Page 22 of Lady Killer

“See you at home, old sport,” I shouted.

Once we were clear of the classroom, Luz let go of me but continued to march down the hall, forcing me to take a couple long strides to catch up to her.

“We didn’t have go, you know,” I began. “Locke is all bite and no bark, or is it—‍”

“I didn’t leave because of Locke.”

“Then why did we just haul ass out of there?” I asked, genuinely confused. “I was just getting started.”

Luz ignored me, stalking through the entry hall of the old building and out the front doors, leaving me no choice but to follow her. She continued on outside, walking around the far side of the building.

Maybe she does want some time alone with the fastest finger blasters in the West, err, East . . .

I leaned against the wall, one hand behind my head, playing it real cool as she turned around to face me. “Well, hello there, darling—” I began, smoothing back my hair, but she cut me off before I could get any further.

“I just got another text from the killer. Melody is dead.”

Chapter eight

Luz

According 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’ townhouseon 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.

---