The Ugly Girls' Club: A Murder Mystery Thriller
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The Ugly Girls’ Club
A Murder Mystery Thriller
C.A. Wittman
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 1
"Girls Just Want to Have Fun," Cyndi Lauper's child-like voice crooned from Emma's phone speaker, the song, a pied-piper call to teen girl angst. It was one of those days Emma loved. The promise of hot beach weather and hanging with her squad on a Saturday. They were all together—Emma, Cat, Nisha, and Cassandra.
Cat tossed the package of Oreos she brought onto Cassandra’s waterbed. It wobbled and slid toward Nisha’s bag of Cheetos as she shifted from a kneeling position to crossed legs.
Emma opened her purse and dumped out twenty mini liquor bottles.
The girls’ eyes widened and Emma felt pleased. She’d been saving the liquor as a surprise, and her big reveal didn’t disappoint.
“Dude!” Cassandra crowed. “It’s, like, eleven in the morning.” She snatched up a bottle of Smirnoff vodka as more hands dashed forward to grab favorite liquors.
“Girl, where have you been all my life?” Nisha said.
“Damn, Emma,” Cat’s eyes widened as she unscrewed the cap from a Hennessy whiskey. “Where did you get all this?”
“Douche Bag gave them to me,” Emma said with a wide grin and guzzled half of a mini bottle of Patrón before sputtering and opening her mouth wide to exhale, fanning herself. “Hot—ugh that’s strong.”
“Duh,” Cassandra said. “You don’t drink hard liquor like it’s water. You’ve got to savor it.”
“Wait, wait.” Cat held up her hand. “Why did Douche Bag give you these?”
Douche Bag was Emma’s dad. Cat gave him the nickname when they were ten years old, after spending another day comforting Emma because he’d stood her up for the hundredth time.
Emma’s green eyes danced and this time she took a modest sip from her bottle. “He said I could have them if I didn’t tell what I saw in his closet.”
“But you’re going to tell,” Cat said with a widening grin.
“I don’t know.” Emma rolled her eyes, mouth jerking into a smile she tried to suppress.
“Spill the tea,” Cat said, raising her fingers to her lips as if she held a fancy teacup, and made a sipping sound.
“Spill,” Nisha demanded.
“Douche Bag doesn’t get to have any secrets,” Cat said.
Cassandra peeled back the plastic from the Oreos, took a cookie, and opened it, her tongue flicking over the cream filling.
“It’s really… ew.” Emma made a face.
“Spill,” Nisha said again.
“Spill, spill, spill,” Cat chanted, joined in by Nisha and Cassandra.
“Okay, okay, so, remember how I went to my dad’s last weekend?”
The girls nodded.
“I totally didn’t want to go. I mean, there’s, like, nothing to do at his place.”
“Nothing to do—girl, are you privileged, or what?” Nisha sighed. “He’s got, like, a mansion in Malibu.”
“It’s just… there’s literally nothing to do except stare at the ocean or watch movies or whatever. It’s not like he interacts with me, and half the time he has some slut staying with him who’s, like, twenty.”
“Was there a slut this time?” Cassandra asked, taking another cookie.
“No.” Emma opened the Cheetos and nibbled on the end of one, flecks of powdered cheese fluttering onto her top. “I woke up kind of late and my dad was out swimming laps in his ‘saline pool.’” She made air quotes, imitating her father’s British accent and arrogant tone. “After I ate breakfast, I was bored, so I decided to snoop around in his bedroom, get to know him better.”
“Oh, I know where this is going,” Nisha said.
Emma held up her hand. “Shh. Anyway, I started systematically making my way through his dresser drawers, night table… then—” Emma threw her hand over mouth.
“It was porn, right?” Nisha said. “Like, antiquated porn magazines?”
Emma shook her head. “No,” she spluttered. “It was a freaking sex doll with the mouth like a big O.” She made her lips in the shape and the girls stared at her before collapsing with laughter. “And, and the big hole here,” Emma motioned between her legs. “There wasn’t just one. There were two dolls!”
“Dang!” Nisha hooted. “Papa’s horny. What, he can’t get real women anymore?”
“I don’t know.” Emma gave her a look. “It was, like, so gross. And then, to make a worse situation worser—is that a word, worser?”
“Girl, get on with the story,” Nisha said.
Emma lowered her voice. “My dad came in and caught me, like, fondling one of the doll’s breasts.”
A shriek of laughter rose from the girls.
“What the hell, Em, why were you fondling its breasts?” Cat asked, taking another sip of whiskey, brown eyes scrutinizing her.
Emma shrugged. “I don’t know. I was curious.”
“What did it feel like?” Cassandra asked, her third cookie frozen on the way to her lips.
“Like heavy, squishy water balloons.”
The girls stared at her for a moment and then fell back, laughing again.
“And that’s the tea, folks,” Emma said when she caught her breath.
The door to Cassandra’s bedroom opened. The girls froze, but it was just her sister, Sam.
“Hey, uglies,” she greeted them in her husky voice, tossing her dark, luxuriant mane of hair over her shoulder. “Cassandra, can I borrow…” her question trailed off as her eyes landed on the pile of mini liquor bottles. “Oh my god, dearies, where hast thou received such an abundance of firewater?” She strode to the bed and leaned over the little group who had grown quiet in her presence, each girl sizing her up. The lean, shapely legs, always in shorts or a skirt. The tight tank top straining against perfect breasts, plunging into ample cleavage. The sharp angles of her face—high cheekbones, a defined jawline, pert nose, and almond-shaped brown eyes. Sam was everything they weren’t and, more than likely, never would be. They said nothing as she plucked three bottles from the pile. “Where’s your curling iron?” She asked Cassandra.
“In the bathroom
, where else?” Cassandra said, her face blotchy red with quiet fury. Sam waltzed into the bathroom and reappeared with the iron.
“By the way,” Sam said. “Mom says you 're on kitchen duty today.”
“But we have plans,” Cassandra said.
“Not my problem.” She winked at them before leaving the room and the door wide open.
“Close the door,” Cassandra yelled after her sister.
But she was already gone. “Bitch,” Cassandra hissed, climbing off the bed, sending bottles and snacks rolling and sliding around. The girls grabbed at their stash and Cassandra slammed her door, whipping around to glare at her friends.
“I should have never told her about… about the thing.”
Nisha cocked a brow. “You mean us ugly bitches and our little club?”
“Yeah, whatever. We were having a moment the other day. I don’t know why I always fall for thinking we’re going to be friends. She inevitably backstabs me. I told her to keep it to herself.”
“Girl, don’t sweat it. Like, in the greater scheme of things, all the shit going on in the world, no one cares. Seriously. Like, no one.”
Nisha had meant for her words to be a comfort, a pep talk, the old water-off-a-duck’s-back cliché. But it had the opposite effect. Cassandra slunk to the bed and Emma and Cat herded the bottles back into a pile, their shoulders drooping.
With the exception of Cassandra, the girls had known each other since first grade. 2012 was the year Barack Obama won his second term as president. The Hunger Games and Fifty Shades of Grey were box office hits, and Honey Boo Boo ruled reality TV.
Emma’s first awareness of the tantrum-throwing child star came from Nisha, who approached her on the playground and announced, “you look just like Honey Boo Boo.” For two years, Boo was her nickname. At the time, Cat had still sucked her thumb and kept a tattered blanket on her bed, a patchwork quilt made by her great-grandma Ada.
In second grade, Emma and Cat had slathered their faces with Cat’s mother’s makeup and danced to Miley Cyrus in their bedrooms, lip-synching to “We Can’t Stop” and “Wrecking Ball” over and over until Nisha announced that Miley Cyrus could kiss her ass. She wasn’t all that. It was Beyoncé they ought to sing to. Then Frozen came out. The girls took turns convincing their parents to take them to see the movie on the weekends, and Cat had a Frozen-themed birthday party, her whole second-grade class invited. One boy at her party, Luke Benz, announced he hated Frozen and that Cat couldn’t be her favorite character, Elsa, because her nose was too big and she didn’t have blond hair. Then he ate too much cake and threw up all over her presents.
Third grade was all about the Kardashians, the girls living vicariously through each Kardashian sister. Emma created a fake profile for herself on Instagram, showing Cat and Nisha how to do the same. They posted Kardashian trivia all day, liking and sharing each other’s posts, building up a huge following.
In fourth grade, Nisha announced she was done with Kardashian trash and deleted her profile, much to the despair of Emma and Cat. She started a new account devoted to rap and hip hop, and although “Gold Digger” was an old song by then, Nisha sang it around the clock until Emma said it was driving her crazy. They had a big fight and stopped talking for two months, Cat acting as the go-between. Later that year, Nisha’s friend Chucky Grinds was killed in a drive-by shooting and the girls drew together for comfort, the friendship renewed.
But it was in fifth grade that they defined themselves. It happened during a weekend sleepover.
Cat’s mom Brenda, thinking the girls asleep, talked unabashedly to a friend on the phone in her too-loud, gravelly smoker’s voice that carried from the living room to Cat’s bedroom.
“Cat’s got a heart of gold but a face like a horse. I mean, what can I say, I’m no looker myself and her father isn’t winning any beauty awards. Swen’s just as unlucky, but—and I hate to say it—he’s a boy, so…and then somehow we got Carrie. I used to wonder if they sent me home from the hospital with the wrong kid. But then as she got older, I realized she’s the spitting image of my aunt. Lucky her,” Brenda had cackled. “… Cat? Oh, she’s a great kid, smart… poor thing. She’s going to need her brains. Her friends are just as blessed, all three of them ugly as sin. At least they have each other.”
The three had lain in Cat’s bed, stiff and barely breathing, the truth delivered like Miley Cyrus’ wrecking ball, blasting through any hopeful ideas they might have had that one day they’d outgrow what clearly was not an awkward stage, but a life sentence of ugly. A parent of all people had confirmed the unspoken truth. They were not beautiful girls. Never would be. Much to their excruciating shame, Brenda continued with her assessment.
“Kanisha is pockmarked and all out of proportion, and Emma is just fat, with lips like a blowfish. I swear—what? I can’t say fat? It’s not PC? I don’t know, chubby, swarthy? Well, they’ve got each other. Great girls. Love them to death.”
The mixed messages had their heads reeling and Cat, unable to stand the embarrassment any longer, had quietly sobbed, Emma, trying to comfort her.
“She’s not trying to be mean, Cat. You don’t have a face like a horse. You have a nice face. Parents are so critical sometimes.”
“Hell,” Nisha said from the other side of Cat. “I know I’m ugly. Your mama’s just being real.” Her words had fallen on hollow silence. “Whatever,” she’d hissed. “We need to hang together, us ugly girls.”
Cat had snorted out a laugh, despite her despair.
“We in an exclusive and elusive club, The Ugly Girls’ Club,” Nisha continued, heartened by Cat’s laugh. Emma broke into giggles and soon all three were shaking with laughter, laughing out the shame and humiliation threatening to swallow them whole.
They were now nearing the end of eighth grade and knew everything about each other. There were no secrets between them—well, except for one. But Emma wasn’t about to share that secret. Some things weren’t meant to be talked about, ever.
Cassandra was the new one in their group, having moved to Santa Monica six months ago. Like the rest of them, she was a definite wallflower. She had a stocky build, arms that were too short in relation to her torso, thick, straight black hair with a hairline that seemed to extend into her eyebrows, and small round dark eyes a little too close together over a beak of a nose. ‘I look like my father,’ she’d told the other girls. She sure didn’t take after her mother or sister, who looked like fashion models. Cassandra’s mother had remarried and her new husband looked like a Ken doll, the bookend to her mother’s surgically perfected Barbie-like figure. Cassandra stuck out in the family unit. After she’d gotten to know Emma, Cat, and Nisha a bit, they’d confided in her about their club.
“That’s body shaming!” Cassandra had exclaimed.
The girls had fallen silent, unable to look her in the eye.
“Just kidding, bitches, of course, I want to be in your ugly club. It’s GOAT.” She’d given Cat a fake punch on the arm. “So, like, what do we do in the club?”
“Nothing, just hang,” Nisha told her. “It’s more like a safety in numbers thing.”
Cassandra had fit in seamlessly. It was like she’d always been with the others from the beginning.
Emma’s phone pinged and she picked it up, her eyes scanning the screen while her friends watched her. She made a face.
“What?” Cat said.
“Just some loser making comments on my gram.”
Cat leaned over to have a look. She read the comment out loud.
These grls r banged up
It was a picture of the four of them.
“Stupid troll,” Cat muttered, taking Emma’s phone out of her hand and clicking on the profile of the guy who made the comment. “Oh, snap,” she said. “Isn’t he Posie Jenner’s older brother? What’s his name?”
“Dickface?” Nisha offered, taking the phone from Cat to have a look. His handle read cumminhot. “Ew,” she pulled her neck in and flicked a finger over Emma’s f
eed.
“His name does start with a D,” Cat said and snapped her fingers. “Donovan.” She looked up at them. “He’s, like, twenty.”
“What’s his ol’ ass doing, scrolling through your feed anyway? Oh. Damn E, you look hot in this pic here. This is from today? What the hell are you wearing?” Nisha glanced up, assessing Emma with new eyes. Cat and Cassandra leaned in to get a look at the picture.
“I took it last week and posted it a few hours ago,” Emma said, taking her phone back. She blushed and her fingers flew through the steps to block him. “Goodbye, Dick For Brains.” She looked up with a smug smile.
“Seriously,” Cat said. “What the hell are you wearing? Did your dad get you that S&M thingy, too, after you saw his doll collection?”
“Ew, and no, my dad’s not a pervert.”
“Excuse me, lil girl,” Nisha said, “but sex dolls in the closet, twenty-year-old girlfriends... How old is your dad, eighty?”
Emma crossed her arms and rolled her eyes. “He’s seventy.”
“Oh, my mistake, there’s only a fifty-year gap then. That’s okay.” Nisha did a little flick of her wrist and the girls burst out laughing. When the giggling died down, Nisha picked up Emma’s phone and stared at the screen. “Don’t be getting pretty on us, bitch.”
“Ha, it will be a cold day in Hell before that happens.”
Cat’s eyes lingered on her. “Did you grow?”