Page 3 of Pretty Poisoned

"I told you already—I'll just move back in with Mom and Dad until I can find a roommate situation."

"I went to lunch with Mom last week. She said she isn't going to let you come back unless you get a job."

I scoff. "She doesn't mean that. She won't just let me be…fucking homeless."

"I don't know, Teag," she says. "She sounded serious."

"I can't go to the interview tomorrow; I won't be here. When I get back, I'll start looking for something."

It's a lie, but I need her to get off my back.

"Okay," she says, sighing. "So…tell me about this story you're looking into now."

I turn my chair around, eyeing her skeptically. "You really want to know?"

"Yes, of course. I'm very curious. And you know what? I like your podcast, Teagan. It's not that I don't like it. I think you'd make a great journalist. I just think you should do the work—go to school, you know?"

I frown. "Do you want me to tell you or not?"

"No, I do. I'm sorry."

"Okay," I say. "Have you heard of that band, Gods of Tomorrow?" I open my desk drawer and pull out a manilla folder, trying to contain my excitement. The truth is I'm dying to tell her all about it. I can't remember the last time I was this excited about anything.

It was probably back when that serial killer was loose in Trabuco Canyon. I also probably shouldn't say that out loud.

"Yeah, of course. They have that one song, 'One Last Funeral,' right?"

"That's the second single from their second album," I correct her, "but yeah, that's them."

"Okay, and?"

"I think they're killing women."

"What? What makes you think that?"

"A few things. First…" I pause, pulling a news article from the folder and handing it to her. "Bridget Lassiter. She was one of their groupies. Last summer, the band went out to celebrate after a concert in Vancouver. They were partying on a rooftop downtown, and Bridget just jumped off."

"Okay, I kind of remember that story. I didn't realize that band was Gods of Tomorrow, though."

"Exactly. Because no one knew who they were last year. They came out of nowhere."

"That's not exactly true. Aren't two of the members the sons of some billionaire or something? Money can make anything happen."

"Yeah, like murder cover-ups."

"There was video footage, wasn't there?"

"There was. And everyone at the party was just watching; no one showed any alarm or expressed any concern whatsoever. They just waited for her to jump."

"Maybe they were all high; they were probably in shock. You don't know how you'd react in that kind of situation until it happens. Fight, flight, or freeze, right? Maybe they all froze." She pauses, and I wait while she skims the article. "It says here that the band covered the funeral costs. That's nice."

"That's not all," I tell her.

I hand her another news article. "This is Heidi Collins. I bet you haven't heard about this one…"

"Girl found barefoot and dirty in Idaho wilderness, refuses to speak," Blakely reads from the page.

"That was in December," I tell her. "They don't know how long she was out there, but she lost toes to frostbite and think that adrenaline must have kept her alive. Heidi's family said that thelast time they saw her, she was leaving for a Gods of Tomorrow concert with her friends. That was nine months ago. She was invited backstage, and they weren't, so they left her there and barely heard from her for the next few months until she stopped talking to them altogether. She was found in the woods a month after communication stopped."

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