The Ugly Girls' Club: A Murder Mystery Thriller

by C. A. Wittman

  Emma stared out her window as they drove to Culver City. She thought about her parents’ divorce, which had defined the last four years of her life, a divorce that never took place. She thought about the fact that little more than a week ago, Hunter and Cassandra were alive. Now they weren't. Emma pondered the essence of who she and her friends were together, what they had privately created during one painful evening, hijacked by the media and retold to shape a fictitious narrative. Within a matter of a week, she'd attended a memorial and funeral service. And now she had to go home and pack her things to live with her letch of a dad because someone was picking off her friends one by one. She thought of the anonymous nightly texts, and her stomach turned. While the social media influencers, celebrities, and journalists were busy politicizing and glamorizing the waterside suicides, someone was getting away with murder.

  Chapter 41

  They arrived at Oliver's later that evening, several suitcases between them. Emma's dad met them at the car, eager to help, grabbing two of the bags and calling out a cheerful hello to the twins, his tone a bit strained and stilted. They stared at him as if he were a martian.

  "That's a lovely pink bracelet, Alice," he said of a rubber coil bracelet hugging the fat wrist of the twin with the pink bow headband and glittery butterfly shirt.

  "That's Peter," Jill said, undoing the buckle on Alice's car seat, who leaned over to get a better look at their dad.

  "Oh, right," Oliver said, looking mildly alarmed and slightly confused. "I'll just pop these into the house then," he said of the bags in his hand.

  Jill said nothing as she hefted Alice up.

  Emma grabbed her own suitcase, leaving her mother to handle the babies. By the time she'd made it halfway across the living room, Oliver was returning from depositing the bags in one of the guest bedrooms downstairs. He paused when he saw Emma and ran his hand over his hair, his lips jerking into a smile that died out before ever reaching completion.

  "Terribly sorry about your friend," he said.

  "Friends," Emma corrected.

  "Right. Friends. Terribly tragic. How are you holding up?"

  "I don't want to do this with you," Emma snapped.

  Her father's face fell. "Emma," Oliver started to say.

  "No!"

  He blanched and scurried back out to the parking garage.

  Emma rolled her eyes and went up the stairs, sighing when she got to her room. She rolled her suitcase over to the closet before opening the French doors to the balcony overlooking the ocean. It had been a hot day, and the heat still lingered at six in the evening, the air heavy and sticky, the smell of salt in the air. She leaned against the wrought-iron railing and stared disconsolately out at the waves lapping half-heartedly at the beach and thought of Hunter dancing with Ezra and Nisha at Gumption's. She thought of how understanding and comforting they had been when she'd gone to them that afternoon after having sex with Blue and Donovan. Tears warmed Emma's eyes as she thought of Hunter's moms in Northern California with a Living Urn of Hunter's ashes. Hunter was still giving, even in death. Their ashes would add nutrients to the earth, where a young tree would live and grow. For the first time, Emma felt a kind of peace, thinking of death in this way—what Jill was probably trying to express all those years ago about bodies and decomposition.

  Emma wiped the tears from her eyes, took a deep breath, and left her room.

  Downstairs, she found her mom and the twins in the bedroom where her dad had deposited the suitcases.

  "I'm going to go for a walk on the beach," she announced.

  Jill frowned. "Do you have your phone on you?"

  Emma pulled it from her back pocket and held it up.

  "Be back before it gets dark," Jill said.

  In the past, Emma might have said something snarky. But she got it. She understood the worry and concern. It wasn't abstract anymore. Death wasn't some hazy, distant possibility in the far future. It was here and now, shadowing her and closing in. Emma went out to the courtyard, dipping a toe in the pool as she passed. She took the stone steps down to a small iron gate. It opened to a shrub-lined path that led to the beach. Once there, she removed her sandals, tucking her bare toes into the warm sand, and then walked over to the water, where she stood and let the cold waves crumble against her feet. She thought of her Grandma Patty and how she often used to look sad.

  “Do you miss all your friends and family who died?” Emma asked one afternoon when she'd caught her grandma watching Jill cook, that odd melancholy look on her face. Grandma Patty had glanced at Emma.

  “Yes. I suppose the sadness never quite goes away, but I do my best not to wallow in it, and there is always God to bring me comfort when I get a little carried away in my thoughts."

  Emma thought about her own recent losses and wondered if she'd ever feel better again.

  Her phone vibrated. It was Blue.

  How are you?

  I'm at my dad's.

  Really?

  Not by choice.

  Emma started to text more, then stopped and called Blue instead.

  Blue picked up on the first ring. "Hey. How was the funeral?"

  Emma thought about Cassandra's waxy-looking body in the fancy white silk-lined coffin and shuddered. "It was okay," she said. "The church was full, and people were standing outside with signs that said, “I'm Ugly Too. Her death has taken everything into this full-on social justice movement."

  A beat of silence followed her words.

  "So why are you at your dad's?" Blue asked.

  "Crazy story. My parents are still married."

  "What?"

  "That's what I said. Anyway, my mom wants us to stay out here for a little while on account of—"

  "The suicides maybe not being suicides," Blue said.

  "Exactly."

  There was another beat of silence.

  "How do you feel about company?" Blue asked, her voice small, unsure.

  "You mean now?" Emma asked.

  "Or tomorrow."

  Emma thought about Blue in her upscale Westwood apartment, drinking cocktails and getting high. She thought of Blue going out with Suri and Valentina to clubs and getting hit on by men that were too old for them. Blue's life didn't seem glamorous and fun anymore, but sad and lonely. Her parents were far away, and she lived with an older sister who wasn't much of a sister.

  Emma's family was odd, but they were here, and they cared.

  "Sure. Come by."

  "Like, now?"

  "Yeah."

  "You're sure?"

  "Come and stay a while," Emma said impulsively. "It'd be nice to have a friend."

  "It's okay with your folks?"

  "It'll have to be," Emma said reassuringly, but she already knew it would be.

  "I'll see you soon, then," Blue said, her voice a little lighter.

  "Okay." Emma hung up and slid her phone back in her pocket, then stood watching the light play off the water as the sun slowly sank into the western horizon. She did not know how long she'd been watching the ocean, how much time had gone by, but her concentration broke when she heard her name shouted. Emma turned around to see Blue walking toward her, head cocked to the side as she eyed Emma curiously.

  "Your mom and dad didn't know I was coming over."

  "I've just been here," Emma said and reached out, giving Blue a hug.

  Blue looked different, young and vulnerable. She gave Emma a tremulous smile, and Emma noticed she wore no make-up, not even lip gloss. The girls' eyes locked, and then Blue closed hers, long lashes curling up, cheeks naturally flushed.

  "I think I love you, Emma Dawson," Blue said with her eyes still closed.

  Emma squeezed her hand, returning her gaze to the water, her chest growing so tight it was hard to breathe. Blue stepped closer and then laid her head on Emma's shoulder. They stayed that way for a good long while.

  The days that followed were strangely dream-like, hours flowing one into the next, a kind of numbness descending over Emma.

&n
bsp; She'd stopped looking at the harassing texts that were sent to her each evening, knowing that any day her life would implode. Until then, she was going to live in the moment.

  No other people existed for Emma apart from Blue, her parents, and the twins. Nisha and Cat had faded into a hazy backdrop of another life. When Emma spoke to them, she felt as if she were communicating through a barrier of invisible, heavy plastic.

  Mostly, Emma slept. Entire afternoons were swallowed up by sleep. When she wasn't sleeping, she was stoned with Blue. The two ate endless bowls of sliced apples and cucumbers, blueberries, wedges of ice-cold watermelon, tangerines, mangos, and avocados, salted and doused with lemon juice. They spent hours each day on the beach, their skin browning in the summer sun, tacky with salt and sand. They swam in the ocean and slept on towels laid out on the sand, sipping from thermoses of stolen vodka mixed with orange juice while listening to Emma's 1980s playlist on Spotify. Billy Idol, Simply Red, U2, David Bowie, and The Clash.

  Sometimes they crossed paths with Oliver and Myla, sitting with the twins, watching them dig and play in the sand while Jill worked in the house or left Malibu to go into Culver City where her business was headquartered. The twins' meal time schedule was abandoned in the wake of all the changes.

  From Emma's grief-stricken, inebriated brain, she half noticed her father's sudden involvement with his children. He left her alone, though, keeping his communication carefully pared down to questions about food. What should we have for dinner? How are we on tangerines? Shall I pick up more ice cream?

  Oliver usually barbecued in the evenings—steaks, chicken, fish. He'd make a green salad tossed with lemon and olive oil to accompany the meat. In the evenings, Emma and Blue swam in the pool or sat in the hot tub. They ate their dinner wrapped in towels, cross-legged on the stony surface of the pool's edge. At night, they lied in bed watching movies, vaping, and eating ice cream, or had languid sex for hours, falling into an exhausted sleep at three, four, five, or six in the morning.

  "There's a man watching us," Jill said one evening, picking up a piece of barbecued corn, a small wrinkle at her brow, eyes popping in her glasses as she bit into the kernels. Her words were like a sharp pin, bursting the comfortable bubble of numbness Emma had built around herself. Everyone else froze at her words.

  "What man?" Oliver asked, mouth turning down hard, his glass of white wine held inches from his mouth.

  Blue had stopped gnawing at her rib, a spark of fear in her dark eyes. Only the twins were oblivious to Jill's words, shoveling strips of charred chicken into their greasy mouths.

  "I've seen him four times in the last three days. On Thursday, at three in the afternoon, he watched the house from his car. It's a dark blue 2008 Hyundai hatchback. On Friday, at six in the evening, he followed me home, sat in his car, and watched our house. On Saturday, at 4:13 in the evening, he was on the beach, watching Emma and Blue.

  "Oh. I saw him," Emma said.

  She remembered an odd-looking man in slacks, the cuffs rolled up as he waded ankle-deep in the water at the far end of the beach, near the public pathway. He'd glanced in hers and Blue's direction a few times, and Emma had vaguely thought that he didn't seem to be the beach type. For one, his clothes were all wrong: casual office slacks and a white collared shirt. He had short hair and black-rimmed glasses. He seemed like someone who'd been driving along the coast and, on a whim, decided to come down to the beach.

  "This morning, I saw him taking pictures of the house, and you, when you took the garbage bins out," Jill said to Oliver, who blanched.

  Emma felt a little sick, her appetite lost.

  Oliver glanced at the wine in his hand as if he suddenly remembered it was there, and took a sip before setting it down.

  "Who do you think it is?" Emma asked, breaking the quiet that had settled over them.

  "A detective," Jill said.

  "What in the heavens would a detective be tracking us for?" Oliver asked no one in particular.

  "I don't know," Jill said. "But my guess would be the waterside suicides."

  Oliver shifted in his seat, and Blue's hand slid over Emma's. It felt icy cold.

  Chapter 42

  "Are you going to the office tomorrow?" Emma asked Jill after dinner.

  "Yes," Jill said, placing a plate in the dishwasher.

  "Can I go in with you?"

  "To the office?" Jill squinted up at Emma from her hunched position.

  "No, just into town."

  Jill stood, a frown forming on her mouth. "I don't like the idea of you on your own. In fact, I think I might take you and the twins out of LA for a while."

  "Blue will be with me. We're going to meet Nisha," Emma lied. "I promise I'll be with them at all times. And we'll stay in public spaces until you're ready to pick me up. I just need to get out of here for a while."

  Jill peered at her with pink-rimmed eyes, the skin beneath them slightly puffy. Emma knew that the reason her mom liked Blue staying with them was that she kept Emma company—kept Emma occupied and safely at home, where she and Oliver could monitor her.

  "Where are you planning to go?"

  "Just… I don't know. The promenade, a restaurant. I need a change of scenery."

  Jill shook her head. "No. I don't think it's a good idea."

  "What if Dad took us and was with us the whole time?"

  "I thought you didn't care for Oliver's company."

  "Mom. I don't. The point is, I'd be with him. He's a parent."

  "He's irresponsible."

  "You let him take the twins to the beach."

  "Myla is with him. He's not allowed to take the twins on his own. He might lose one of them in the surf."

  "Well, look, I'm not a toddler. I can't get lost."

  "No," Jill said evenly.

  "You're unreasonable."

  Jill stiffened. "I am extremely reasonable. I couldn't be any more reasonable."

  "What about that man who's been watching us? He could be a threat. You don't have any problem with me staying home with Dad while a strange man is lurking around."

  "He is more than likely a detective."

  "Yeah, but you don't know that for sure."

  "His behavior is clearly investigative."

  "But you don't know for sure. Why don't you admit it?"

  Emma felt Blue sidle up next to her.

  Jill's jaw pulsed, and she continued loading the dishwasher.

  Emma groaned and turned away to stomp up to her room, Blue following behind.

  "She's acting ridiculous," Emma exploded when the door closed. "I can't stay tied to her hip twenty-four seven."

  "Emma." Blue grabbed her hand. "You're stressing unnecessarily, babe. All you have to do is slip out once she leaves. Oliver probably won't notice. Half the time, he's in his own world. We'll catch a Lyft and be back before she knows the difference."

  Blue climbed onto the unmade bed that smelled musty from damp bathing suits and several days of sex without washing the sheets. She curled up on her side and placed a pillow between her knees. "You're not meeting Nisha, are you?"

  "No," Emma admitted. "Cassandra used to leave a key under this stone by her back door. Usually, no one is home during the day. I know Sam works the day shifts at Burger Lounge in Marina del Rey."

  Blue lifted a brow. "What are you going to do?"

  "I'm going to look for that letter Poppy sent Hunter, the one Cassandra said she found in Sam's room. I think whatever was in that letter is the key to why this is happening—the supposed suicides."

  Blue looked thoughtful. "I'll go with you."

  Emma shook her head. "No. I want to go alone. I'll meet up with you later."

  Blue nodded, a look of uncertainty flitting across her features. She twisted around and reached for her vape pen on the nightstand, taking a few puffs, then handed it to Emma.

  "No, thanks," Emma said. She didn't want a cloudy mind anymore. She needed to think.

  Chapter 43

  From her window, Gumption
watched Emma Dawson approach the Bakers’. There was something odd in the girl's demeanor, the way she stood staring at the house as if she were trying to peer into the windows at a distance. Flowers remained piled in the front yard in their plastic packages, most of them moved to the base of a large old magnolia tree. Emma lingered around the front gate as if she might open it and then stepped back a few feet, glancing over her shoulder at Gumption's. For a moment, Gumption thought the girl caught her watching, but realized Emma had only been looking at the front porch where Gumption liked to sit and enjoy the day. A moment later, Emma went up the driveway and disappeared around the back of the house.

  Chapter 44

  Amazingly, the key was still under the large, smooth stone closest to the bottom step. Emma picked it up, heart hammering in her chest at what she was about to do, and climbed the steps to peer through the glass door at the den. A pattern of elongated cones was etched neatly into the recently vacuumed carpet.

  "Someone's got too much time on their hands." Emma could hear Nisha's voice in her head.

  "It's not my mom," Cassandra had said. "It's the housecleaner."

  Was the housecleaner still inside? Emma hadn't seen a car parked in the driveway, but maybe the cleaner parked on the street.

  Emma unlocked the door, and it slid open noiselessly. The problem with the carpet was that, once she walked on it, her footprints would disturb the pattern. Swallowing back her fear, she rose onto her toes and tried not to bring her weight fully down on the floor as she tiptoed to the hall, pausing in the doorway. A hush of quiet blanketed the house. Emma listened so hard for the telltale signs of someone moving about that a static sound filled her ears and her palms grew clammy. The metal key dug into her skin from her squeezing it too tight. She pocketed the key, taking one step into the hall, staring at Samantha's door, left partially ajar. Just before Sam's room was Cassandra's, her door completely closed. Emma padded quickly forward and paused before Cassandra's room, staring at the door, firmly shut as if a representation of her life. No more Cassandra. The end. A horrible, ominous feeling rose up in Emma, and she reached through her block of fear for the door handle, turning it slowly. She had to see.