Page 99 of Hot Girl Murder Club
“Scout!” the people behind her screamed. “We believe in you!”
Franny arched her neck, looking for the reassurance of blue uniforms. Finding none, she raised her voice. “Broken barricade—we need police over here!”
The handsome man who’d walked in beside Isabel rushed to meet the encroaching reporters with his arms out, trying to hold them off. “Back up,” he yelled. “Give us space.”
But with Scout so close, they weren’t listening. The yelling around Franny hit a fever pitch. Melissa pressed her hands over her ears. It was officially out of control.
One of the reporters managed to make it past the lawyers and thrust a microphone in Scout’s face. “Did you get revenge on Knox for the Hot Girl Murder Club? Did they order you to do it?”
One of Scout’s lawyers, an older man, swooped in, yelling loud enough for everyone to hear. “Back away, sir. There is no such thing as the Hot Girl Murder Club.”
The crowd started booing. Franny met Melissa’s eyes, her anxiety creeping higher.
Finally, officers rushed past the trampled barricade and seized the errant paparazzi, wrenching them backward.
“Scout!” came an anguished voice. “We need you! We need Our Ladies! Give us hope.”
“I think we should go,” Melissa whispered. “I don’t like this. Something’s off.”
But Franny was frozen with disappointment. Scout was right there, and she wanted her todosomething, give them one tiny sign that she saw them, that she was with them, that even though the world was frightening and chaotic, she had a plan. The cops were escorting her now to the glass doors of the courthouse, a floating pillar of black, and soon she would disappear.
Franny found herself gripped by inexplicable panic. “Scout!” she yelled. “Please.”
But Scout swept inside the courthouse and disappeared. It was over. She’d given them nothing.
Suddenly, like a miracle, the woman behind Scout—Isabel—stopped. And in slow motion, she turned. It was fast but unmistakable: her fingers flew like birds in quick, flitting motions, a touch to her forehead, then her heart, then her shoulders. Franny’s heart soared. It was the sign of the cross, the secret signal for Our Ladies of the Dark. Isabel was sending a message. Everything they’d hoped for was real, and she was with them.
Franny felt like she could cry. Cheers broke out around the courthouse.
Isabel winked and walked inside.
Just Between Us
I used to believe in happy endings, my darling Alice. When we were children and you’d tell me stories withonce upon a times andever afters, I never doubted you. You were nothing if not proof that life was benevolent, and there was Dad, too, with his shining morals and shinier badge, defender of the greater good. I grew up and put on that badge, became a servant of the people, because I had faith in a higher order.
As you’ve probably guessed, I’m here now because the last dregs of my faith have run dry.
I step carefully into his desert McMansion, the house he worked so hard to hide. Slip off my stilettos, which have collected rings of turfgrass on the heels, and take a moment to adjust to the air conditioning. I’m looking around, trying to imagine what you saw the night you came. In some fucked-up way, I feel closer to you here, the last place you were ever alive.
We brought him to trial, Alice. I didn’t stop until I found this address, and we scoured the dusty earth for your bones, but there was so much acreage, and we never found you. Without your body, there wasn’t enough evidence, or enough will among my colleagues to convict. And the man who killed you had such expensive lawyers.
So in the end, Daisy was right: There was no path to justice through the system. Men like him are the system. I see that now. Far too late, I see it.
I got the news that Knox was going free tonight, while out on a date, hence the crop top and heels. My first date in years, that was how optimistic I was that the jury would make the right decision. I’dstarted to picture moving on, being able to tell a Hinge date about my sister because the wound had finally healed.
Naive, you might say, and I wouldn’t argue. But no longer.
I’ve trodden on silent feet across the tile of his house, arriving at his bedroom. He’s bent over a computer. He still hasn’t noticed me.
Boo, I’m going to say, like when you used to find me playing hide-and-seek.
But before we come to that part, I need you to know things are changing. It’s been a year since Scout Sage went to trial, two months since her jury shocked the world by sentencing her to two years for simple arson, the lightest punishment they could deal, despite persistent rumors that she was at the heart of an underground cabal. And all the while, in LA and cities across the country, the tide has been turning, a sisterhood emerging, women helping women.
The man who killed you dropped out of the race for president and a woman ran instead, her strong voice and fiery eyes the tip of the spear of a new group that calls itself Our Ladies of the Dark, sprung up out of a single gesture made by Scout’s assistant outside a courthouse that lit the world on fire. Pundits say her election could be the first step toward a future matriarchal order, though by now I’ve learned my lesson about hope. Even your old friend Daisy remains powerful, wielding her ideas from her black throne in prison, more and more women drawn to her great culling program by the day.
The wounds are raw, but they’re healing. The politicians, activists, journalists, rioters, and even the stars are all trying to have their say about how we’ll evolve.
For what it’s worth, I no longer want to participate in the making of history. Let smarter people than me battle it out. I’ve decided that’s above my pay grade.
After all, with each passing year, the list of things I know for sure grows smaller. This is what it’s whittled down to: First, it was the privilege of my life to love you. Second, there is such a thing as right and wrong. And third, the system didn’t get it right, and now it’s up to me to fix the wrong. Not because I’m an agent of the law, but because I’m your sister. And that is a deeper code than all the rules of this world combined.
So this next part is just between us, Alice. In a moment, I’m goingto put my service weapon to Knox’s temple and drag him into the desert, make him show me exactly where you are. Then I’m going to dig you up out of the earth with my bare hands, if I have to. I’m going to hold you again and show you that you were never forgotten, although it must have felt like it after all these years.
And then I’m going to bury his body down deep in your place, under the topsoil, under the buzzards.
And you and I will be done with it. We’ll drive away. They’ll look for him, but they won’t find him, because he refused to tell a soul where you were.
Meanwhile the world will keep turning, like it always does. And in all the days after, in the good new world you helped create, only you and I will know the truth. A girls’ secret just between us.
Me and my darling sister.
