She moaned a little as we heaved her into the shipping container. After we got her body against the back, Keisha went out to the car while I waited for her to wake up. It was fifteen minutes of sitting with my back to the wall of the cold metal before she finally woke, completely disoriented, unsure of where she was. She attempted to stand but fell back to the floor. She looked around, trying to figure out where she was. Then she finally saw me, and reality set in for the first time in Olivia’s life.
“Jenny? What the fuck is going on? What happened?”
I just stared at the wall opposite me. Never acknowledging her. I was tired of answering to Olivia. We were all tired of her.
“Listen up. I know the other women eat out of the palm of your hand, but you’re nothing but the fucking help. Now answer me when I talk to you . . . you insignificant piece of shit. What the fuck did you do to me!” she screamed, putting her hand on the gash at the back of her head that Crystal had left behind.
I sighed. And began to laugh. She just didn’t get it.
“What the fuck is funny to you? You are going to start answering my questions or—”
“Or what?” I stood up, flashing Bryce’s gun.
She gasped but closed her mouth.
“I know what you did.”
She brought her bloodstained hand in front of her face and looked back at me.
“I’m sorry, Jenny. You weren’t supposed to be at the salon. It was just to scare you, to remind you that I made you.” I think it was the first time Olivia had ever been honest in her life.
I pointed the gun directly at her. “Do you still think you made me?”
She shook her head insistently.
I lowered the gun and took a step back. “Good.”
Olivia breathed a sigh of relief and tried to stand again. I raised the gun and turned off the safety.
“What the hell are you doing?” Her eyes were wide.
“Putting us out of your misery.” I aimed the gun at her.
She gasped, “Jenny, ple—” and before she could speak, before she could beg for her life, I fired off three shots. Two through her chest and one through her head. The bright-red splatters across her face and chest contrasted beautifully with the white skeleton bones of her costume. I gave Olivia her final touch-up, her beauty glow in her favorite shade one last time.
“Is it done?” Keisha called from outside.
I walked out of the shipping container and closed the door behind me. “It’s done,” I said.
“Did she say anything?”
“She’s said enough.” I handed the gun to Keisha.
She nodded. “How do you feel?” Keisha wrapped her arm around my shoulder.
“Relieved.”
We made our way to the car.
“Now what?” Keisha looked to me.
“We go back to the party.”
We hopped into Bryce’s black Range Rover. It was one of his five cars, so he hadn’t even known it was missing as he always left this vehicle parked by the guesthouse. Crystal said he only ever used it if he had to haul something, like bodies perhaps. We drove slowly, careful not to attract any attention. Keisha thoroughly wiped down the gun several times.
We pulled to the back of the guesthouse with the lights off. Shannon was standing there in the dark, waiting for us, with the baseball bat partially wrapped in a towel.
“How’d it go?” Shannon asked as we got out of the vehicle.
I carefully closed the door. “Just as we planned.”
Shannon and Keisha exchanged their weapons. Keisha walked to the back of the vehicle, opened the hatch, and tossed the baseball bat in. We quickly wiped down the doors and the interior of the SUV with a couple of rags.
“And she’s dead?” Shannon looked to me.
I nodded. “Olivia is dead.”
She let out a sigh of relief.
Keisha returned to my side. “Where’s Bryce?”
“Last I checked, Bryce was in the garden. Crystal is keeping an eye on him. I’ll get this put back in his office.” Shannon held the gun up.
We nodded. “Anyone notice we were gone?” I asked.
“No, just as you suspected.”
I smiled at Keisha and she smiled back. We knew we didn’t need to worry about people questioning whether we were at the party or not. The girls would vouch for us and everyone else would remember seeing us because we faded into the background. We were the help. We didn’t demand attention. We were like air . . . People just always assumed we were there.
Out back, Bryce was right where Shannon had said he was, standing at the bar with a drink in hand. He looked confused but also content. He probably thought he was in the clear with Olivia. That maybe she had changed her mind. Dean was at the bar with him, completely inebriated, ignorant of the fact that his wife was dead in a shipping container like the poor women he had been trafficking for God knows how long.
The remainder of the night, we drank, we laughed, we danced, and we waited . . . for the rest of our plan to unfold.
85
Jenny present
Olivia was like a cancer, and not one that could be treated. She needed to be cut out. You might be questioning whether we really needed to kill her. The answer is yes. We knew Bryce would slime his way out of it. A jury would go easy on Olivia, and Dean would have taken a plea deal. They were wealthy. And we all know what happens to wealthy people . . . Nothing.
We planned to take all three of them down. How? It was rather simple actually.
After Olivia was dead, we knew the rest of the plan would fall into place. Two days after Olivia disappeared, Dean filed a missing person’s report. Four days after that, her body was found. I went to the police station the very next day and asked for the lead detective on the case. I told him I had information on Olivia Petrov’s murder, and then I spent hours and hours and hours distracting him, waiting for Dean to finish what we started. We knew Dean would go after Bryce once Olivia’s body was found. After all, Bryce had threatened her life, and Dean was a hothead who didn’t think rationally. I went in to speak with Detective Sanford early in the morning, and by 8:00 p.m., Bryce was dead and Dean was in custody. Case closed. We were all free from it—free from Olivia, Bryce, and Dean. Buckhead was a better place without them. Some people can be saved. But not all of them.
“You should come to Manis and Mimosas,” Crystal says. “It’s on Sunday.”
Laura smiles. “Oh, I would love that.”
“Well, we would love to have you,” I say as I continue to gently comb out her perfectly layered hair, glancing back and forth between her and myself in the mirror.
My mouth curves into a large Buckhead smile—pleased, that is.
It shouldn’t be surprising, what we did.
What I did.
I just did what I always do.
I took care of my clients.
Acknowledgments
Acknowledgments are always the hardest thing for me to write because “thank you” isn’t enough, and I worry I’ll forget to recognize every single person that helped make this book possible. There are a lot of you, and I’m grateful that I have so many to thank.
Thank you, first, to my literary agent, Sandy Lu. You gave me a chance when no one else would. Literally, you were the only one that said yes to this project. I am beyond proud to have you in my corner. Thank you for believing in me.
Thank you to my husband, Drew. Without your support and encouragement, I wouldn’t have written any of my books. Like I always say, you are my Annie Wilkes (minus the busted ankles and all the violence).
Thank you to my film agent, Lucy Stille, for championing my work off the page.
Thank you to the extraordinary team at Blackstone, who have rallied around this book and worked tirelessly to get it out into the world. Especially: Rick Bleiweiss, Naomi Hynes, Sara O’Keefe, Samantha Benson, Jeffrey Yamaguchi, Zena Coffman, Josie Woodbridge, Megan Bixler, Kathryn Zentgraf, and Stephanie Koven.
Thank you to my Ithaca Critique Group for your years of encouragement and for workshopping my books, one chapter at a time. You’ve made me a better writer!