Page 25 of Dead Pretty

Yes, the murders of those women are similar to the killings of Tobias Ripley—both killed by knives in their apartments.

But the same could be said of a lot of murders.

Yes, Molly Hall looked a lot like me, but that means nothing.

And I have no idea what Natalie looked like. They didn’t show a picture of her with the news story.

What if she looked like me?

Fuck.

I shouldn’t look her up. I know this. But still, I can’t stop myself.

Self-control has never been a strength of mine.

I’m already opening up a fresh window, bringing up Google and typing Natalie Jenkins in the search bar, before I can think again about why this is a bad idea.

The screen fills with links. I click on the Images tab, and the first row of pictures shows photos of the same girl. She has dark brown hair.

Please be her.

I click on the picture and find her Facebook page. It’s private, so I can only see the profile picture.

Unsure if this is the right Natalie Jenkins, I type murdered next to her name in the search bar. Several other news stories come up, and a couple of them include a picture.

I click on one, and it’s the same picture from her Facebook page.

So, it’s definitely her, and she has shoulder-length dark brown hair.

A sense of relief fills my chest.

Which makes me feel shitty.

This girl lost her life, and I’m relieved that she had brown hair.

It’s just … Tobias would only kill girls who fit my physical description. He never deviated from that. The girls always had long blonde hair, like mine, and blue eyes.

And, yes, I know Tobias is locked up, so it couldn’t have been him. But I have a fear that Tobias will somehow get someone to come here and kill me. Or worse … there’s a copycat killer, and it will start all over again.

But with Natalie having dark brown hair, it means it couldn’t have anything to do with Tobias. If someone were following Tobias’s rules, the victim wouldn’t have dark hair. She would be blonde, like me.

And Molly was murdered months ago, and nothing weird has happened to me. No love notes, no dead animals left outside my door for me to find. No notes left on any dead bodies, addressed to me.

The first woman Tobias murdered, he left a piece of paper on the body with my name written clearly on it, stating that he had killed her for me. He left it unsigned though.

Always unsigned.

Like the note on the second body that he left for me.

After the third murder, he stopped leaving notes for me, but the police, the press, and I knew that those women—those innocent women whose lives he had snuffed out—were another of his gifts for me.

Why?

I don’t think I will ever know.

And I’m not sure I want to.

I let out a breath, my head dropping onto the back of the sofa.