron wasn’t alone. There was someone else with him.”

Everest went rigid, while Alister’s grip on the arms of his chair tightened .

“Why didn’t you tell Lucian this?” Nixon snapped.

“He was interested in why I killed Aaron, not my entire life story. I didn’t think he’d care about the number of sheep that night.”

“Sheep?” questioned Alister.

“Yes, sheep. Aaron and the other person wore identical masks that night—plastic sheep masks.”

“And you believe that Melody was one of the sheep?” he asked, immediately connecting the dots.

“Yes, I do.”

“Because of what the text said. ‘What’s a sheep to a lion?’”

“Amongst other things,” I said, picking off a piece of invisible lint on my sweater.

“Petite diablesse.” Alister’s voice rumbled so deeply I practically felt it between my legs.

Taking a deep breath, I steadied myself. “She made a comment the night of the Christmas party that she knew Aaron was selling drugs.”

“That’s it?” Nixon scoffed.

Alister raised a hand to silence him before tilting his head at me to continue, and I briefly explained what I’d found on her TikTok.

Nixon groaned and rolled his eyes, while his brother looked at me contemplatively .

“What do you think the connection is between the killer and the sheep?” Alister asked.

“Killers.”

He arched a single brow.

I sighed, raising my own in response before indulging him. “The first two murders were too different from the third for them all to have been committed by the same person. And based on his behavior before his death, I’m fairly confident that Aaron was directly involved in killing Glory Van Holt . . .”

Pausing, I weighed the value of sharing the next bit of information.

“I believe the killer is the person who called off the sheep on Halloween night . . .”

“What do you mean?” Everest asked, suddenly sitting up straight.

He’d had no reaction to my revelations until now, confirming my suspicions that he also believed Melody was a sheep.

“Two sheep chased me into the woods that night. While I was hiding and they were searching for me, one of them got a call. I couldn’t hear what was said, but whatever it was, it made them abandon their hunt for me.”

“Another detail you neglected to tell my brother,” Nixon said, his lip curled into a sneer .

“I answered all the questions your brother had for me. If certain details didn’t come up or he failed to ask the right questions, it’s hardly my fault,” I snapped.

“Ehh.” Everest winced. “Best not keep details from Lucian in the future, darling. He can be a bit fussy about those kinds of things. I would know.”

Breathe in through your nose, out through your mouth.

“Pardon me but I didn’t think that the infamous Lucian Blackwell was interested in the details of my life. I didn’t keep anything from him deliberately, and I’m telling you now under the assumption that you’ll report anything worth knowing back to him.”

Nixon stood abruptly from his chair and stalked over to the bar, muttering something under his breath about people knowing their place.

“Is there anything else we should know?” Alister had gone flat again, and I slammed into the sudden distance between us like a wall.

I’d been more honest with them than anyone else since Mami, and this was my reward.

Slipping my own mask back in place, I shifted away from Everest’s side to sit up stiffly. “That’s all,” I said, returning his coolness .

“Starbright—?”

Ignoring him, I smoothed my skirt and stood up. “If it’s all right with you three, I have things to do.”

Everest continued talking while Nixon continued complaining, and Alister sat in silence as I walked away.

Once I was safely on the other side of the parlor doors, I slipped out my phone and typed out a message.

If the Blackwells thought I needed them to catch a killer, they were sorely mistaken.