Page 112 of To All the Men I’ve Killed Before

‘Are you okay?’ Lauren asks me. ‘You look like you’re going to barf or something.’

‘I’m fine,’ I say. ‘Just feeling a bit travel sick.’

‘Here, have some water.’ She pulls a bottle of mineral water out of her bag and takes the cap off for me. ‘Drink some of this.’

I take it from her gratefully and swallow down half the bottle.

‘Can you check my phone?’ I say. ‘Has Charlie called?’

‘Sure,’ Lauren replies and reaches for my phone in the centre console. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see her frowning at it.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘There’s no signal out here,’ she says, letting the phone slip back into place. ‘I forgot about that.’

My gut churns again and I realise how reckless I’ve been, coming all the way out here to confront a murderer without even a weapon.

And now a phone without any signal.

Lauren notices my distress and she puts a hand on my arm. ‘It’s going to be okay,’ she says.

I’d like to have her confidence.

I’ve spent so much of this trip rolling my eyes at Antoinette for not being careful. And here I am, doing exactly the sort of impulsive thing I’ve been warning her about.

I could kick myself.

‘Oh, take this exit,’ Lauren says. And then we’re on a long, desert highway that looks like something out of an old Western movie.

‘Where exactly are we going?’ I ask.

‘Wonder Valley.’

‘What’s Wonder Valley?’ It sounds like a theme park.

‘It’s just a remote bit of the Mojave out near Joshua Tree. Just derelict cabins, long roads and dust.’

A murder desert.

Cort’s taken my sister to a murder shed in a murder desert.

I put my foot down even harder on the accelerator.

We drive for about another hour, the road long and dusty. It feels ominous and I suddenly remember that Agnes and Charlie won’t know where we are. The last thing they need is to think that Lauren and I have vanished into thin air as well.

‘Can you text Agnes and let her know what we’re doing?’ I say. ‘Charlie will panic if they get back and find us gone.’

‘There’s no signal,’ Lauren reminds me.

‘Please try,’ I say. ‘It might go through if we find a pocket somewhere.’

Lauren reaches into her pocket, takes out her phone and taps out a message. ‘All done,’ she says. ‘We’re almost there. It’s round here somewhere.’

I don’t even begin to understand how she can tell. All I can see is sand, skeletal shrubs and the odd abandoned building. The whole place is an absolute ghost town, like proper horror-movie vibes. A cold shiver runs down my spine, a ghostly finger tracing the bones.

‘Over there.’ Lauren points to one of the larger abandoned buildings. ‘That’s the one.’

I pull over at the place she’s indicated. It looks like it was once some sort of homestead, but now it’s little more than a ruin. Completely dilapidated. The windows are all smashed in but the glass isn’t jagged, it’s smooth, suggesting many years of being left to the elements.