Lady Killer (Dead Girls Club #2)

44. Luz

It was a miserable day.

The rain from the storm lingered, turning the back roads into muddy, pothole-filled messes. Dark clouds still hung low in the sky, and there was a foreboding energy in the air.

We had twenty minutes to get to the location the killer had given us, or Autumn was dead.

According to Lucian’s men, it was an empty show home outside Shady Harbor, built to be the first of many in a small subdivision that never materialized. The nearest adjoining lots had been cleared, but the house itself stood alone in the woods, with one poorly maintained service road coming in and out.

As we approached the road, Alister pulled over and killed the engine. Turning in his seat, he looked over at Nixon and then back to Ever and me. “Stick to the plan, Luz.”

“I don’t exactly have much choice,” I said with narrowed eyes.

It wasn’t a bad plan. I could admit that.

Alister, Nixon, and Everest were getting out here and approaching the house through the woods, where they would be joined by two of Lucian’s men. I was to stay in the car until it was five to the hour, then drive to the location and park at least fifty feet from the house.

“Then you get out of the car, and you wait, Luz, do you understand? You wait for directions from the killer, but you do not go into that house alone,” Alister repeated Lucian’s earlier instructions word for word.

“You said the house was clear,” I pushed.

“Our men did the best job they could in the time available to sweep the house and the surrounding woods for threats, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t miss something, Starbright,” Everest said .

“The killer wants you here for a reason. We can’t give them the upper hand,” Alister added as he checked his gun.

The three of them were decked out in more weapons than I had ever seen in my life. Garrotes for stealth, knives for close combat, guns for brutal efficiency . . . some weapons I couldn’t even name.

“You don’t leave until it’s time, Luz.”

Alister stepped out of the car.

“We’ll see you soon,” he said, closing the door with more force than required.

Nixon turned around in his seat to look at me. For a moment, he seemed at a loss. “Don’t get yourself killed, pet,” he finally said before slamming his door closed.

“Capricious creatures, those two. Don’t let them get to you, my love.” Ever placed his palms on my cheeks and turned me to face him. “Everything will be all right, Starbright.”

“How can you know that?”

“Because you are here, and I am here, and we exist together,” he said. “And any world where we exist together is the right one.”

It didn’t quite make sense to me, but I accepted it .

Reaching forward, I was rewarded with his lips on mine. The kiss was gentle, yet confident. As assured as Everest was of our success.

We were interrupted by a harsh knock on the window.

“Ah, time to go, love. Let’s go catch a killer,” he said with a sparkle in his eyes before slinking out of the car.

I opened my door to find an agitated-looking Alister pacing. Nixon and Everest were nowhere to be seen.

“Get in the car, Luz.”

“I was in the car!”

“No, the driver’s seat,” Alister said, throwing up his hands.

I frowned at him but listened, confused by his sudden explosion of emotions.

Sliding into the leather seat, I began searching for the controls to adjust the position.

“Stop it, let me.” His face was pinched as he kneeled to push a couple of buttons, sliding me up and forward.

“Alister . . .”

Before I could finish what I was saying, he was on his knees, and his arms were around me, dragging me half off the seat and forcing me to swing my legs to the side to wrap around him. Crushing me close, he buried himself in my neck. “You’re mine.”

“I—? ”

“No.” He lifted his head and brought his forehead to meet mine. “I don’t need to hear anything else. You’re mine, and after this, you’re not hiding from it anymore.”

His lips brushed against mine, and I closed my eyes.

When I opened them, Alister was gone too.

The light rain turned to mist in the woods, and the wipers of the Rover worked back and forth as I navigated the vehicle down the narrow road.

As promised, after a short drive, the trees split to reveal a large overgrown field populated by a single, sad-looking McMansion.

Pulling over to park the car, I hopped out and noticed a large sign knocked over on the ground. Squinting my eyes, I could just make out “The future home of Oak Ridge Heights.”

Palming my phone, I turned it over to see the time.

Three minutes .

The boys should be approaching soon, through the woods, if they weren’t hiding there already. I couldn’t make out any sign of them in the surrounding trees, but that didn’t mean anything .

The clearing was bigger than I expected, making it far too easy to stick to Lucian’s decree to stay at least fifty feet away, and I used the remaining couple of minutes to explore.

Moving in, I could see that there had been some foot traffic to and from the house. Trails of broken plants showed where people had been. There were at least six different paths weaving around the field, making me wonder who else had been here.

My leggings and shoes were quickly soaked through, and I regretted not wearing something more appropriate for traipsing through a wet field. Ever and the twins had been kitted out in field gear, and I wondered if they might not have considered offering me some.

The phone went off, and I looked over my shoulder.

There was no one to be found.

Keeping my eyes peeled now, I hurried back to stand next to the car before opening the message.

UNKNOWN: If you want your friend to have a chance, it’s going to cost you, Penelope.

UNKNOWN: But first, call out your guard dogs. I know you brought them.

I looked around for any sign that I was being watched but still found nothing, so I thumbed a quick message to Alister.

Twenty seconds later, Everest popped out of the tree line, roughly twenty feet to my left, while Alister and Nixon appeared moments later, farther along the edge of the clearing.

“They know you’re here,” I said, chewing on my lip.

“Of course they do, love. Like I said, no one who knows what they’re doing shows up alone.”

“I thought you said to never trust killers?”

“That too, darling, that too.” Even as he teased me, Everest never stopped surveying the field around us.

As the twins got close, my phone went again off.

“He’s got eyes on us,” Ever snarled, his hostility growing.

“What do they want now?” said Nixon, stomping over to my side while Alister came to a stop in front of me.

“They say I need to complete a task first, and then they’ll tell me where Autumn is.” Pursing my lips, I looked over to my right. “And they said you can help me.”

“All of us?” asked Alister.

“No, they said specifically Nixon.”

“Well, what do they want, love?”

“They haven’t—?”

BUZZ.

The phone went off again. When I swiped it open, my heart froze in place.

It was a photo.

Grainy and taken from a distance, using a not-so-great camera. Still, there was no mistaking what it showed: a large suburban home set alight against a night sky, surrounded by fir trees.

Nixon and Ever peered over my shoulders.

“Cool, we need to burn this shit down,” the former said casually.

“Whose house is this?” asked Everest.

Alister simply stared at me.

“It’s mine . . .” I stammered, looking at the three of them in a daze. “I mean, it was, my home in Oregon, the one Mami burned down, the night . . .” I trailed off.

“The night she killed your father and stepmother,” Alister finished for me as my phone buzzed again.

The killer had been there.

UNKNOWN: Ticktock, this offer expires in ten minutes.

I shoved my phone in my pocket, my mind made up. “Nixon, can you help me?”

“What? Yeah, I mean sure, but should we talk—?”

“There’s nothing to be said. We already knew the killer knew about my father’s murder. This isn’t new information. But we are running out of time,” I snapped, marching toward the house .

Behind me, there was grumbling and then the sound of a fist hitting flesh before I could hear someone hurrying to catch up to me.

“Right, pet,” came Nixon’s slightly out of breath voice. “You ever burn down a house?”

“No, but how hard can it be? You do it.”

We approached the house together.

It was even creepier up close. Windows shattered and gutters hanging off the sides of the roof.

“It’s too wet out here,” Nixon declared. “We’ll need to get it started from the inside.”

He made some hand signals at Ever and Alister who were following in our wake, and they silently peeled off in either direction, circling the house.

Walking up to the faded, beige door, I went for the handle, only for Nixon to cut me off.

“Ah, ah, ah,” he said, waggling his finger in my face.

“Whatever,” I said, crossing my arms, “just hurry up.”

His lips turned down, and he looked genuinely offended before shrugging it off. “Stay behind me,” he said, then turned and kicked the door down with one swift kick, sending a plume of dust up.

“Was that really necessary?”

We stepped into the house .

Without any lights or furniture, it looked especially gloomy inside. Other than some random graffiti, the walls were bare, and leaves and detritus covered portions of the floor.

Nixon made a show of looking around, cracking his knuckles. “We can work with this.”

“Good, then tell me what to do, and let’s do it. We have less than seven minutes now.”

“Gather up anything dry into the corners so it can act as kindling. We’ll light it all up, creating multiple starting points for the fire, which should get it going big and hot as fast as we can without an accelerant.”

Heeding his instructions, I kicked, scraped, and collected everything dry and flammable that I could into all the dry corners I could find on the first floor. Nixon followed behind me making minor modifications to my work before setting the crude pyres alight.

Quickly, the house began to fill with the smell of burning leaves and twigs. We made it to the back door as the smoke began to change, growing acrid and heavy as the house itself began to burn.

“Should we—?”

“Nope. Out now. Before the smoke gets us,” Nixon ordered, pushing me hard on the shoulders toward the door .

Throwing it open, we stumbled out into the rain, and I gulped in my first hit of fresh air while Nixon coughed behind me.

“You cut it close, brother.” Alister was next to me, hauling me up and off the ground before I knew what was happening, carrying me bridal-style away from the slow-burning house and into the woods.

“Had to make sure it would go up.”

Everest met us at the tree line, holding up his phone.

“Thirty seconds to spare, Starbright, well done.”

“Nixon helped,” I said, fidgeting to escape Alister’s arms.

He refused to let go.

The rain began to pick up again, and I worriedly watched as the flames grew. Would it be enough to meet the killer’s demands?

Nixon crept back to join us, the four of us watching the house burn in silence from the safety of the trees.

The fire continued to spread despite the rain.

Minutes passed and nothing happened, save for the flames beginning to lick up and out the kitchen windows.

Then it came.

BUZZ.

I pulled my phone out .

Raindrops fell on the screen, smudging every swipe I took, making it a struggle to unlock the device.

Finally, it accepted my passcode, and I opened up my messages to find an image attached.

Shiny auburn locks obscured the person’s face, and she was hunched over something, but I would know Autumn anywhere.

And in her hand, she held a small, glittery sticker.

A crackling snap sounded. The fire had reached the second floor.

“What is it, my darling?” Everest said, poking his head over my shoulder.

I didn’t bother to hide the screen from him.

Nixon snuck a look as well. “Is that fucking—?”

“Autumn,” I whispered.

“She’s a fucking sheep,” Alister growled.

None of this made any sense.

Why make me burn down the house just to send me a photo of Autumn betraying me?

BUZZ.

I nearly pitched the phone into the flames.

BUZZ.

“What are they saying, love?”

I wasn’t sure that I cared now, but I turned the phone over regardless .

It was another photo. Autumn again.

Only this time, she was bound in a chair with her mouth gagged, her hair greasy and lank.

UNKNOWN: She’s in the basement.