Lady Killer (Dead Girls Club #2)

31. Luz

Chapter thirty-one

Luz

S imone was a wreck.

It had been forty-eight hours since anyone had seen Autumn, and there wasn’t a trace of her anywhere.

“We have to find her . . .” The usually reserved beauty sobbed into her friend Joy’s shoulder. The other woman soothed her, reassuring her that it would all be okay.

I wish I could offer the same words.

Everyone suspected the worst, but I was the only one who understood truly how much danger my best friend was in.

The killer usually keeps the girls for months . . .Until you pissed them off and they changed their pattern . . .

The voices in my head ping-ponged back and forth.

Autumn isn’t dead. She can’t be.

Autumn is dead. She has to be.

“Luz.”

“Sorry, what?”

Joy glared at me through retro-style glasses that were absolutely adorable, but now wasn’t the time for sartorial reflection.

She gestured toward Simone. I looked between them in confusion.

Comfort her , the woman mouthed to me silently.

Merde.

I hadn’t realized how much I’d come to rely on Autumn to help me navigate social situations. Of all people, I was wildly unsuited to helping ease Simone’s fears about her girlfriend.

“The cops are doing everything they can to find her,” I tried.

Simone sobbed even harder, while Joy looked at me like I was an idiot.

What was I supposed to say, that we would find her soon? Everyone knew that girls had been disappearing from Hollow Oak for almost a year now, and nearly every single one had turned up dead.

You could save her .

My phone went off, reminding me of my babysitters.

“Excuse me,” I said, not unkindly, rising to slip out of Simone’s dorm room.

Alister and Nixon lurked outside, the former unwilling to let me out of his or Everest’s sight for a second now.

“What’s taking so long?” Nixon asked, taking a drag of the joint he was smoking with flagrant disregard of the university’s bylaws.

I stepped into his space, seething with rage.

Ever since the news of Autumn’s disappearance, I had been barely holding it together around the Blackwells.

“Listen, you putain de merde.” I raised my arms, ready to shove him as hard as I could.

Alister restrained me. “Petite diablesse,” he murmured into my ear.

“Don’t you dare!” I hissed, even as I stilled in his arms. “Autumn is gone! They have her.” I looked up at Alister, teeth bared.

“Luz—”

“You promised to keep her safe”—my voice broke and my eyes burned—“and now the killer has her.”

Alister’s arms sagged around me .

I took my opening and lunged at Nixon.

My nails clawed into his chest as I pushed him hard enough to make the much larger man stumble before Alister caught me again.

“Fuck, hellcat,” Nixon said, bending down to pick up the joint he had dropped.

I practically snarled at him.

“Stop agitating her,” Alister ordered his twin as he pulled me from him.

It had been Mami and me, and then just me, for so long. Alone.

Then Autumn had wormed her way into my life, dodging past all my defenses, and it was only in her absence that I understood how good it had felt to be something other than alone.

Now she was gone, and it hurt more than I could have imagined. I rubbed a hand over my breastbone, unable to soothe the ache there since her disappearance.

“You realize she’s as good as dead?”

“Nixon,” his brother admonished him, but the damage was done.

His harsh words slapped me across the face. It was one thing to tell myself that, it was another thing to hear it out loud .

This time, when I collapsed into Alister’s arms, it was real.

“I need to do something.” My voice came out like a croak.

“You need to stick to your schedule and stay with us, ma petite diablesse. You can’t save your friend if the killer catches you.”

“I can’t save her if she’s dead either,” I said bitterly. “She’s in danger every second she’s gone, and pretending otherwise is simply painting a pretty lie on an ugly truth.”

No one had a pithy response to that.

“Use me,” I said.

Alister’s eye twitched, while Nixon’s went wide before he smirked. “Finally ready for the twin sandwich?”

His brother and I turned in unison to glare at him before I shook my head and continued. “Use me to draw out the killer. Like bait. I know you’ve considered it, it’s only logical.”

“No,” said Alister.

Nixon took another haul and tilted his head. “She’s right.”

“No.”

“If she was anyone other than your and Ever’s girlfriend, she would have been tied to the flagpole with a giant carrot dangling from her tits by now. ”

Alister and I interrupted him at the same time.

“That’s not—?”

“I said no.”

Nixon blew out a puff of smoke. “What made you change your mind, brother? Yesterday, you were on board.”

“I said it was a better option than torturing Royal,” he snapped at Nixon, turning to look at me. “It was an idea.”

“And now it’s a plan,” I countered as I turned in his arms to face him, planting my hands on his chest.

He gritted his teeth. “Everest will never allow it.”

“Everest isn’t my keeper, none of you are,” I said, raising my chin before looking over my shoulder at Nixon. “Tell Lucian I’m going to set something up with Clayton and that if he wants this killer caught, he’ll have to keep Ever from interfering.”

Alister opened his mouth to argue, but I kept going.

“I agreed to stay with you because you promised to keep her safe. You failed, and now it’s my turn.

“No, demoness.”

“You didn’t uphold your end of our agreement. I can leave,” I threatened.

His nostrils flared. “If you think we’ll just let you go, little demon, you’re not as smart as you think. ”

“I think that if you lock me up and throw away the key, then I am as good as dead.”

“We can catch the killer without you,” Alister argued, but his voice lacked its usual stoic conviction.

“Are you willing to bet my life on it?”

Alister swallowed as Nixon let out a low whistle.

“Damn, she’s got you there, Ali.”

I looked up at Alister, begging him silently to understand.

He sighed in defeat. “We’ll talk to Lucian about setting up a trap.”

I pressed my head into his chest in relief.

“But you have to be the one to tell Ever, ma petite diablesse . . .”

“Absolutely not!” yelled Everest over the speakerphone.

He was currently in California hunting down a movie executive who’d made the mistake of taking advantage of the daughter of one of the Blackwells’ clients.

“Lucian, you have to stop this!”

Alister, Nixon, and I were seated around Lucian’s desk while we called Everest .

The eldest Blackwell had frowned when I told him my idea but agreed it was the best path forward.

“It’s already done,” I said, “and there is nothing for you to worry about.”

Time was of the essence, and I had texted Clayton as soon as I was out of sight of the twins.

“It was her idea, Ever. Would you rather I let her go off on her own, without any backup or safety measures?” said Lucian.

“I would rather you lock her up and keep her safe and alive until I am back across this goddess-damn country to talk some sense into her! Ali, do something!”

I don’t think I had ever heard Everest yell. The man was passion incarnate, but he never raised his voice.

Alister pinched his lips. “I’m afraid I have been outvoted.”

“Have you all lost your fucking—?”

I reached over and tapped the Mute button on the phone. “Do we need him for this? I don’t think he’s going to stop yelling any time soon, and I’d like to make a concrete plan.”

Nixon chuckled while Alister sighed, and Lucian looked at me appraisingly .

“Clayton’s expecting to meet me on Friday evening after class. I assumed you would want some say in location to control the situation. Was I wrong?”

I wasn’t.

Lucian kept his eyes on me as he reached over to the phone to unmute it.

“—unpredictable! It’s insane that you think—?”

“Everest, be quiet and listen, or we’re hanging up on you.” His voice was low and authoritative, and it sent a pleasant prickle down the back of my neck.

“You wouldn’t!” Everest cried in dismay.

“I absolutely would, and you know it. Final word.”

An angry scoff came through the phone followed by silence. Lucian inclined his head for me to continue.

“As I said, we’re meeting in two nights. I was going to suggest that Gentle Bean coffee place.”

“Too central,” said Alister.

I raised an eyebrow in his direction.

“You want somewhere on the fringes of campus, where it’d be easier for him to lure you away if he is the killer,” he said.

“Why on campus?” pushed Lucian.

“It’s closer than going into town, and it makes the most sense, given we both have classes on Friday,” I said .

“He won’t care about convenience if he thinks he is going to get the chance to fuck you or kill you,” Nixon said dryly.

A tortured sound came from the speaker.

“What would you suggest, a bar then?” I quirked my lips.

Lucian answered, “A quiet one, yes. Someplace on the outskirts of Shady Harbor, on the university side . . . there’s Finnegan’s?”

“No, too crowded on Friday,” said Alister.

“The Old Oak Ale House?” Nixon piped up.

“Too far. Why would she suggest a bar a thirty-minute drive from campus?”

“The Dagger and the Rose?”

Alister furrowed his brows.

“It’s not super popular with students, but still close to campus, and clean enough that the killer would believe the princess would actually go there,” Nixon said with a shrug.

If the killer actually knew me, they would be suspicious of me going to any bar, but like Lucian said, we were counting on Clayton’s desire to either get laid or kill me to compromise his judgment.

“That could work,” said Lucian, stroking his beard as he considered it. “You two could cover the back and front entrance, and we could pay the bartender off in advance to replace her drinks with water.”

“I’m underage, they shouldn’t be serving me anyways,” I argued.

Nixon and Lucian gave me withering looks while Alister just stared at me.

“You’re a pretty girl in a college town, you can drink whatever you want,” Nixon said.

“So what?” came Everest’s disembodied voice. “We just let her go on a date with this psycho and try to keep him from drugging her while the twins watch from a distance to see what he does?”

I wrinkled my nose. “You could give me a little credit. I managed to kill Aaron, after all.”

“Starbright, my darling, my love, my light, my cheese to my nach—?”

Lucian hit the Mute button again. “It’s a simple plan because this isn’t rocket science. Luz, you will set up a date with Royal at the Dagger and the Rose. Alister and Nixon, you trail her from a distance and cover the exits, but keep eyes on her. If he makes any attempt to harm or take her, then you move in.”

He turned to me. “When you’re there, be sure to only order clear drinks. Don’t drink anything that’s out of your sight for even a second. ”

“And what do we do when he invites her back to his place to check out his art collection or whatever pansy shit someone like Royal does when he’s trying to get his dick wet?”

They all turned to me.

“I have plenty of experience turning down men,” I said, inspecting my nails.

My ring finger needs a touch-up.

“You, of all people, should know that, Nixon. If Clayton invites me to his place, I will respectfully decline and ask if he would feel comfortable walking me back to my dorm. It will be late at night and dark, and there’s a killer on the loose, so it makes sense that I won’t want to be alone. If he won’t take no for an answer, or he tries anything on the walk back, then you two can intervene.”

Lucian nodded and Nixon scowled. Alister didn’t react.

I reached over and tapped the phone.

“—anyone listening to me? I can’t—?”

“Ever?”

“Yes, Starbright.”

“We have a plan. I’m hanging up now.”

“STAR—?”

I tapped the red phone icon, ending the call and looked at the three killers observing me. “If that’s all, I would really like to return to the townhouse so I can finish studying.”

We sorted out a couple more details before Lucian dismissed us, and the twins and I left.

I didn’t bother to tell them that I’d already texted Clayton to meet me at the Dagger and the Rose long before our “planning meeting.”

Men will seldom yield control, mija. Always let them believe they have it.