Page 1 of Killer Knows Best

1

DELANEY RIGGS

Victim

“This is fun,” Gwen insists, nudging me with her elbow.

Fun isn’t exactly how I’d categorize what the terrors this night promises to hold.

I knew this was a bad idea from the start. But as fate would have it, I’m not exactly immune to bad ideas. Some might say I specialize in them.

It’s a cold and windy night. That storm they’ve been promising is about to deliver. Crimson autumn leaves tumble around us, curled and dry like necrotic confetti as if they’re paying homage to Colorado itself.

I love everything about the dying season the world knows as fall. They say flowers give their best fragrance once they begin to die, and leaves show off their brightest colors. That is nature in its very best irony. And I can’t help but feel the irony of what I’m about to do as well. But I have a feeling my actions tonight willcling to me like a stench for the rest of my life, and if I’m very unlucky, which I am, it might even follow me into the afterlife, too.

As soon as we step into the Grand Meadows Hotel, I’m hit with the scent of money. Not literally, obviously, but that kind of clean, polished, expensive air you can only find in places where a single night’s stay costs more than my entire month’s rent.

Everything around me sparkles, from the chandeliers hanging like diamonds overhead to the marble floors gleaming under the hotel guests’ designer shoes.

I might be in my junior year at Winston Grand University, an elite private school no less, but I grew up with not enough food, parental guidance, or rules to abide by.

I used to pride myself in keeping on the straight and narrow despite the fact. While my friends put in an honest effort to overdose on drugs and alcohol, I somehow managed to steer clear of any chemical reprieves and chosebooksas my drug of choice, my escape from the armpit of a neighborhood my mother had sunk us in.

This place looks like a fantasyland for the rich and infamous. I don’t belong here. I’m certainly not rich. However, it seems I’m shooting for infamous tonight.

I tug at the hem of my dress, feeling more out of place than ever.

Gwen, on the other hand, strides through the lobby like she owns the joint, flashing a smile at the bellhop as if she’s an A-lister and not a college student about to turn a trick.

Gwen is a senior at Winston Grand. We met in abnormal psych while exchanging thoughts on our far-too-hot professor.

How I wish that would have been the end of it. But Gwen glommed onto me, and to be fair, I sort of glommed onto her as well. And now it’s safe to say Gwen could talk me into just about anything. Case in point.

“Let loose a little, would you?” She loses that toothy grin of hers long enough to frown at me. Gwen is a beauty with shoulder-length blonde curls that turn dark at the roots and a pretty face outside of the fact she’s caked on inches of makeup that ages her twenty years. And those pink glittery eyelashes she’s glued on aren’t exactly helping the effort either.

I kept my look natural tonight. Combed my dark hair straight, nude lips and nude blush to match the fact the rest of me will be nude soon enough.

Actually, none of that was on purpose. I wanted to look plain, unappetizing, but the first thing Gwen said when she saw me this evening was that she loved the ingénue thing I had going on. It made my stomach sink like a stone. The last thing I wanted was to offer myself up as some fantasy.

“Try to actually enjoy yourself,” Gwen whispers as we pass a beautiful woman in a long black dress. She looks as if she belongs here—as if she’s not earning her stay on her knees tonight. “Hey, remember back in high school when you had to sneak out to have fun? This is like that, only you’re not going to get in trouble with your parents.”

I give her a side-eye. I could count on one hand how many times I’ve seen my father in my life. And as for my mother, she chided me for not getting in enough trouble like she did back in the day. The way she recounted those horror stories from her checkered past, you would think they were accolades on par with winning the Nobel prize. A stint in juvie at twelve, pregnant at fifteen, an abusive relationship that led to six different broken bones by the time she was twenty—no thanks. And yet here I am, looking for trouble, wondering what bones I’ll have broken thanks to the effort.

“If we get in trouble tonight, it’s going to be with the police,” I hiss, scanning the lobby for any sign of authority. Or worse—someone I might actually know.

Gwen rolls her eyes, unfazed by the only shred of truth shared between us tonight. “Anyway, I didn’t have to sneak out to see the guys when I was in high school. I snuck the guysinto see me,” she says, biting down on a mischievous smile like it’s something to be proud of. “My mom was obsessed withWheel of FortuneandJeopardy,” she continues with the backstory I didn’t ask for. “I had guys sneak over all the time. And you can bet when the front gate started to squeak, it was me who hit it with a shot of canola oil. Between seven and eight, I could get away with anything—and I did.”

I nod along, half-listening because, honestly, I don’t need to know the mechanics of Gwen’s teenage love life. What I do need to know is how the heck I ended up here. Not that this is my first rodeo when it comes to men. Although the guys I was with were barely out of the awkward teenage stage, more like boys who thought a Netflix password was the key to my heart. Now I’m about to meet someone’s grandpa, for all I know.

As we approach the elevators, I catch my reflection in the shiny gold doors. I look different. The sort of different that makes me want to crawl right out of my skin.

The white dress I’m wearing—Gwen’s idea, of course—is tighter than anything I’d normally wear and it’s hugging curves I didn’t know I had. My face looks foreign with fear, and my hair, usually tied up in a messy bun, is now slicked down, making me look like someone else entirely. And with the white dress, I’m giving off strong bride-on-the-run vibes. If I were truly smart, I’d do exactly that,run.

Gwen looks like the call girl she is in that shiny hot pink pleather dress and crystal clear platform heels. I might actually be mistaken for someone who belongs here, in this world of polished marble and crystal chandeliers.

But I know better.

We’re not here to sip martinis and people-watch. We’re herebecause a man—whose name I don’t even know—has cash, and we desperately need it.

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