The Pretty Ones Read online

  “Here you go, baby!”

  Baby.

  The bartender slid a tall glass across the counter. It was the fanciest iced tea Nell had ever seen, garnished with a slice of lemon, a maraschino cherry, and a little paper umbrella, like something you’d get on a tropical island. Nell smiled and slid a dollar bill his way.

  “Two bucks!” he yelled, holding up his fingers in a peace sign, just like how Barrett did when she left for work. Later, dude.

  Two bucks? Is that what a drink costs these days? She gave him an incredulous look. She could buy an entire dinner for two bucks. But she’d already ordered the stupid thing, so she pulled another dollar from her purse and forced a good-natured smile. And here she thought he was supposed to be giving these things out at half price. She supposed those were the perks of looking like Mary Ann Thomas. When you rivaled the likes of Farrah Fawcett, the drinks were practically free.

  Shake, shake, shake . . .

  Over and over.

  Shake, shake, shake!

  Nell wrapped her hands around her drink and turned back to the dance floor. Baby. She snorted, took a sip of the concoction that had cost her an arm and a leg, and just about choked on the taste. It was ghastly, like something only a person without a working set of taste buds could guzzle down.

  “You like it?” The inquiry came from behind her. She twisted in her seat to catch Vinnie Barbarino grinning her way. Was he smiling like that because he was playing a joke on her? Did he mess up her drink on purpose? No. He was waiting for an answer.

  “Yeah, sure!” She took another sip to convince him, trying her damnedest to keep a straight face. The barkeep gave her a thumbs-up and danced away, lending his attention to a guy who looked about Nell’s age on the opposite end of the bar. This guy had a friendly face, a head of messy black hair. He was on the heavyset side—not fat, just rounded out, as though his mother had fed her baby boy well. Nell liked that. It made her feel less awkward, less out of place—the heavyset girl at a nightclub full of flashy, beautiful people.

  When the guy turned his attention from the bar to Nell, she started and looked down at her drink.

  Oh God.

  Staring at the bright-red cherry that rode like a castaway on top of an ice float, she began to panic when she sensed him scooting down the bar toward her. Desperate for something to do, she took a gulp of her awful drink. He sidled up to her despite her obvious nerves, and Nell was left with no choice but to glance his way.

  “Hi,” he said as soon as she cast him a look. “How’s it going?”

  “What?” Maybe if she pretended she couldn’t hear him above the music, he’d give up and go away.

  “How’s it going?” he boomed. “You here alone?”

  Nell managed a smile and bobbed her head, continuing to play the deaf card. The guy wasn’t dissuaded. He lifted his own drink—a bottle of Old Milwaukee—and took a swig.

  “Dave,” he yelled.

  “Hi,” she finally yelled back. No use looking more stupid than she already did.

  “You got a name?” he asked.

  “Huh?”

  “Name!” He screamed it. “What’s your name?”

  “Nell,” she told him, immediately regretting her honesty. She should have made something up. Should have said her name was Linnie or Savannah or Mary Ann, if not to keep her anonymity, then to at least have a more interesting name than the one she’d been born with.

  Nell, plain from day one.

  “You from around here?” he asked. Nell shook her head, her eyes fixed on the giant lapels of his yellow-and-green paisley-print shirt. “Where you from?”

  She faltered at his persistence. “Uh, Queens!”

  Dave looked intrigued by her answer, as though he had a particular interest in the borough. Then again, that was where someone had shot those two kids the other day. It was where the cops had found Linnie Carter, where the panic had risen to a fever pitch. Lots of people were interested in Queens these days. It was a horror show out there. A real bloodbath.

  “You wanna get out of here?”

  Nell blinked. Was he . . . ?

  “To talk!” he yelled over the music. “Just to talk.”

  Yeah, right, Nell thought, but was flattered despite herself. Nobody had propositioned her before. The idea of accepting Dave’s invitation sent a thrill spinning through her like a Catherine wheel. She looked down at her drink; she hated it, so why not give this guy a shot? Maybe he really did want to talk, or maybe he wanted more, and would that have been so bad? Sitting in his car in the dark. His hands sliding down her thighs. Her, pushed against the interior of his car door. Him pressing his mouth against her neck. His fingers grazing the elastic of her panties. Ducking beneath the fabric. Pushing her legs apart as he murmured hot against her ear: You like that? You like that, huh, baby?

  A tremor shot through her hands. She pushed her iced tea onto the bar, afraid that if she didn’t put it down, she’d end up spilling it all over her new clothes. A flash of a memory lit up the back of her eyelids. A slit of light beneath the closet door. Her mother’s heavy breathing. The rhythmic banging of something against a wall. Nell and Barrett sitting in the dark, their hands pressed over their ears as they huddled together, holding their pee. A man’s voice asking: You like that? You filthy girl.

  That’s what he had called their mother.

  You little slut.

  And she had liked it.

  Yes, she had gasped. I’m dirty. A filthy little slut.

  “I can’t,” Nell told him, cutting the memory off. “Sorry, I just . . .”

  “Oh, come on,” Dave urged, but he wasn’t smiling anymore. His round face took on a distinct look of impatience. Her own expression must have shifted to something akin to alarm, because as soon as he looked at her again, his agitation scurried back into its hole. “What’re you gonna do, go back to Queens on your own? That’s dangerous, ain’t it? I’ve got a car. Let me at least drive you.”

  “I’m waiting for a friend,” she insisted. He needed to leave her alone.

  “What?” Dave leaned in closer, holding a hand up to his ear.

  He had to give up. Give her space.

  “A friend,” she yelled, but Dave had suddenly gone deaf.

  His hand landed on Nell’s arm as if to pull her away from the bar.

  Her pulse thumped up into her throat, keeping time to the music.

  She jerked her arm away.

  “Hey, why don’t you scram?” she yelled, unnerved by his persistence. “Go find some other girl to drive back to Queens.”

  Dave blinked at her like she’d just thrown dirt in his eye. His face shifted from stunned to incensed within a span of a second. And as Nell sat there watching him, she was sure he’d happily slash her throat the same way Barrett had cut Linnie’s.

  Dave took a step back, grabbed his beer, and turned away, but before Nell could breathe a sigh of relief he spun back around and hissed into her face. “Stupid bitch!”

  Flecks of saliva spattered across her cheek.

  She winced.

  Her elbow jerked sideways, nudging her glass of disgusting iced tea along the sticky surface of the bar. When he finally turned away for good, Nell closed her eyes and tried to steady the rhythm of her heart.

  If Barrett wants to kill somebody, he should kill that guy, she thought. Garrote him with a piano wire. Ram that beer can down his throat.

  She waited for Dave to leave the Cabana Club, then stalled an extra ten minutes to make sure he wasn’t lingering outside to ambush her. He seemed like the type of guy to pull something like that. But the longer she waited the more disgusted she became with herself. The thumping bass of the music had thumped its way right into her skull, vibrating her brain, reawakening her migraine. Her stomach churned around the alcohol she’d drunk for no reason other than to busy herself at a bar sh
e should never have visited. And the recollection of how she’d pictured herself and Dave getting hot and heavy in his car made her skin crawl. Booze and strange men and impure thoughts and hanging out in bars on a weekday—the realization snapped inside her like a rubber band.

  Barrett was right.

  His outrage was sound.

  He was worried that she’d turn into their mother, and here she was, dressed in a way she’d never dressed before. Drinking some horrible-­tasting drink. Smiling and bobbing her head despite having a miserable time. Fantasizing about random strangers off the street.

  She bounded off the stool, ready to march for the door and catch the next train home. But her legs went wobbly beneath her. She had to catch herself against the bar. That was when—involuntarily plopping back down onto her stool—her gaze fixed on the door she wanted to walk through so she could go home. There were Mary Ann Thomas and Adriana Esposito, stepping in from off the street, cool as a pair of cucumbers.

  At first Nell was sure she was imagining them. The pair was a figment of her imagination, her deepest desire brought on by too much booze. They couldn’t possibly be there, except that there was no reason for them not to be. Savannah had said the Cabana Club was their spot. Why wouldn’t Mary Ann and Adriana be there? The club was in full swing.

  Mary Ann and Adriana made no effort to approach the bar or put down their purses. They immediately shimmied onto the dance floor, falling into step with the other patrons as the Bay City Rollers spelled out S-A-T-U-R-D-A-Y.

  Nell twisted away from the dance floor, mortified. If they spotted her . . .

  Oh dear Lord.

  Forcing herself onto her unsteady feet, she wobbled down the length of the bar toward the booths at the back of the club.

  “Hey!” Vinnie Barbarino yelled after her. “Hey, baby, everything all right?”

  She ignored him.

  The back booths were hardly visible from the dance floor through all the cigarette smoke. They wouldn’t see her there. They’d dance the night away and leave, and that’s when Nell would make her exit. She’d be stuck at the Cabana Club until last call at the bar, but it wasn’t like Barrett was home.

  But just as the thought of her brother being out there somewhere settled heavy in her head, her attention was drawn to one of the dimly lit back booths. There was a man sitting alone in one of them, his face obscured by the shadows of the club, but she knew. She knew.

  Here she was, worried about that weird Dave guy possibly waiting outside for her, but she’d been followed all along. Her own flesh and blood had ambushed her instead.

  . . .

  Nell couldn’t remember how she got home. When she woke in the morning, her head was still throbbing. She was exhausted, hardly able to peel her eyes open. And as she peered at her alarm clock through sleep-blurry eyes, she figured herself lucky to have gotten home at all. At least she still had time to grab a shower before catching her train into Manhattan. If she hurried, she could stop by the coffee shop across from the station and buy a much-needed cup of joe. Otherwise, she was quite sure she’d end up falling asleep at her desk.

  But all thoughts of preparation and commute were lost when her feet hit the planks of the floor. Even exhaustion dissipated into little more than fleeting fatigue. Because there, littering the hardwood of her bedroom, were her new blouse and skirt—the ones she’d worn to the Cabana Club. Despite her half-drunken state the evening before, she was sure she’d hung up her outfit in the closet after she’d come home. No, she was certain, because she remembered looking at the blouse’s label. She recalled groaning when she discovered that, even though the thing smelled like cigarettes, she couldn’t just throw it in the wash with her other things on laundry day. Dry clean only. She’d have to walk the eight blocks it took to get to the nearest cleaner and cough up fifty cents to get it laundered. So she had hung the thing up rather than dropping it on the hamper, hoping that the scent of nicotine would dissipate if it stayed in the closet for long enough. Hoping that she’d be able to wear it at least once more before trudging clear across the neighborhood to get it cleaned.

  Except that now that option was out the window. Her blouse was crumpled on the floor, rust-colored handprints rendering it little more than a rag.

  Nell covered her mouth and backed away from the clothes as though they were alive; as though, if disturbed, they’d tell her the story of the previous night.

  “Barrett?”

  She tried to yell his name, but it came out of her throat as a quiet squeak. She hadn’t spoken to him at the club, hadn’t dared look at him directly. She wasn’t even sure it had really been him occupying one of those back booths.

  Maybe her eyes had been playing tricks on her.

  Maybe she’d just been paranoid.

  But now she was sure. Yes, it had been him. He had watched her order a drink. He had seen the exchange between her and that creepy Dave guy. He had sat there for hours, watching it all play out the way he had predicted, his anger coming to a boil, building up until he had no choice but to release it onto the world. And after whatever he may have done—What had he done?—he’d come back home, pulled down Nell’s new clothes, and wiped his hands on them to teach her a lesson. The clothes. The alcohol. The impure thoughts.

  Nell reeled around, half expecting to see her brother standing in her open bedroom door with a smirk playing on his lips. The threshold remained empty, but there was a torn piece of yellow paper on top of her dresser. It was propped up against Beary’s stomach, placed to make it appear as though Nell’s beloved stuffed bear was the one delivering the message.

  You’re turning into her.

  Bloody fingerprints obscured half of the first word, but his message was clear.

  She backed away from the stuffed animal, horrified by the way it stared at her with its little glass eyes. She stumbled out of the bedroom, her eyes darting to Barrett’s empty chair. The kitchen was deserted. He’d come and gone, and maybe this time for good.

  And it was her fault.

  Whatever he had done, she had driven him to it. And was it any wonder? Around every turn, Nell was sending mixed signals. She hated his possessiveness but was terrified to lose him. She wanted it to be him and her forever, all while buying fancy clothes and threatening to go out with girls he couldn’t stand the thought of. She had pushed him too far. Dared him to exert his authority. She had made him snap, challenging him at every turn, ignoring his wishes, promising him that everything would be fine. But things were irreparably broken. How could she look at him the same way again? And how could he ever forgive her for turning him into a monster when he was trying to keep her from becoming one herself ?

  Nell sank to the floor and pressed her hands to her face, crying into the silence of that sad and crooked apartment.

  “Oh God !” She scream-wept the words loud enough for the neighbors to hear, silencing herself by pressing a hand over her mouth.

  Be quiet, her mother hissed inside her head.

  Act normal.

  Go get ready.

  Don’t be late for work.

  . . .

  Déjà vu.

  The elevator dinged. The doors yawned open. The call center was deserted, save for the area in front of the break-room door. But this time the huddle of girls was louder, more panicked. Lamont was in its center. “Girls, girls!” Her tone was frazzled amid their squawking.

  Nell stopped dead at the sight. Maybe it was because she hadn’t completely shaken off her fatigue from the night before, but not once had she considered Barrett’s second victim was someone she may have known. And as she stood there, she couldn’t figure out why she hadn’t considered such a thing. It seemed so simple. So obvious. So appropriate. So like Barrett to bring Nell’s punishment full circle. He was a poet, after all.

  Nell’s hands shook despite their desperate clasp on her purse. She slowly walked towar
d the group, her eyes wide, her mind reeling. Would he have dared the risk? This was twice in one week. It was hard to imagine that such tragedy could hit the same group of people a second time; hard to chalk it up to nothing more than a dark coincidence. The police would certainly look for him now. If they weren’t at the office already, they were undoubtedly on their way.

  Nell didn’t stop the way she had on Monday morning, didn’t dare linger or draw attention to herself in any way. She drifted to her desk, took a seat, and watched the girls from a safe distance. Her bottom lip quivered. A scream threatened to claw its way up her throat. What have you done? she thought to herself. You goddamn idiot, what the hell have you done?

  “I can’t . . .” It was the voice of a passing girl. “This is just . . . it’s too much. It’s too much! ”

  “It isn’t safe,” murmured another. “Whoever this is, this freak . . . he knows someone who works here. How can he not? It’s obvious.” This was, in everyone’s eyes, an attack on the Rambert & Bertram girls—in everyone’s eyes, especially Nell’s.

  “They should send us home,” said a third to a fourth. “Whether they do or not, I’m leaving.”

  “I’m not staying either,” said a fifth while passing Nell’s desk, wiping at her eyes with a tissue. “I’m packing up. This job isn’t worth my life.”

  “Better safe than sorry,” said another. “I’m staying long enough to type up my resignation, and then I’m gone.”

  Nell tucked her hair behind her ears and gaped at her typewriter, her panic blooming into a thorn of guilt, that thorn scratching into the soft tissue of her heart. Barrett was an idiot. He’d lost his goddamn mind. But he’d done everything to protect her, but what he’d succeeded in doing was disturbing dozens of lives.

  “Well, I’m waiting for the cops.” Another voice. “Anything I can do to help them catch this piece of shit, I’ll do it.”

  Nell squinted at the keys of her machine, trying her damnedest not to cry. That momentary flash of guilt was gone, panic winning out once more. Because the police, the police . . .