Nessa’s skull felt like a room crowded with people, some demanding her attention, the rest screaming for it. Whenever she tried to focus on one voice, it would be drowned out by another. They kept growing louder, as though each had a frantic message to deliver.
“You sure you can do this?” Jo asked as she drove along Danskammer Beach. She could see the agony etched into Nessa’s face, and she knew her usually stoic friend was suffering horribly.
“I have to.” It was all Nessa could muster, but the message was clear. Harriett might already be at the Pointe. They couldn’t leave her there on her own. Jo scooped up Nessa’s hand and held it until she pulled up to the gate at Culling Pointe.
“That’s strange,” Jo muttered. The gate was locked, and there were no guards to be seen. She released Nessa’s hand and pulled out her phone to call Claude.
“Jo?” Claude answered.
“I’m trying to find Harriett. There’s an emergency. Is she with you?”
“No, not yet,” Claude said. “Leonard’s down at the dock whale watching. He’ll bring her to the house when she arrives. I hope everything’s all right. Is there anything I can do?”
“Yes. Ness and I are at the Culling Pointe gate. Can you come let us in?”
“Sure,” Claude said. “Just give me a sec.”
Jo parked her car along the shoulder of Danskammer Beach Road. She climbed out and met Nessa on the other side of the vehicle. The warm sun shone down on them and waves lazily lapped at the nearby shore as they walked to the gate.
Nessa stopped a few feet from it. “I don’t like this place,” she announced, staring down at the pavement ahead of her as though it were flaming brimstone.
“You look like you’re going to vomit,” Jo whispered back. “Why don’t you wait in the car?”
The screaming inside her head was so deafening that Nessa couldn’t hear herself think, and words she hadn’t been able to process rolled out of her mouth.
“They’ve been waiting for me,” she said. “I should have come a long time ago.”
Nessa heard an engine drawing closer. Then a golf cart appeared with Claude behind the wheel. The gate opened and Nessa stepped over the property line. The voices fell silent. They knew she’d arrived.
“What’s going on?” Claude asked. “Everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine. Harriett never carries a phone and we need to find her so she can deal with a family matter,” Jo said. “Why are there no guards at the gate?”
“The season is over. Everyone’s gone home,” Claude said. “Harriett didn’t want anyone around when she got to work on the plants, so we gave the staff a holiday. Jump in and we’ll drive down to the dock and see if she’s gotten here yet.”
Jo climbed into the front seat of the cart beside Claude, while Nessa took the back.
“Harriett wanted the Pointe to be empty today?” Jo asked.
“Yeah.” Claude stepped on the gas and steered the golf cart back the way she’d come. “She said her methods were proprietary, and she didn’t want anyone snooping around.”
They rounded a turn and the Pointe unfurled before them. What had once been a patchwork of perfectly landscaped lawns was now a sea of yellow. At least three bushes grew in every yard.
“Wow,” Jo said.
“The Scotch broom has taken over,” Claude said. “I have no idea how Harriett plans to get rid of it, but you can see why she wouldn’t want anyone around to get in the way.”
Nessa leaned forward over the front seat and clutched Jo’s arm. “Jesus, they’re everywhere,” she croaked.
“Yeah,” said Claude. “It’s a real invasion.”
Nessa fell back against her seat. “Stop the cart,” she ordered. “I’m going to be sick.”
“Right here?” While Claude glanced up at the rearview mirror, Jo laid a hand on the dashboard. A plume of black smoke rose up to the heavens, and the vehicle rolled to a stop.
“What the hell?” Claude stared at the steering wheel.
Nessa scrambled out of the golf cart and vomited on the nearest yard.
“We’ll be right back,” Jo told Claude. She waited until Nessa’s stomach had emptied and then guided her friend to the shade of one of the yellow-flower-covered bushes. “Are you okay? What did you see?” she asked quietly.
Nessa shook her head. There was no way to describe all the girls who’d come to stand around her. None of them appeared to be more than seventeen years old. Every shade of skin, every color of hair, every shape of body—they were all represented. Nessa recognized some of the faces from the walls of Franklin’s office. Lena Collins was there, standing a head taller than most of the others. She spotted petite Rosalia Cortez nearby. On the surface, they seemed to have nothing in common, aside from their youth. But Nessa knew there was another trait they all shared. These were all girls the world felt free to ignore. They were girls whose families weren’t rich enough to demand attention. They were girls who were chosen because people with everything thought their lives were worth nothing.
They’d been here the whole time, just a few miles away from her. And Nessa had never known. While she’d pottered around her pretty house with its white picket fence, girls almost the same age as her daughters had been stolen from their mothers. Young women had been sacrificed to beasts whose presence she’d never suspected.
“How many are there?” Jo asked.
“More than a dozen,” Nessa told her. “They’re all dead.”
“A dozen? How?” How could so many girls have been killed in a place where cameras were always watching? Then the truth hit Jo all at once. She knew what the men on Culling Pointe did when their families were gone. It wasn’t just a few bad apples. They were all part of it. They had to be. Every last one of them. These men who ran the world could only be satisfied by what they weren’t supposed to have.
“Guys?” Claude was coming toward them, a look of concern on her face. “What’s going on?”
Jo stood up. She didn’t see any reason to lie. They’d need Claude’s help going forward. “There were more girls murdered here than we knew about. Nessa can see them.”
The blood drained from Claude’s face, but she didn’t appear to doubt Jo’s claim. “Murdered? How many?” she asked.
“Nessa says at least twelve,” Jo said.
Claude put her hand to her heart as though trying to keep it from bursting out of her chest. Then she cleared her throat. “Do you know who killed them?”
Jo didn’t want to tell her like this, on the side of the road next to a pile of vomit, but she hadn’t been left any choice. “Claude, I’m so sorry. You were right about Leonard. I should have taken your hunch more seriously,” Jo told her. “That’s why we drove out to the Pointe. We found evidence that implicated him and we’re worried that Harriett might be in danger.”
“Leonard?” Claude repeated the name as though she didn’t quite recognize it, but the accusation didn’t seem to surprise her. “Are you sure he was involved with their deaths?”
Jo glanced over at Nessa, who nodded. “Yes,” she said.
Claude bit her lower lip when it began to tremble. Her eyes lifted away from Jo’s face and focused on a patch of ocean visible between two of the mansions. She stayed silent long enough to make Jo anxious. Then she said, “He fucking lied to me.”
Jo could hear the grief in those four simple words. They sounded heavy and hopeless. They came from a woman who was giving up. A woman who’d bet everything and lost. Who’d tried everything she could think of and failed anyway.
“I’m so sorry.” Jo took a step toward her, but Claude took a step back.
“He said he wouldn’t let me down again,” she said flatly. “He promised. I trusted him.”
“Claude,” Jo started, but her friend turned away.
“Just a sec,” Claude said.
She walked back to the broken-down golf cart and pulled a nine iron out of a bag. Then she left Jo and Nessa and marched off down the street.
“Where are you going?” Jo called.
“To find him,” Claude answered.
Jo held out a hand to Nessa. “I don’t think we want to miss this. Do you think you can get up and walk?”
They made it to Jackson Dunn’s deck overlooking the beach just in time to see Claude reach the dock below, the nine iron resting against her shoulder. Leonard stood at the end of the dock peering out across the waves with his binoculars. He turned at the sound of her footsteps, but he never looked up. He was unaware they were being observed.
“There were more than three,” Claude said. “How many girls died here?”
“What are you talking about?” Leonard let the binoculars drop to his side. His face still wore the remains of a smile, as though there was still a chance it was all just a joke.
“How many girls did you let these rich assholes kill?” Claude demanded. “Tell me the truth.”
Leonard took in a breath. Jo and Nessa waited to hear the denial he appeared to be concocting.
“I don’t know,” he finally said. “Rocca took care of it all. Don’t worry. There won’t be any more surprises. Spencer was a sick fuck. He wanted to put his where he was able to see them. But the other bodies are gone. They won’t be found.”
“Neither will yours.” Claude brought the nine iron down from her shoulder.
“Oh, c’mon, Claude,” Leonard cooed, reaching out an arm.
The nine iron caught the morning sun as it swung through the air. A thwack and a scream followed. The binoculars fell to the dock as Leonard stumbled backward with his injured arm pressed to his chest.
“Oh shit,” Nessa gasped.
“Whoa,” Jo said with an amused snort. “She did it.” The violence hadn’t disturbed her at all. She could feel the cells of her body tingling.
“After everything I did for you.” Claude stepped toward him.
“Oh, you did it for me?” Leonard sneered through the pain. “So the money had nothing to do with it? Anything happens to me, and you won’t see a cent. Everything I have will go to the whales.”
“I loved you,” Claude said just before the nine iron made contact with the side of his head. A spray of blood painted her outfit.
“Me?” Leonard sputtered. “Or Daddy?”
She swung again and caught him in the stomach. He barely had time to double over before Claude nailed him in the crotch. He fell to his knees, and she struck him in the back of the neck. And when he was flat on the ground, she kept swinging, bringing the nine iron up over her head and smashing it down against his motionless corpse.
She finally stopped when her legs wore a candy-apple coating of Leonard’s blood. Then she looked down at the club and hurled it into the sound.
Nessa clapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh my sweet Lord,” she whispered.
“That asshole helped kill all those girls,” Jo said. “He deserved what he got.”
But it wasn’t the gore that had gotten to Nessa. As Claude walked back down the dock and up the stairs from the beach, she wasn’t alone. Nessa could see the ghost of a pretty girl in a blue dress following closely behind her.