Page 81 of To All the Men I’ve Killed Before

‘I’m in Antoinette’s room,’ I call back and moments later her blonde head appears around the door.

‘What’s happened?’ she asks me, coming into the room. ‘You look like you’re going to pass out.’

‘I found something,’ I say, ‘on Antoinette’s iPad.’

I hold the tablet out to Agnes, who takes it. Her eyes widen.

‘What the—’

We both stare at the page for a moment before either of us says anything.

‘But why?’ Agnes says eventually, echoing my thoughts. ‘Antoinette doesn’t need the money.’ She looks at me, her brows knitted together in confusion. ‘Does she?’

I shake my head. ‘No. I don’t understand—’

But then I do.

And it’s so obvious that when it hits me it’s like a fist.

‘The WeHo Ripper,’ I say and Agnes gives me a puzzled look. ‘Antoinette thought we could find him.’

I sink down onto my sister’s bed as the enormity of what I’ve found hits me. ‘She’s made an account to lure him,’ I say to a horrified Agnes. ‘She’s used herself as bait.’

And right after I made her bait herself to get Aidan here.

This is all my fault.

‘I really don’t think she’s holed up in a hotel, Agnes. I think she’s gone after the Ripper. Or he’s gone after her.’

‘Oh God,’ Agnes says. ‘This is bad.’ She sits down next to me. ‘I found something too. Outside.’ She looks at me and bites her lip, like she has something to tell me that she doesn’t want to.

‘What?’ I say, frantic. ‘What is it?’

‘We found something,’ she says. ‘Well, Lana did. Just a few yards from the house.’

Oh God.

‘What? What did you find?’ I almost don’t want to know because, judging by the look on Agnes’s face, it’s not good.

She reaches into the pocket of her cut-offs and pulls out something that makes me cry out in horror.

It’s a phone.

In a pink glittery case.

Antoinette’s phone.

‘I’m sorry,’ Agnes whispers as she hands the phone over to me.

I turn it over and over again in my fingers.

There’s no doubt that this is Antoinette’s phone.

It’s covered in mud and the screen is smashed.

But the worst thing is a dark red smudge staining the pink case, seeping into the glitter.

I’ve seen enough blood to know that’s what I’m looking at.