Page 32 of To All the Men I’ve Killed Before

She smirks. ‘I’m not annoying?’

I laugh. ‘I’m not stuck with you,’ I say. ‘I choose you. Always. We’re sisters.’

She breathes out and it’s so heavy I feel the shudder.

And then she leans her head on my shoulder.

And I realise she’s not a liability.

Or, if she is, she’s my liability. She’s a hurricane. A force of full nature.

And I wouldn’t change her for the world.

‘Great,’ she says, ‘then you’re going to love hiking with me in the morning.’

I’m not sure my new sisterly love stretches quite that far.

18

Runyon Canyon Trail, Hollywood Hills, Los Angeles

Antoinette is ten years younger than I am. And it has never shown more than now. Somehow she’s managed to convince me to get up early and go on a morning hike with her. It goes to show how much I want to bond with my sister because I am not a fan of either of these things usually. But there’s something to be said for being up and at it this early. The searing LA heat hasn’t quite kicked in yet and I feel almost healthy halfway up a mountain at a time I’d usually be silencing my alarm. Or I would do if I wasn’t suddenly wheezing like a sixty-a-day smoker. And if my actual lungs didn’t feel like they’ve had acid thrown at them.

Am I dying?

Is this what my death will look like?

Antoinette, however, is skipping along like a happy gazelle, swinging her water bottle and stopping every few metres to take in the scenery. And wait for me to catch her up.

‘Are you having fun?’ she asks me as I huff up beside her.

‘Yes,’ I lie. ‘I actually love early mornings and exercise.’ It’s just a white lie really. Just a tiny one so I can bond with my sister.

‘Have you had any thoughts about what we’re going to do with him?’ she says, handing me her bottle.

‘Not yet,’ I say when I’ve recovered my breath.

I look around.

Despite the early hour there are already several people out on the trail apart from us. And they’re all filming content. Two girls in co-ordinating exercise outfits are laughing as they set up a tripod and yoga mats. There’s a young couple with a selfie stick strolling along, their limbs wound around each other. And a man with no shirt and very precise facial hair is filming his dog doing tricks. Or at least he’s trying to. The dog is much more interested in sniffing and digging.

My first – and only – idea for Ron Wilde was to cut him into even smaller parts and distribute them along a walking trail. My thought was that the coyotes and mountain lions would do the disappearing for me. But that wouldn’t work with all these people and phones and dogs about. I can just imagine tossing a body part from my backpack only to have a Cavapoo immediately fetch it for me, its owner calling out, ‘Excuse me, ma’am, you dropped something.’

Yeah. That totally wouldn’t work.

‘Can we stop for a minute?’ I say to Antoinette, who’s still several steps ahead of me. She turns back and gives me a puzzled look as I double over, putting my hands on my knees and taking some deep breaths. When did I get so unfit? I need to address this pretty quickly as it’s kind of crucial to be in peak physical condition if I’m going to be slaying men and hefting their bodies around.

‘Do you want to sit down for a minute?’ Antoinette asks as she walks back over to me. ‘Are you struggling a bit there?’

‘I’m fine,’ I say but the words come out in choked gasps.

‘Sit down, Kits.’

I do.

Antoinette drops down beside me. ‘Actually, there’s something I wanted to show you,’ she says, taking her phone out of her Lululemon belt bag and opening Reddit.

She hands it to me and I peer at the screen. It’s open on a subreddit dedicated to the man in our cellar.