Lady Killer (Dead Girls Club #2)

15. Luz

Chapter fifteen

Luz

J anuary became February, and a deep cold set into the Northeast. Valentine’s Day was coming, and Autumn’s problem weighed heavy on me.

On the one hand, no one should be forced out of the closet before they were ready. But that wasn’t really the case with my friend, was it? If it weren’t for her parents, it sounded like Autumn would have been out and proud of her relationship with Simone. If her parents were gone . . .

Murder isn’t the solution to every problem, but it certainly solves some of them.

The cold smelled like ozone as I crossed the quad, and I could feel the hairs inside my nose freeze as the subzero air hit the condensation on them.

An extreme weather warning had been issued, and most classes were being held virtually today, or were canceled, with one exception.

ECON202.

I’d spent the twenty minutes before I had to leave for class on the student portal refreshing my messages over and over, waiting for a message from Locke that class would be online.

It never came.

Which was why I was huffing and puffing my way to Granger Hall, wearing enough layers that I could do a fairly reasonable Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man impression.

Mami loved that movie .

Shaking my head, I pulled my gloves from my hands that still felt like ice cubes and swung the door open viciously.

When I stepped into the lecture hall, an unusual silence enveloped me, and it took my brain a second to process what was wrong.

The room was empty.

“Ahh, sorry, Luz, but what are you doing here? ”

I turned toward the familiar voice behind me.

“Dominic . . .”

He looked at me with pity in his expression, and I already knew exactly what he was going to say.

“In-person class is canceled due to the extreme cold. Didn’t you check the student portal before class?”

I gritted my teeth.

“Oh, I did, but I didn’t see any messages before I left. Did you send one out?”

Dominic made his way to the lectern and started preparing for class. “Uh, no,” he said, unwrapping his scarf. “Professor Blackwell sent out a message to the whole class letting them know he was stuck in DC, and that with the cold snap, they should stay inside and stream today’s lecture. You sure you didn’t get it?”

I was certain I did not, and I knew exactly who to blame.

“I’ll double-check,” I lied with a pinched smile.

“Well, you’re welcome to stay, although it's going to be weird lecturing to one person.”

I usually liked Dominic, but today, he was really starting to wear on me.

“Thanks so much, I appreciate it,” I said, sliding into a seat.

He grumbled something but continued to set up, and eventually, class started. He seemed to forget I was there, and the weird energy in the room abated.

My anger at Locke, however, grew with every tick of the clock.

There was no doubt in my mind that I had been left off the class message on purpose.

Not that I could tell Dominic, who I doubted could even fathom our esteemed professor of economics being anything less than perfect.

Batard.

This couldn’t go on unchecked.

Dominic continued to lecture into the webcam while I raged in silence. By the time he finished the lecture, I was ready to tear out of the hall.

“Uh, stay warm,” he called out to my back.

“You too,” I responded airily.

I had a plan.

Carrying my scarf, hat, and gloves in a pile, I cut through the first floor of Granger Hall, heading straight for the elevators to the upper floors of the building.

Rounding the corner, I nearly collided with someone hurrying in the opposite direction, and in my efforts to avoid them, my belongings fell from my arms, scattering across the floor .

“Shit, sorry,” said a familiar voice.

“Professor Schultz, what are you doing here?”

“Ah, oh, I’m meeting a friend,” he said, gesturing in the direction of the hall I’d come from. “And please, call me Michael.”

I kneeled to pick up my stuff with Michael reaching to help me. Once again, a prickle of awareness ran through me.

Was someone watching us?

Standing up, I looked around, my instructor looking at me in confusion.

“Sorry, Professor, I’m just . . . I’m also meeting someone, and I have to go,” I said, stepping around him, still searching for the source of my unease.

“Right . . . right. Well, then, see you next week,” he called after me as I walked away from him.

Ducking down another hallway, I peered around the corner. Watching and waiting to see if anyone else appeared.

After several minutes, when no one did, I came out from my hiding place and scurried over to the elevators I knew would take me to Locke’s office.

Once the doors closed, the uncomfortable sensation of being spied on eased up, and by the time I made it to the sixth floor, I was convinced I’d imagined it .

Stepping off the elevator, the floor was empty, thanks to the weather keeping most faculty at home, and I padded down the hall to where I knew Locke’s office was.

607 . . .609 . . . 613 . . . There it was.

The door had a tumbler lock, which meant even though I wasn’t the best at it, there was a good chance I could pick it.

Looking around again, I pulled my backpack to my front and shoved my pile into it before reaching into the inner side pocket for my pencil case.

It was a cute pleather one I’d picked up at the university bookstore. I liked that, in addition to the one long rectangular pouch, there were a couple of small slim pouches inside. One was the perfect size for a collection of picklocks.

Turning my attention back to the door, I considered which pins were right for the job.

“A word of advice, if I might.”

“Zut alors!” I cursed, spinning around as my heart dropped to the bottom of my chest.

Everest stood less than an arm’s length away from me. Once again, I hadn’t heard a sound until he spoke.

What is it with these men sneaking up on me?

“What are you doing here?” I whispered, my eyes darting around the hall to see if anyone else had stumbled on me .

“Watching you, obviously,” he said, his forehead crinkled in confusion.

All of the Blackwells were disgustingly good looking, but Everest’s beauty was almost unearthly.

His cheek and jawbones were sharp enough to cut diamonds, and he wore his white-blond hair long enough on top that it fell carelessly over his pale blue eyes. I always questioned how people could wear their hair like that and not be driven mad. Everest had me wondering if they were all high-functioning sociopaths.

“I was—?”

“Breaking into Locke’s office?” He cut me off, his head tilted to the side while his eyes remained focused on me. “Yes, I know.”

I swallowed.

“It’s a trap, you know. You can see that, right?” His tone was earnest, void of the usual mania I had come to associate with the self-proclaimed serial killer.

“What’s a trap?” I said, straightening my spine, admitting to nothing.

He took a step closer and lifted his chin toward the door. “The lock is simple enough. But the alarm that gets triggered when you enter and fail to immediately swipe a magnetized pass is much harder to disarm. Not to mention the security cameras he keeps in there. ”

Blood rushed through my head, and I began to deflate, mortified. I hadn’t considered a trap, but I should have.

Once again, I let my emotions get the better of me with Locke.

“Oh, no. Don’t look so sad, Starbright.” Everest stepped in to lift my chin with his fingers.

His eyes were big with concern, an expression that looked wholly unnatural on him. Before I could stop myself, a strangled giggle slipped from between my lips.

I want to kiss his worries away. The self-proclaimed serial killer extraordinaire.

Everest’s expression shifted in an instant, a wide-set smile engulfing his face, showcasing his perfectly straight, white teeth.

“Lucky for us, I have the key,” he said, stepping around me and pulling a key ring from his pocket with a flourish.

He whistled a catchy riff as he unlocked the door with a practiced ease before swiping the passkey against a small black box on the wall. The blinking red light on it turned green.

That hadn’t been there the last time I was in Locke’s office.

“Woo-hoo,” he said, turning to face me, looking pleased as pie. Holding the door open with one arm, he bowed theatrically. “Ladies first. ”

Locke occupied a spacious corner office that looked more like it belonged at a Fortune 500 company’s headquarters.

“So,” Everest said as he hoisted himself onto the modern blackwood desk, pulling up his legs and then crossing them to sit in the middle of it. “What’s the plan now?”

“What about the cameras?”

“Only activated when you don’t swipe the passkey. Locke wouldn’t want cameras recording when he was in here. That would be an invasion of his privacy.”

“All that for an economics professor?”

Everest leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, and I found myself taking one . . . two . . . three steps closer to him.

There was something magnetic about his madness.

“For the inquisitor of the Blackwell family, love,” he said, peering deep inside me with those ice-blue eyes. “Locke doesn’t bring family business here, but that hasn’t stopped the occasional idiot with a death wish from breaking in looking for something.”

“And you have a key because?”

“I go where I need to be.”

He reached forward to stroke my jaw before pulling his hand back .

Not long ago, I flinched at this man’s touch. Now, I wished he would do more.

Alister had softened something in me, and somehow, my defenses against both had been compromised.

“I have a present for you.”

Why did that sound both incredibly alarming and the tiniest bit exciting? “What did you do?”

Everest didn’t answer. Instead, he reached inside his wool coat and pulled out a small square gift box wrapped in a camel-colored satin bow.

“That’s—?”

“Your favorite color,” he said helpfully, holding it up for me to take.

I took the box from his hand, giving it a gentle shake. It was fairly lightweight, and inside, a couple of small objects could be heard moving around.

They sounded . . . damp.

I tugged on the ribbon, pulling it loose, and held it out to him. “Hold it, please.”

He smiled in delight.

I grasped the top of the box and lifted. It caught for a second before pulling apart with a faint whoosh.

“Everest . . .”

“Yes, Starbright.”

“What am I looking at? ”

Four blood-crusted, wrinkled, fleshy slugs lay atop soggy tissue paper.

Except that wasn’t quite right. Because that looks like adipose tissue, and that looks like . . .

“They shouldn’t have let such vile filth fall from their lips if they didn’t want to lose them,” he said.

“Their lips . . . Whose lip—Oh!”

Understanding washed over me, and Everest’s grin stretched out disconcertingly wide.

“You cut off their lips?” I said, trying to make sure I understood.

His head bobbed up and down emphatically.

“Are they still alive?”

He nodded again, this time with an awfully adorable scowl on his face.

I delicately put the lid back on the box and set it on the desk next to Everest. I wasn’t squeamish. I had cut Aaron’s heart from his chest after all, but the lips were distracting.

“You don’t like them?”

Have you ever seen a serial killer crestfallen? Has your heart ever broken for a very bad man?

I stepped up to the edge of the desk, brushing against his crossed shins as I got closer. He radiated intense warmth, and I wanted to wrap myself up in him .

Instead, I put my hands on either side of his face and brought my eyes level with his.

“I love them.”