“Two Heiresses Down, Three to Go,” read the headline in bright red letters.
Aster immediately dialed Foley, but she didn’t get through. Trying to remain calm, she scrolled down and looked at the comments under the post. Some of them condemned the message writer and demanded the blog administrator take the post down. Others said, “Can’t you take a joke?” Still others wrote that Aster and her cousins deserved it. “Stuck-up bitches,” an anonymous poster wrote. “What goes around comes around.”
Aster’s phone buzzed, startling her. The website had disappeared, and Clarissa’s name appeared on the screen. Aster felt a flush of satisfaction—she hadn’t seen Clarissa since before Poppy’s death, but of course her friend would call in Aster’s time of need.
“I’m guessing you saw me on CNN?” Aster asked instead of hello, still feeling shaky from the Blessed post.
“Why were you on CNN?” Clarissa’s voice was husky, the way it always got when she smoked too many cigarettes. Aster wondered where she’d been last night. One of their old haunts, or a new club Aster hadn’t even heard of?
“Because someone tried to kill me?” Aster said slowly, shivering at the sound of that. “There’s a crazy serial killer leaving messages on my family’s gossip site.”
“You shouldn’t read that site,” Clarissa said. “You know it’s all bullshit.”
Except it hasn’t been bullshit lately, Aster thought. Not all of it.
“Anyway.” Clarissa yawned. “Are you coming tonight, or what?”
Aster clutched the phone tightly, startled that Clarissa had changed the subject on her. Being pursued by a murderer wasn’t a big deal? “Um, where?”
Clarissa scoffed. “To Boom Boom, of course! Jake’s going to be there.”
Aster pulled up the Blessed and the Cursed on her computer. Poppy and Natasha’s pictures were still front and center; she minimized the window. “Jake?”
“Gyllenhaal? Aster, I sent you the screenshots of his texts. Didn’t you look?” Clarissa was sounding more and more disgruntled. She launched into a braggy story about how she’d traded texts with Jake and that they were meeting there at twelve thirty.
“I’d love to,” Aster said, “but as I just said, my life’s sort of in danger. I should probably lie low.”
Clarissa snorted. “You sound a little Kim Kardashian overdramatic, honey. The people who post on that site are just doing it for fun.”
And do you know this because you are one of them? Aster felt a stab of annoyance. Then she noticed a figure passing in the hallway. “I have to go. I’ll call you later,” she told Clarissa, and hung up. “Mitch!” she called out. He turned toward her, his face lighting up.
“Hey,” he said softly. “How are you holding up?”
“I’m okay,” Aster said. Mitch hadn’t shaved that morning; the stubble made her notice how sharp his jawline was. He wasn’t wearing his glasses, either. Aster had never realized how long his lashes were, longer than she had ever seen on a guy.
Mitch squinted at her, inspecting her features. “You know, I wouldn’t be okay if I went through what you did this weekend.” He glanced down the hall. “Has Elizabeth said anything to you about it?” he whispered.
Aster shook her head. “Not a word. She was pissed, actually, that I had to do an interview today.” Elizabeth’s door had been firmly closed when she returned to work, but she’d sent Aster an e-mail of things to do, everything in all caps. “She finds it an inconvenience.”
Mitch sniffed. “I’d say she was the one to push your car off that bridge, but then she’d have no one to do her bitch work.”
Aster had already considered the idea. Elizabeth clearly hated the Saybrooks—maybe she’d killed Poppy too, and was after the rest of the cousins next. But she’d checked Elizabeth’s calendar this morning before the interview; her boss really had been away the morning Poppy was murdered. There were even receipts from the Four Seasons LA and Katsuya to prove it.
When Aster looked up, Mitch was still studying her. He shook his head. “Honestly, I don’t know how you can even be here right now. If you need anything today, give me a call, okay? I can do your coffee run for a change,” he added wryly.
Aster snickered. “Thanks,” she said, then glanced at her computer screen again. “Want to figure out who runs the Blessed and the Cursed for me?”
Mitch frowned. “Isn’t the FBI doing that?”