Chapter 44
Kitty and Antoinette’s Airbnb, West Hollywood, Los Angeles
I can’t stop staring at the screen. At the moody black-and-white aesthetic.
Like she’s aiming for high-end content, but it’s very clearly been shot in this very room.
Her grid is a series of carefully posed, self-shot images.
There’s one of her stretched out in her underwear on the unmade bed.
Another where her hair is wet, like she’s just stepped out of the shower.
One of her leaning against the window in a tiny slip dress.
The captions are minimal – new set, what do you think?
, Felt cute, might delete later – but the comments are thirsty.
I like you wet.
What would you let me do to you?
I bet you’re a very good girl.
Why would she do this?
Why?
She doesn’t need money.
I don’t understand.
‘Kitty? Are you upstairs?’ It’s Agnes.
‘I’m in Antoinette’s room,’ I call back and moments later her blonde head appears around the door.
‘What’s happened?’ she asks me, coming into the room. ‘You look like you’re going to pass out.’
‘I found something,’ I say, ‘on Antoinette’s iPad.’
I hold the tablet out to Agnes, who takes it. Her eyes widen.
‘What the—’
We both stare at the page for a moment before either of us says anything.
‘But why?’ Agnes says eventually, echoing my thoughts. ‘Antoinette doesn’t need the money.’ She looks at me, her brows knitted together in confusion. ‘Does she?’
I shake my head. ‘No. I don’t understand—’
But then I do.
And it’s so obvious that when it hits me it’s like a fist.
‘The WeHo Ripper,’ I say and Agnes gives me a puzzled look. ‘Antoinette thought we could find him.’
I sink down onto my sister’s bed as the enormity of what I’ve found hits me. ‘She’s made an account to lure him,’ I say to a horrified Agnes. ‘She’s used herself as bait.’
And right after I made her bait herself to get Aidan here.
This is all my fault.
‘I really don’t think she’s holed up in a hotel, Agnes. I think she’s gone after the Ripper. Or he’s gone after her.’
‘Oh God,’ Agnes says. ‘This is bad.’ She sits down next to me. ‘I found something too. Outside.’ She looks at me and bites her lip, like she has something to tell me that she doesn’t want to.
‘What?’ I say, frantic. ‘What is it?’
‘We found something,’ she says. ‘Well, Lana did. Just a few yards from the house.’
Oh God.
‘What? What did you find?’ I almost don’t want to know because, judging by the look on Agnes’s face, it’s not good.
She reaches into the pocket of her cut-offs and pulls out something that makes me cry out in horror.
It’s a phone.
In a pink glittery case.
Antoinette’s phone.
‘I’m sorry,’ Agnes whispers as she hands the phone over to me.
I turn it over and over again in my fingers.
There’s no doubt that this is Antoinette’s phone.
It’s covered in mud and the screen is smashed.
But the worst thing is a dark red smudge staining the pink case, seeping into the glitter.
I’ve seen enough blood to know that’s what I’m looking at.
Wherever Antoinette is, she didn’t go there willingly.