Page 132 of To All the Men I’ve Killed Before

‘He charmed them so you could murder them?’

‘I didn’t murder them,’ she says, sounding almost outraged. When I open my mouth to tell her to tell the truth she holds a hand up to silence me. ‘I saved them.’

‘They’re fucking dead, Lauren,’ I say. ‘That doesn’t scream saved to me.’

She laughs but it’s a horrible hollow noise. ‘I saved them from themselves, Kitty. Don’t you see?’

‘No. I really don’t. All I see is four dead girls. Four families who will never see their daughter, their sister, their cousin again.’ I pause for a moment. ‘Is it four? Are there any more?’

She shakes her head. ‘Just the four. For now. When I’ve got rid of all you nosy little gremlins, there will be more.’

That’s when I notice the bottle at her feet is actually a fuel cannister.

‘You’re going to kill more women?’

‘Kitty,’ she says, shaking her head as if she’s disappointed in me. ‘I’m going to save more women. Once I’ve got rid of y’all snoopers.’

‘Lauren,’ I echo her tone. ‘How is strangling these women and leaving their bodies by Hollywood landmarks saving them exactly? You’re really going to need to walk me through that one because I don’t understand.’

The only thing I understand is that she’s a fucking lunatic and that I should push her overboard now.

But I’m curious.

She clearly believes in her mission as much as I believe in mine.

‘Is this a trick?’ she’s saying now, narrowing her eyes at me.

‘How would it be a trick?’ I say, holding my hands up and showing her that I’m not carrying anything in my bikini. ‘Tell me. I want to know.’

Her brows pinch. ‘Isn’t it obvious?’

I shake my head. ‘Not really, Lauren, no.’

She sighs and shakes her hair out. ‘You saw all those comments. Online,’ she says. ‘You said yourself that they didn’t even let the bodies get cold before they were calling those women sluts.’ Her voice cracks a little on the last word. ‘That’s what the world thinks of women who sell their bodies. The saving grace is that they didn’t have to read any of it themselves. Now they don’t have to worry about any of their sins.’

‘Their sins?’ I repeat. ‘You mean making their own choices about their own bodies?’

Lauren just stares at me. ‘You have no idea, do you? No idea what it’s like to be called a slut. For it to be the one thing that defines you. To be the biggest skank in the world. To get anonymous death threats on Myspace. For your own father to call you a whore. To disown you.’

Ah.

So there’s a personal story here.

There usually is.

‘What happened to you, Lauren?’ I keep my voice low and level. A trick that I learned from my time in the cellar with Aidan Ward. Guess it wasn’t a total waste of time after all. ‘Tell me.’

She stares at me for a moment as if trying to work out whether I’m being genuine. ‘I’ve lived it,’ she says eventually. ‘I know what the future looks like for those girls.’

I take another tentative step towards her. ‘How?’

She sighs. ‘I was thirteen,’ she says. ‘There was this house party. I was going through my pushing-boundaries era so I snuck out of the house and went.’ She stares back out to sea. ‘Where I grew up, it was small, my dad was the local pastor. I didn’t know that some of the boys had a bet on to see who could nail the pastor’s daughter.’ Her gaze turns watery.

‘Lauren,’ I say but she holds a hand up to stop me.

‘Anyway, I was young and wanted to show the other kids that I wasn’t just this prim little princess. So when this guy offered me a drink, I took it. I’d never had alcohol before. He thought it was funny and, when I finished it, he got me another. And then another. I guess I blacked out at some point.’ She pauses to take a deep, shuddery breath. ‘All I can really remember is coming round in a bedroom and my dress was all bunched up, my underwear off. I couldn’t find them so I had to go downstairs without them. Everyone was looking at me.’

‘You were assaulted,’ I say but she’s not listening to me. She’s still staring out at the horizon, flicking the lighter on and off.