#MurderTrending

by Gretchen McNeil

  “So you killed her.”

  “No, I didn’t kill her,” Kimmi said, pointing the knife at Dee’s sternum. “Daddy did.” She sighed. “He loved that sort of thing.”

  Loved? Past tense?

  “Murderer.”

  Kimmi rolled her eyes. “Don’t be so dramatic. She, like, barely felt anything. Daddy didn’t even torture her first. He wanted to, but I told him no. Daddy always did what I told him to.”

  “So you and your psychopath dad killed my stepsister, then framed me for her murder?”

  Kimmi spread her hands, as if to proclaim her helplessness. “How else was I supposed to get you here?”

  “Here on this island. To kill me. Think about what you’re saying.”

  “But it was just a game!” Kimmi cried. “One of our little games. Don’t you remember how much fun we used to have?”

  “No,” Dee said, remembering the torture of hair braiding in the white room. “I don’t.”

  “He wasn’t going to kill you,” Kimmi protested. “The day you arrived, I was waiting for you in this maze. My plan was that ‘Mara’ would help you escape the Slycer, and then you would have realized how much you needed me and we could have lived here on Alcatraz two-point-oh together. Best friends. Sisters. Forever.”

  She was even more insane than Dee had realized.

  “Never,” Dee said.

  “Oh, come on! Look at how much fun we’ve had in the last few days. It could have been like that all the time.”

  Over my dead body.

  “But you had to go and ruin it,” Kimmi said, with a sad shake of her head. She advanced toward Dee. “And now here we are.”

  Dee eyed a camera mounted to the wall of the warehouse. She needed to keep Kimmi talking.

  “Why did you have innocent people sent to Alcatraz two-point-oh?” Dee blurted out, hoping that Kimmi would take the bait. Her ankle throbbed, she was having difficulty staying focused, and it took every ounce of strength she had left to stay on her feet.

  “Daddy,” Kimmi began, then paused, shaking her head. “Daddy knew about ratings. He was a genius with them. He saw that spikes were dropping and realized he needed to spice things up around here. Who wants to see a gross old man get murdered? Nobody. But a hot chick? Or a buff young guy? Instant ratings hike.”

  Keep talking. “And Dr. Farooq was part of it?”

  “That bitch.” Kimmi practically spat out the words. “Can you believe she told Daddy I was dangerously psychotic? I mean, is that even a diagnosis? What kind of doctor was she?”

  “The kind who would take bribes to testify against innocent people,” Dee prompted.

  “Greed was her downfall,” Kimmi said cheerfully. “But that was Daddy’s deal. And once Daddy died, I got my revenge. Who’s dangerously psychotic now, Dr. Farooq? Oh, we’ll never know, because you’re dead.”

  But Dee hardly even registered Kimmi’s confessing to Dr. Farooq’s murder. All she heard was that Kimmi’s dad was dead. The Postman is dead….

  “Prince Slycer was The Postman,” Dee said slowly, as the last piece of the puzzle clicked into place. Keep her talking. “Which means you’ve been running the island ever since I killed him.” The lack of food deliveries, the failing infrastructure. Even the momentary lapses in camera movement. Kimmi couldn’t control them when she was running around the island with Dee and her friends.

  “I controlled most of it from my smartphone,” Kimmi bragged. “Even while I was on the bed and you thought I’d died. Isn’t that the best game ever?”

  “You killed all the guards, who might have noticed that things were different,” Dee continued, staying on track. “And the rest of the inmates, knowing your dad already had a new wave coming. So your only problem was the Painiacs. They’d eventually realize that someone else was running the show.”

  “True,” Kimmi said, eyeing her sidelong as if surprised that Dee had figured it out. “Which is why I’m replacing them.”

  “And why you were helping me kill them off.”

  Kimmi gasped. “You saw that?”

  “The Frisbees, the gas tank. You took care of the last Hardy Girl and Gassy Al yourself, and with the guards already dead, you wanted me to deal with the rest of the Painiacs in the maze. Then there’d be no one left who knew The Postman was your dad and not you.”

  “Maybe.”

  Dee nodded at a camera overhead. “But now everyone knows. It’s all over, Kimmi.”

  Kimmi turned to look at the camera, then burst out laughing. “Are you kidding me? Do you really think I’d have a camera running while I admitted all of this? Am I an idiot or something?”

  Dee didn’t answer. She’d heard everything she needed: the truth about Monica’s murder, the sham trials, the innocence of her friends, and the deep conspiracy of corruption that fueled Alcatraz 2.0. But there was something else she needed to know. Something personal.

  “Why me? Why did you pick me?”

  Kimmi tilted her head to the side, her eyebrows bunched in confusion, and suddenly Dee was eleven years old again, staring up at Kimmi’s face in the air vent. “You don’t know?”

  “Why?” Dee repeated.

  Then Kimmi laughed—not an evil-villain-mastermind laugh or a psychotic-serial-killer laugh, but a laugh of pure, delighted surprise.

  “‘My heart wants a sibling,’” she quoted, still snickering. “‘A friend to call my own. But I don’t know what it means / To have a sister or a clone.’”

  Dee sucked in a breath. “My poem.”

  “‘To My Unknown Sister,’” Kimmi said. “I saw an article about it online when I was thirteen—and it was like you’d taken the words right from my own brain.”

  That stupid poem. She’d seen the ad for a local poetry competition and so desperately wanted to submit something, so she wrote about the one thing that had obsessed her as a ten-year-old: a sibling. Those ridiculous verses had literally ruined her life.

  “I wanted a sister,” Dee said, her voice razor-sharp. “More than anything in the world. But I never, ever wanted you.”

  Kimmi stopped laughing. Her eyes narrowed as she dropped her chin. “We could have stayed here forever. You and me. Sisters. I would have hired new Painiacs, and we could have gone on as before. But you ruined it, and now all that the world will find is your dead, mangled body, and those of your friends. While I will have miraculously survived Gassy Al’s chamber. I’ll be a hero, and then someone else will get to be my sister.”

  She started toward Dee, knife raised.

  There was nowhere for Dee to go, but she had one more surprise for Kimmi. “Did you get all of that?” she shouted.

  Kimmi stopped dead, waiting. Dee looked around, panic spreading out from the pit of her stomach at the silence. “I said,” she repeated, “did you get all of that?”

  “Got it!” Griselda rounded the corner of the maze, laptop balanced on her forearm and the Hardy Girls’ ax tucked into the waistband of her skirt. “Sorry I missed my cue. I was, like, so totally obsessed with the comments feed.” She looked up from the screen, her eyes trailing to Nyles. “Is he okay?”

  “I’m fine,” Nyles said. He raised himself on his good arm, the other hanging limply at his side. “Dislocated shoulder and possible concussion, but I’ll survive.”

  “I was so worried,” Griselda said drily, sounding anything but. She typed on the keyboard with her free hand. “Live feed is broadcasting. We got all of it.”

  Kimmi swung back and forth between Dee and Griselda. “But…the fight. You thought Griselda was me.”

  Dee sighed. It was petty to feel so satisfied, but after all that Kimmi had done, Dee was practically giddy to know she finally had the upper hand.

  “We faked it,” Dee said simply. “I realized when I saw Gassy Al’s body in the pavilion that something was wrong. Griselda was right, Robin’s Hood always wore the executioner’s cowl, but you knew Al had made his own because you’d already seen him. When you killed him and hid his body in the pavilion.”
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  “This isn’t possible.” Kimmi turned around, spotting camera after camera in the warehouse. Each one had its red light on, recording everything. “I was a step ahead of you the whole time.”

  “Almost,” Nyles said, “but not quite. Dee figured it out at the last second.”

  “She explained it as we walked back to I Scream,” Griselda added. “Said we had to fake a big fight so you’d think Dee was on her own.” She smiled. “Not like fighting with Dee was that much of a stretch.”

  “While you were focused on me,” Dee continued, keeping her eyes locked onto Kimmi, “Griselda found the laptop you had stashed in your house.”

  “And the body of the real Mara.” Griselda wrinkled her nose. “Chopped up. In the fridge. Totally disgusting, FYI.”

  “It was a guess,” Dee said, “that you’d have a laptop and Internet access.” She smiled at Griselda.

  “I had to break through a locked door with the ax to find them, but I did,” Griselda said, beaming back at Dee. “And now the whole world knows about your bullshit. So we should be getting out of here ASAP.”

  “No.” Kimmi’s face turned red, and her fingers clenched the knife so tightly her knuckles turned stark white. “You ruined everything!”

  Then she pulled back the knife and rushed at Griselda.

  Images of Blair’s decapitated head and Ethan’s bullet-riddled body flashed through Dee’s mind. Then Monica’s body dead on the floor of her bedroom. Kimmi had taken so much from her. She wouldn’t let Griselda be added to that list.

  Her twisted ankle screaming out in pain, Dee launched herself forward, collaring the back of Kimmi’s Prince Slycer costume with her good arm. With all the strength she had left, she wrenched Kimmi around and threw her onto the floor.

  Kimmi sprawled onto the concrete, but unlike her father, who’d conveniently fallen on his sword, Kimmi lost her grip on the knife from the force of impact. It slid across the concrete, spinning to a stop at Dee’s feet.

  “Dee!” Nyles cried. “Look out!”

  Kimmi leaped back up and charged. Dee had no time to think. She reached for the knife, her fingers closing around the handle just as Kimmi was upon her. Dee wanted to stop Kimmi, restrain her so she could be tried and punished for her crimes, but she never got the chance.

  Kimmi lunged just as Dee angled the knife toward her.

  They hung there, Kimmi’s hands around Dee’s throat, their bodies pressed together as if in an embrace, faces inches apart. Dee still held the handle of the twelve-inch-long knife, her hand pressed up against Kimmi’s abdomen. The blade had impaled her.

  Kimmi’s features tensed up, her eyes wild with pain and rage. Then it all drained away. Her mouth relaxed, her eyes found Dee’s, and she smiled.

  “We would,” she began, struggling with each word, “have been good. As sisters.”

  But Dee felt no compassion toward her tormentor. Kimmi didn’t deserve any.

  “No,” she said. She let go of the knife and stepped back. Kimmi dropped to her knees. “No, we wouldn’t.”

  A wave of terror passed over Kimmi’s face, her arm outstretched toward Dee. Then she toppled forward, thrusting the blade farther into her body.

  THE CRISP NIGHT AIR revived Dee. She’d been dozing a little, nodding in and out of consciousness as she rode piggyback on Griselda down Ninth Street.

  “The authorities will be here soon,” Nyles said, shuffling along beside her. He held his dislocated arm close to his body and lurched slightly as he walked. “And they’ll get you fixed up.”

  Dee’s leg and wrist throbbed, blood pounding through them with each beat of her heart, but all she thought about was Nyles. “What about your arm?”

  “Easy,” he replied cheerfully. “They’ll just pop it back in and I’ll be good as new.”

  “In other words,” Griselda said, “they’ll have to amputate.”

  Dee snorted. It was good to know that she was the same old Griselda.

  It took them forever to reach the western end of the island, but Griselda finally deposited Dee on the rocks by the water as Nyles eased himself down beside her. From there they could monitor the helipad at the guard station as well as the pier. Whichever way help was arriving, they’d see it.

  Griselda flipped open Kimmi’s laptop. “The FBI has issued arrest warrants for the attorney general—that douche—and The Postman. Guess they want to make sure he’s actually dead. And it looks like Congress is going to start impeachment proceedings against the president.”

  “Good riddance,” Nyles said. “Bloody lot of criminals, all of them.”

  “Yeah, but our government will be in shambles,” Griselda said. “Who knows what mess comes next?”

  Nyles draped his good arm around Dee’s shoulders. “Then we’ll all just have to move back to the UK.”

  Dee was hardly listening. She gazed out across the water at the twinkling lights of San Francisco, their reflection rippling in the calm waters of the predawn bay. “They’ll come for us, right? They won’t just leave us here?”

  Nyles smiled. “Do you really think your father would forget about you?”

  “Good point.”

  “Well, if the authorities forget about us,” Griselda added, still combing through the feeds, “the Postmantics sure as hell won’t. Half of them want to make out with us, the other half are threatening our lives.”

  “So life after Alcatraz two-point-oh might be a bit like life on Alcatraz two-point-oh,” Nyles mused. “Now I’m definitely going back to the UK.”

  “Really?” Dee said quickly, realizing in that moment how disappointed she’d be if he did.

  Nyles’s eyes found hers. “No. No, I don’t think I could go back now.”

  Griselda groaned. “You two are going to make me barf.”

  Nyles put his hand on Griselda’s arm. “The first thing we’re going to do is get Ethan out of that guard station. He deserves a hero’s memorial.”

  “Yeah,” Griselda said, turning to face the station. Dee saw the glint of tears in her eyes. “He does.”

  “And you,” Nyles said, smiling at Dee. “You’re about to be the most famous girl in the world.”

  Dee laughed drily. “You told me that in the maze,” she said. “After I killed Slycer.”

  “I did?”

  “You’re repeating yourself, Romeo,” Griselda said.

  “Ah, well, this time it’s real. You just upended the entire American penal system.” His eyes flitted away from Dee’s face. “Everyone will want to talk to you, interview you. You, eh, probably won’t have time for anything else.”

  Dee didn’t want to be famous. She didn’t want to be interviewed or celebrated or even congratulated. She wanted to put Kimmi and The Postman and everything that had happened on Alcatraz 2.0 behind her.

  All but one thing.

  “I’ll have time for you,” she said, placing her hand on top of Nyles’s.

  “Yeah?”

  She smiled. “Always.”

  He leaned forward to kiss her. Slowly this time, not the panicked rush to keep her from saying something he didn’t want the cameras to pick up. And Dee angled her head to meet him.

  But the instant Nyles’s lips met hers, a movement from behind caught Dee’s eyes as one of the crow cameras mounted on a streetlamp slowly turned to face them.

  THE END?

  IT TAKES A VILLAGE to produce a book. Here is where I get to thank mine.

  To Kieran Viola and Eric Geron, éditeurs extraordinaires, whose invaluable vision and guidance shaped this novel in countless ways. I am eternally grateful for your faith and trust.

  To Ginger Clark, my partner in literary crime over these many years. So much of this book is due to your vision for my career, your unwavering belief in my writing, and your business savvy.

  To the amazing team at Freeform Books, including Emily Meehan, Mary Mudd, Guy Cunningham, Marci Senders, Sara Liebling, Cassie McGinty, and Holly Nagel. I’m in awe of your talents and dedication, and thankful t
hat I get to work with you.

  To the rest of my Curtis Brown family, who have toiled so tirelessly on my behalf for going on eight books: Holly Frederick, Madeline Tavis, Tess Callero, Jonathan Lyons, and Sarah Perillo. You’re the only people that could make this Irishwoman wear orange with pride.

  To the Wolfpack, the world’s best-looking critique group, for forcing me to work harder, shoot higher, and cook…more often: Julia Shahin Collard, B. T. Gottfred, Nadine Nettmann, James Raney, and Jennifer Wolfe.

  And lastly, but never leastly, to my husband John Griffin. You literally make everything better, from my writing to my editing to my life. I am truly the luckiest of women.

  GRETCHEN MCNEIL: Author of I’m Not Your Manic Pixie Dream Girl and the Don’t Get Mad duology, as well as the YA horror novels Possess, 3:59, Relic, and Ten, which was a 2013 YALSA Top Ten Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Adult Readers and was adapted as the Lifetime original movie Ten: Murder Island in 2017.

  You can find her online at

  www.GretchenMcNeil.com,

  on Instagram @Gretchen_McNeil,

  and on Twitter @GretchenMcNeil.