Page 175 of Shhh…It’s A Killer Story

Blackridge was honest.

Its cracked sidewalks admitted they'd been walked on. Its forests didn't apologize for swallowing sunlight whole. Even the sheriff's station looked tired enough to confess its secrets if you waited long enough.

Hollow City, on the other hand, had perfected the art of lying.

The streets shimmered beneath spotless marble paving stones that reflected the morning sun like polished mirrors. Every tree had been trimmed into mathematical perfection. Not a single fallen leaf dared interrupt the symmetry. Sculptures carved from white stone stood proudly in the center of immaculate roundabouts, each one looking expensive enough to purchase my entire mountain.

Glass towers climbed toward the clouds, throwing shards of light across the streets below where Ferraris, Bentleys, and glossy black town cars drifted past with barely a whisper. Women wearing tailored silk coats walked tiny designer dogs whose collars glittered with enough diamonds to feed a village for a year. Men discussed investments over tiny porcelain cups of coffee that somehow cost more than my weekly grocery bill.

Everything gleamed, smiled and performed.

It was beautiful in the same way a porcelain doll was beautiful. Perfect, cold and one hard fall away from shattering.

People assume money removes monsters.

It doesn't.

It simply teaches them which fork to use during dinner.

I rolled slowly through the city center, watching waiters polish already spotless windows while gardeners trimmed roses that hadn't yet dared to wilt. Somewhere beneath the polished marble, billion-dollar charities, and carefully rehearsed smiles, I could almost smell the rot.

Disappearing scandals, purchased judges, families wealthy enough to erase names from newspapers before the ink finished drying, the monsters were still here. They simply wore Italian suits.

I parked beside the central square and stepped out into air that smelled faintly of expensive perfume, fountain water, and freshly baked pastries drifting from cafés where nobody looked like they'd ever eaten carbohydrates.

My leather handbag bumped lightly against my hip.

"You're squeezing my hat again,"

Gerald complained from somewhere deep inside the bag.

"You don't have circulation,"

Frank replied lazily from beneath my wallet.

"I have feelings."

"No,"

Frank sighed.

"You have opinions."

"They're practically the same thing."

Ignoring the inevitable domestic dispute happening inside my handbag, I made my way toward the enormous stone fountain dominating the center of the plaza. Water spilled elegantly from carved marble bowls while wealthy strangers wandered between flower displays like beautifully dressed ghosts.

I almost missed her, not because she blended in but because she absolutely refused to. She stood beside the fountain as though the city had been constructed around her rather than the other way around. While everyone else tossed breadcrumbs to pigeons, Persephone fed ravens.

Massive birds with feathers blacker than spilled ink perched comfortably along her forearms, tearing strips of raw steak from between her pale fingers with unsettling familiarity. The meat came from a designer handbag that probably cost more than my cottage roof.

Only one woman in Hollow City would carry fresh raw meat inside a luxury handbag.

I liked her immediately.

She turned before I reached her and every coherent thought quietly packed its suitcase and left my brain. She was breathtaking, not beautiful in the soft, predictable way magazines insisted women should be.

No.