Chapter 1
Terminal B, LAX airport, Los Angeles, TWELVE DAYS EARLIER
Okay, this is fine.
I don’t need to get stressed about it.
It’s just a bag. Just a missing bag.
With all my fucking stuff in it.
‘Sorry, ma’am,’ the member of staff at the Baggage Service Office who looks like a Victoria’s Secret model is saying. ‘You’re absolutely certain the bag was not on the luggage carousel?’
I grit my teeth.
‘Yes,’ I say, trying to move my rictus lips into a smile, because this is about the fourth time I’ve explained this to her. ‘I’m absolutely certain that after standing at the carousel for over an hour and watching people collect their bags until it was completely empty, that mine was not there.’
She frowns hard at me, her perfect brows almost touching. She’s trying to decide if I’m being an arsehole or not.
I’m trying to not be.
I’m really trying.
‘Okay, ma’am, well, as I explained, you’ll need to fill out a Property Irregularity Report and then I’ll be able to give you a reference number.’
A reference number? I don’t want a fucking reference number. What I want is my suitcase.
‘Okay,’ I say through my teeth. ‘That’s great.’
She hands me a form and gives me a tight little smile of her own.
‘We do ask you to be patient,’ she says, ‘as it can take some time to locate lost luggage.’
I hear my half-sister Antoinette next to me make a noise like she’s choking when the woman says ‘patient’. I ignore her.
I have loads of patience.
I fill out the form and hand it back to the desk clerk, who then gives me this all-important reference number even though I’m pretty sure I’ll never see my bag again.
There’s a little pang of pain in my heart when I think about the beautiful tiered Chloé dress that is probably being pawed over by some errant baggage handler as we speak.
‘We’ll be in touch,’ the model-slash-airport-staffer tells me. ‘Have a great stay in Los Angeles.’
Well, how could it not be? It’s already off to a brilliant start.
‘Look on the bright side,’ Antoinette says as we shuffle out of the airport and ready ourselves to fight our way through the arrivals crowds to find our Uber driver. ‘At least you’ve got an excuse to go shopping now.’
‘We’re not here to go shopping,’ I say as we push through a gaggle of young women dressed in fluffy boots and pink cowboy hats, one with a white sash, the word ‘Bride’ bejewelled on it. ‘You know that.’
We’re here for revenge.
And the revenge I have in mind isn’t just going to be sweet.
It will be brutal.
‘I know, I know,’ Antoinette says. ‘We’re here to find and kill Aidan Ward.’
I smile at her, pleased that she hasn’t forgotten the purpose of our trip.
Aidan Ward is a therapist who beat my friend Tor half to death in London before fleeing to LA. I mistakenly gave him the benefit of the doubt when they started dating. I mean, what kind of therapist hits on their vulnerable patient? So we’re here to fix my fuck-up.
Out of all the men I’ve killed before, he is going to be my favourite.
I spot a middle-aged man in a grey T-shirt and khaki shorts holding a tablet with the name Collins on it.
‘There’s our ride,’ I say to my sister as we make our way past a group of men who look to be in their early twenties.
As we pass them a wolf-whistle pierces the air like a siren and I feel Antoinette tense up.
She stops walking and spins round to face the men.
One of them, a guy in a fitted white top, tight joggers that could be described as ‘skinny’ and a backwards baseball cap, gives us a grin.
Antoinette bristles.
Oh God.
Oh God.
But instead of shouting something back at them, which is what I think she’s gearing up to do, she points her phone at the group and snaps a picture, before slipping her arm through mine and continuing to walk.
‘What was that for?’ I ask. ‘Why did you take a photo?’
‘It’s so I can do an image search later and find out exactly who that fucker is,’ she says with a smile.
‘And why would you want to do that?’
She gives me a look like I’ve said something stupid and says, ‘So we can find him and kill him, of course.’
I look at her to see if she’s joking but her face is deadly serious. ‘We’re not doing that, Antoinette.’
‘He blatantly disrespected us,’ she says. ‘He whistled at us like we’re just bits of meat or something. He deserves to die.’
‘It was just a whistle,’ I say. ‘He didn’t hurt anyone. It’s okay.’
She stops walking again.
‘It’s not okay, Kitty,’ she says. ‘It might be just a whistle to you but it’s actually much more than that. He’s a misogynist. He doesn’t respect women. It might start with just a whistle but if he carries on unchecked his next move could be a sexual assault. This shit doesn’t happen in isolation.’
‘I know it’s not nice but he was probably just showing off in front of his friends,’ I say.
‘Who cares,’ she says. ‘He still did it. It’s sexual harassment. What if it wasn’t us that he whistled at? What if it was some other woman, a woman dealing with PTSD or something? What if that one whistle was the thing to push her over the edge?’
She’s got a point.
But still.
‘And,’ she continues vehemently, ‘a guy who catcalls you isn’t trying to date you. He knows that no woman is going to immediately have sex with him because he shouted “nice tits” at her or whatever. Catcalling is about humiliating us. It’s not a compliment. It’s a threat.’
‘Antoinette,’ I say patiently. ‘You’re absolutely and completely right but we can’t kill every man on the planet who catcalls someone.’
‘Why not?’ she asks. ‘It’s stuff like this, Kitty, the everyday harassment, the whistles, the slut-shaming that underpin the rest of it. That makes men think they can get away with the bigger stuff too.’
‘I agree,’ I say, ‘I do. But it’s just not physically possible to murder every man who’s been a bit of a dick. I’ve only got one pair of hands, for a start.’
‘Well, you’ve got me now,’ she says.
‘We’re still not killing him,’ I say and Antoinette gives me a sly look.
‘Maybe.’
‘No maybe. We’re not!’
She shrugs. ‘Whatever. But there’s more than one way to skin a cat.’
I want to ask her what she means but our driver has spotted us walking towards him and is waving frantically.
I wave back.