The Ugly Girls' Club: A Murder Mystery Thriller

by C. A. Wittman

  Posie had these thoughts as she rang the doorbell at Gumption Road's house. She almost didn't come because Donovan wasn't answering his phone, and it made her nervous. But then she got a text from him.

  Hey, sorry. I've been out of range. I'll call u later. Let me know what you find out.

  Posie raised her hand to knock, but then she heard movement on the other side of the door, and it opened. Candace stared back at her for a second longer than what was comfortable before she smiled, flashing her long teeth, and said,

  "Hi, come in."

  Candace used to work for her dad, not that Candace would know that. Her dad didn't interact with the girls that worked for his various houses and his sugar daddy service. Only the ones who had done well for themselves had made their way up to catch his attention. Most of them didn't know who Skip Jenner was. Posie only knew about Candace through Donovan, who had once taken a fancy to her. She'd been the first girl their dad had allowed Donovan to groom and set up with clients, Donovan earning a generous cut of everything she made.

  Once, when Posie had stopped by Beverly Hilton to meet her brother for lunch, she'd glimpsed Candace. Donovan had been standing in the lobby with her. At the time, Candace still had flesh on her bones, a voluptuous figure, fine-boned features, and dark liquid eyes. When Candace laughed at something Donovan said, Posie caught a flash of her vampire teeth, and she'd been mesmerized for a moment.

  Posie had known not to approach her brother until the woman he was talking to left. Donovan's eyes had snaked in Posie's direction as she crossed the expanse of marble floor and made herself comfortable on one of several sofas. He'd grinned at that moment, pleased with himself, and placed a hand on the small of Candace's back, leading her further along into the massive lobby. They'd stopped to talk more until an older man who looked to be in his sixties had approached the two, Donovan introducing them.

  Posie knew all about how Candace had turned into a junky and run off, stiffing Donovan, and then had weirdly shown up again, living at Gumption's as a maid of sorts. Their dad had told Donovan a few different times to leave her alone. Gumption was too well known, and, from what Skip had gleaned, she had her own set of powerful friends. Friends a person didn’t want to cross. Skip Jenner had done well over the years because he was good at keeping a low profile.

  Their dad had not been happy to learn that Cassandra's body was found at the older woman's house, Donovan's fuck you to Candace and Gumption.

  Posie followed Candace into the house, marveling at how different she looked. Old and emaciated. The smell of cookies lingered in the air as they passed through the kitchen and another bright, airy room. Emma and Blue sat waiting on plush white sofas, the walls papered pink.

  A feeling of tension crackled around Posie, a wrongness she couldn't place.

  "Sam did that to you?" She asked in reference to Emma’s bandaged nose.

  Emma nodded.

  Posie frowned and glanced at Blue, who met and held her gaze. Candace took a seat on a chair and scratched absently at her arm, moving the fabric of her long-sleeve shirt against the skin of her inner arm.

  "Do you mind?" Posie said to Candace.

  Candace didn't respond. She was really going at her arm.

  "Hey," Posie snapped. "This is a private conversation."

  Candace looked up then, her dark eyes sparking, an inner glow in their depths. She had a red sore on her cheek, the skin too taut around her bone structure. Without a word, Candace stood slowly and glided noiselessly out of the room.

  "Did you find the letter?" Posie asked when Candace had gone.

  Emma didn't answer right away, and Posie felt a flutter of fear in her chest.

  "No," Emma said.

  Her answer should have brought Posie relief, but she still felt strange. Something was off.

  "So you said you think Donovan knows something?" Emma asked.

  Posie looked around the room. Something was definitely wrong. Out of the corner of her eye, Posie caught movement. It was Nisha. She came into the room, arms crossed. Behind her was Sam, the skin around her eyes blistering red. Sam’s look was murderous, and, for a moment, Posie felt glued to the floor, then she lunged in the direction she'd come from. But Candace, seemingly appearing out of thin air, stepped in front of her, cutting her off. Posie's hands shot out, and she pushed at the woman's bony body. The stall was just enough time for someone to tackle her from behind, sending her falling to her knees, her bones screaming out in pain from the impact of hitting the hard floor. She rose, twisting round to fight, fingers curled to gouge at a face or chest. It was Blue who had gotten hold of her, slapping at her arms, even as she grabbed hold of Blue's hair, yanking hard while trying to scurry out from under her. Nisha and Sam now hovered over Blue, and Sam reached down, hauling Posie to her feet. In the next instant, she'd delivered a hard backhanded slap to her cheek, and Posie saw a flood of darting lights.

  "My dad's going to fucking kill you!" she shrieked at Sam, who yanked her to a sofa and flung her down.

  "Shut up, bitch," Sam said.

  Posie's chest rose and fell hard. Her eyes met Emma's, filled with pity, and suddenly Posie was terrified.

  "Did you kill my sister, Posie?" Sam asked.

  "No."

  "Liar!" Sam yelled.

  "Girl, hold up. Hold up," Nisha said. "We should all just wait for Gumption."

  Candace stood at the entrance between the pink room and the sunroom, her hair hanging long and wild around her gaunt face.

  "I used to work for your dad," she said to Posie.

  Her single statement grabbed all their attention, and Posie knew it was over.

  Chapter 51

  Donovan's stomach hurt from all the cookies he'd eaten, and the endless cups of milk he was forced to drink. His bladder was bursting, but this time his captor wasn't letting him use the bathroom, and Gumption had gone after only staying for ten minutes.

  "I hear you're quite innovative," the short man said, refilling his glass.

  "Please. I can't drink anymore," Donovan groaned.

  "That's okay, Donny," the man said. "Have a cookie, instead."

  "I can't eat any more of those."

  "Sure you can. They're your favorite."

  Donovan farted. It was silent and smelly, but the short man didn't even grimace. He said, "I hear you created this porno site that's easy for kiddies to access. How did you do that?"

  "Look, I have nothing to do with any of that. I'd never make a porn site for kids."

  "You know, Donny, it's a waste of my time to play these games with you. I ask you something. You pretend not to know the answer. So here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to provide some incentive."

  He turned to the brute who had kept up his stance at the entrance to the kitchen. "In the second cabinet to the right by the sink, you'll find some glass jars. Get me down one of those and bring it over."

  Donovan's heart rate went back up as he watched the man comply. The jar set down on the table, the short man winked. He opened a drawer and pulled out a meat cleaver.

  Donovan squirmed. "What are you going to do?"

  "Oh, just some inspiration, Donny." And to the brute. "Hold him down."

  Donovan made to spring out of his chair, but the bigger man's fist slammed into his shoulder and his legs folded as he fell back into the chair. The big beefy arm wrapped tightly around his neck, the crook of the man's elbow digging into his windpipe. Donovan's hand was yanked forward, the fingers forcibly splayed apart.

  "No! No! No!" His voice was guttural from the pressure on his throat. A searing, shocking pain, the sound of crunching bone, and then he was screaming at the sheer pain of what had happened to him. A warm liquid spread across his jeans as he lost control of his bladder.

  "Let him go," the short man said.

  His entire pinky finger on his right hand had been removed, and his captor held it up for him to see, then plunked it into the glass jar.

  "There," he said. "That ought to provide some incent
ive to give me a straight answer when I ask you a straight question." He then picked up a roll of paper towels and unwound sheet after sheet before handing them to Donovan, who, sobbing, wrapped them around his hand.

  "So let's start over. I hear you created a porno site for kiddies."

  Donovan bit down on his lower lip and farted again, sweat snaking down the side of his face and dripping onto the plate of Oreo cookies. He'd eaten all the chocolate chip ones.

  "Yeah," he huffed out, trying to get his breathing under control.

  "Okay," the man said, rubbing his hands together. "Now we're getting somewhere. Why?"

  "Why?" Donovan stuttered.

  "Why?" He said in a louder voice.

  "Uh, it wasn't for kids. It was for teenagers. Porn's pop-popular these days with tee-teens, and I just created some breadcrumbs to make it easier for them to access."

  "Bread crumbs, huh? Porn's already easy to access. I noticed that these breadcrumbs went out to only a specific group of kids from the middle school where your now dead girlfriend, Wren Mahoney, went. Why those kids in particular?"

  Donovan squirmed again, watching the blood seep through the towels. "It was just a place to start."

  "Do you need more inspiration, Donny?" the man said in a low, even voice.

  "No. I swear. It was just a place to start!" He was already being straddled, the meat cleaver lifted, his left fingers splayed open. "No! Please! I'll answer! I'll—aggh!"

  This time, his index finger was removed. The man held it up for him to see and then plunked it into the jar with his pinky.

  The man picked up the paper towels again and silently unwound sheet after sheet, handing them over.

  Trembling, Donovan wrapped his left hand, the towels on his right hand already soaked with blood.

  The man picked up the jar, shook it, smiled, cracked his jaw, and set the jar down. "So why that school, Donny?"

  "My dad—he asked my sister and me to see about recruiting some girls for the sugar daddies. They were looking… looking for younger girls."

  The man waited, listening.

  "And… and I had this idea to get them primed with porn, keep tabs on who was logging in so I knew who to approach."

  The short man nodded. "A grooming before the grooming, so to say."

  "Yeah."

  He handed Donovan the glass of milk. "Have some. You've earned it."

  Donovan took it, too afraid to refuse, smearing the glass with blood as he took an obligatory sip. It slid cold and thick down his throat, and he had to focus very hard not to throw up. Fumbling, he set down the glass.

  "Okay," the man said. "So you get these kids hooked on porn, keep track of who's into what, how often, etcetera."

  Donovan nodded.

  "Then what?"

  “Well, my sister was going to befriend the pretty ones and um… uh…”

  "Oh. Yeah, I get it. You were going to romance them, like."

  "Yeah," Donovan whispered.

  "And fuck them?"

  Donovan took a ragged breath. It came out a sob. "Yeah," he said.

  "Then what? What did daddy have planned, exactly?"

  "We'd kind of slowly introduce them to the life, a little at a time."

  "And what was to keep these girls from reporting you once they felt like they were in over their heads?"

  "Well…"

  "Yeah?"

  "I'd get pictures and videos first."

  The man paced. He pointed a finger at Donovan. "Which you could always sell, too. More revenue."

  Donovan nodded again, and the man put a finger to his temple. "Enterprising, aren't we?"

  "I guess."

  "You guess?" He stared coldly at him. "I'd say it's enterprising. Okay. So you make the breadcrumbs, get the kids hooked, pick out the pretty ones, groom them, get them set up in their future career with you, enterprising Donny, and blackmail them if they give you a hard time."

  Donovan said nothing. Blood dripped out of the paper towels onto the table and into his lap.

  "Get the kid some fresh towels," the man said to the brute. "Tell me about the first one."

  "The first one?"

  "Wren. What went wrong there?"

  Everything, Donovan thought.

  "It wasn't as easy as I thought," Donovan said honestly.

  "Famous last words of every failed entrepreneur. Tell me what happened."

  "I went out with her for a while, and she fell in love with me. I sort of fell in love with her."

  The man mimed the violin, so Donovan quickly moved on with the story. "I got pictures and videos. The problem was that I had skipped the step with the porn. My dad had suggested we start with Wren since she was already Posie's friend. So," Donovan burped and farted again. "So when it got time to prime her for the other thing, she wasn't into it, and she got suspicious. She started asking a lot of questions, but she was still really into me. So I asked my sister to talk to her, but it was getting to be a problem, and my dad was worried that she'd start talking to the police."

  "So, naturally, murder was the next step," the man finished for him.

  "I didn't want to."

  "Donny." He grabbed Donovan by the face, squeezing his cheeks between his palms. "What did I say about honesty?"

  Donovan felt the blood leave his head as the man waved the brute over again.

  This time it was his left pinky.

  "Please continue," the man said. "Whose idea was the suicide?"

  "Posie's," Donovan whispered. "She said she knew someone who painted their nails all these different colors. That it would make the suicide more believable, especially since Wren ran a fashion vlog."

  He explained how, a few days after they faked Wren's suicide, they leaked a video Posie surreptitiously took of Wren screaming at her sister.

  It was the day he'd tried to get Wren to do some stuff with him online while one of their clients named Herb Klein watched them, talking dirty to her. He was hoping to groom Wren for Herb, but Wren had run out of his bedroom, crying, and it had taken him hours to calm her down, along with a lot of apologies and pulling his whole sincere boyish act. Donovan had asked Posie to spend time with her that evening, to be a sounding board for Wren, and to play down her experience as something that was completely common.

  After Wren’s “suicide,” Poppy kept pestering Posie about her suspicions. Donovan had then leaked the video of Wren to create an image of an imbalanced girl. But Poppy continued to be a problem, and that was when he’d started blackmailing her. Her horrible little secret would keep her from going to the police, except he’d underestimated Poppy too. She was contemplating going to the police about the anonymous harassment she was getting over her use of Candy Porn. If she did go to the police, Wren was sure to come up at some point. So a second suicide was arranged, but not before Poppy sent that damning letter to Hunter. Emma had told Blue about the letter, and Blue had told him. Naturally, Donovan had to get rid of Hunter.

  It had been a lucky break to have Blue inform him of the letter and that Emma was on her way home hoping to talk to Hunter, who hadn’t confided in her yet about what they’d learned. He’d gunned it to Emma’s getting there just when that non-gendered bastard was arriving.

  Hunter had been the only one out of the four who Donovan had tussled with, giving them a shot of ketamine. The effect was quick, and he’d led a heavily drugged Hunter to his car, driving them to one of his dad's warehouses in Culver City, where he painted their nails and put them in a swimsuit. When the drug began to wear off, he gave Hunter one of his mom’s Valiums. At one in the morning, Donovan drove a very groggy Hunter to the Ballona wetlands and escorted them onto the bike path entrance off Jefferson Avenue to a cluster of bushes. It was there that he gave Hunter the final shot, leaving them propped against a bush facing the creek. He’d placed a needle in Hunter’s right hand and curled their fingers around the syringe. He knew people would bike past Hunter for hours and take not the slightest notice, assuming they were one of the homeles
s resting in seclusion. There had been no time for Posie to write a letter like she’d done for the others.

  Then, Emma had told Blue about her conversation with Cassandra, Cassandra finding the letter in Sam's possession, which was odd. How had Sam wound up with it? And why hadn't she turned it in? He could only surmise that, whatever was in there, Poppy hadn't mentioned him or Posie. Still, it wasn't good that the letter was out in the world.

  The plan had then become to get rid of all of them, one by one, the social justice movement that had sprung up around the suicides acting as a perfect shield for murder.

  "Things really took a turn," the man said.

  "Yeah," Donovan agreed.

  "I'm going to ask you something, Donny. And I want an honest answer. You think you can continue being honest with me?"

  Donovan nodded.

  "Good. Where can I find your old man?"

  "He's in Vegas." Donovan swallowed. He was sorry to have to tell on his dad, but he couldn't take losing another finger.

  "Where in Vegas?"

  "He's staying at the Bellagio. He's meeting some of his business partners because he's opening a new… brothel."

  "Would these business partners be Rudy Horowitz, Tim Smith, Jade Cook, and Ben Morales?"

  "Yeah," Donovan said softly.

  The man placed his palms on the table, leaned over, and smiled in Donovan's face. "Let's text Dad. Tell him you're coming out and would like to join him and his business associates at the meeting."

  "Okay." Donovan hung his head while the man did just that.

  "Now, we wait," the man said and plunked down the paper towel roll for him. "Help yourself."

  An hour later, Skip Jenner called.

  The man put the phone on speaker.

  "I just got your message," Skip said. "Did you and Posie take care of what you needed to take care of?"