“We’ll be right back,” Jo told Claude. She waited until Nessa’s stomach had emptied and then guided her friend to the shade of one of the yellow-flower-covered bushes. “Are you okay? What did you see?” she asked quietly.
Nessa shook her head. There was no way to describe all the girls who’d come to stand around her. None of them appeared to be more than seventeen years old. Every shade of skin, every color of hair, every shape of body—they were all represented. Nessa recognized some of the faces from the walls of Franklin’s office. Lena Collins was there, standing a head taller than most of the others. She spotted petite Rosalia Cortez nearby. On the surface, they seemed to have nothing in common, aside from their youth. But Nessa knew there was another trait they all shared. These were all girls the world felt free to ignore. They were girls whose families weren’t rich enough to demand attention. They were girls who were chosen because people with everything thought their lives were worth nothing.
They’d been here the whole time, just a few miles away from her. And Nessa had never known. While she’d pottered around her pretty house with its white picket fence, girls almost the same age as her daughters had been stolen from their mothers. Young women had been sacrificed to beasts whose presence she’d never suspected.
“How many are there?” Jo asked.
“More than a dozen,” Nessa told her. “They’re all dead.”
“A dozen? How?” How could so many girls have been killed in a place where cameras were always watching? Then the truth hit Jo all at once. She knew what the men on Culling Pointe did when their families were gone. It wasn’t just a few bad apples. They were all part of it. They had to be. Every last one of them. These men who ran the world could only be satisfied by what they weren’t supposed to have.
“Guys?” Claude was coming toward them, a look of concern on her face. “What’s going on?”
Jo stood up. She didn’t see any reason to lie. They’d need Claude’s help going forward. “There were more girls murdered here than we knew about. Nessa can see them.”
The blood drained from Claude’s face, but she didn’t appear to doubt Jo’s claim. “Murdered? How many?” she asked.
“Nessa says at least twelve,” Jo said.
Claude put her hand to her heart as though trying to keep it from bursting out of her chest. Then she cleared her throat. “Do you know who killed them?”
Jo didn’t want to tell her like this, on the side of the road next to a pile of vomit, but she hadn’t been left any choice. “Claude, I’m so sorry. You were right about Leonard. I should have taken your hunch more seriously,” Jo told her. “That’s why we drove out to the Pointe. We found evidence that implicated him and we’re worried that Harriett might be in danger.”
“Leonard?” Claude repeated the name as though she didn’t quite recognize it, but the accusation didn’t seem to surprise her. “Are you sure he was involved with their deaths?”
Jo glanced over at Nessa, who nodded. “Yes,” she said.
Claude bit her lower lip when it began to tremble. Her eyes lifted away from Jo’s face and focused on a patch of ocean visible between two of the mansions. She stayed silent long enough to make Jo anxious. Then she said, “He fucking lied to me.”
Jo could hear the grief in those four simple words. They sounded heavy and hopeless. They came from a woman who was giving up. A woman who’d bet everything and lost. Who’d tried everything she could think of and failed anyway.
“I’m so sorry.” Jo took a step toward her, but Claude took a step back.
“He said he wouldn’t let me down again,” she said flatly. “He promised. I trusted him.”
“Claude,” Jo started, but her friend turned away.
“Just a sec,” Claude said.
She walked back to the broken-down golf cart and pulled a nine iron out of a bag. Then she left Jo and Nessa and marched off down the street.
“Where are you going?” Jo called.
“To find him,” Claude answered.
Jo held out a hand to Nessa. “I don’t think we want to miss this. Do you think you can get up and walk?”
They made it to Jackson Dunn’s deck overlooking the beach just in time to see Claude reach the dock below, the nine iron resting against her shoulder. Leonard stood at the end of the dock peering out across the waves with his binoculars. He turned at the sound of her footsteps, but he never looked up. He was unaware they were being observed.
“There were more than three,” Claude said. “How many girls died here?”
“What are you talking about?” Leonard let the binoculars drop to his side. His face still wore the remains of a smile, as though there was still a chance it was all just a joke.
“How many girls did you let these rich assholes kill?” Claude demanded. “Tell me the truth.”
Leonard took in a breath. Jo and Nessa waited to hear the denial he appeared to be concocting.
“I don’t know,” he finally said. “Rocca took care of it all. Don’t worry. There won’t be any more surprises. Spencer was a sick fuck. He wanted to put his where he was able to see them. But the other bodies are gone. They won’t be found.”
“Neither will yours.” Claude brought the nine iron down from her shoulder.
“Oh, c’mon, Claude,” Leonard cooed, reaching out an arm.
The nine iron caught the morning sun as it swung through the air. A thwack and a scream followed. The binoculars fell to the dock as Leonard stumbled backward with his injured arm pressed to his chest.
“Oh shit,” Nessa gasped.
“Whoa,” Jo said with an amused snort. “She did it.” The violence hadn’t disturbed her at all. She could feel the cells of her body tingling.
“After everything I did for you.” Claude stepped toward him.
“Oh, you did it for me?” Leonard sneered through the pain. “So the money had nothing to do with it? Anything happens to me, and you won’t see a cent. Everything I have will go to the whales.”
“I loved you,” Claude said just before the nine iron made contact with the side of his head. A spray of blood painted her outfit.
“Me?” Leonard sputtered. “Or Daddy?”
She swung again and caught him in the stomach. He barely had time to double over before Claude nailed him in the crotch. He fell to his knees, and she struck him in the back of the neck. And when he was flat on the ground, she kept swinging, bringing the nine iron up over her head and smashing it down against his motionless corpse.
She finally stopped when her legs wore a candy-apple coating of Leonard’s blood. Then she looked down at the club and hurled it into the sound.
Nessa clapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh my sweet Lord,” she whispered.
“That asshole helped kill all those girls,” Jo said. “He deserved what he got.”
But it wasn’t the gore that had gotten to Nessa. As Claude walked back down the dock and up the stairs from the beach, she wasn’t alone. Nessa could see the ghost of a pretty girl in a blue dress following closely behind her.
When Faith Reid’s Serpent Held Its Tongue