Dead End Girls by Wendy Heard

Author:Wendy Heard [HEARD, WENDY]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Published: 2022-05-10T00:00:00+00:00

OUTSIDE THE WINDOWS OF THE TAXI, HOLLYWOOD LOOKS SPARKLY and festive. It’s weird how the seediness doesn’t translate into two-dimensional imagery; you have to be on the sidewalk in order to feel the grit.

I’m calling Frankie’s burner phone for the thousandth time. It rings out and goes to voicemail. Frustrated, I push the end button and dial again. I can’t believe she went to some party without even texting me. A little voice of humility reminds me that I stormed out and left her, so there wasn’t much reason for Frankie to think I cared where she went. Shut up, I tell the voice. I hate it when my conscience suddenly decides to get involved. Where have you been this whole time? I’ve been leaving dead bodies in the Hawaiian wilderness and conducting wanton thievery, but now I need an intervention? Honestly.

We leave the strip and drive up into the hills, into residential neighborhoods with gates that branch off the street behind which I glimpse long driveways leading up to mansions. I check the address on my phone and confirm—we’re headed in the right direction. If Natalya lives up here, why does she work at Blue? This must not be her house. I must have misunderstood. It has to be a friend’s place or something.

The taxi pulls over at one of the gates, which stands open. “You want me to drop you off here or go up?” the driver asks.

I peer up the driveway and see lights, cars. “I’ll walk up.”

I pay him cash and get out, straightening my dress. Before walking up, I freshen my lip gloss and comb my fingers through the wig.

At the top of a hill, in front of the two-story modern mansion is a huge circular driveway full of vehicles stacked almost on top of each other, a nightmare if anyone has to leave. A valet is running around between them, and I see that he’s moving a few cars so one can get out.

I take a nervous breath, straighten my shoulders, and walk up the path, between square-cut hedges, and through the front door.

The foyer has a two-story ceiling and leads straight into an open-concept great room with a white marble fireplace that travels all the way up to the ceiling high above. The room is furnished entirely in black and white, and people function like decorations chosen to offset the colorful abstract paintings hung judiciously on the walls.

In this front room, a handful of men in their late twenties are grouped onto a pair of leather couches, earnestly talking about something while throwing back shots from a bottle of what looks like scotch. Young women in a variety of short dresses surround them, not much older than me but beautiful and sophisticated in designer clothing and full faces of makeup. Scattered around the room, men in suits talk among themselves while their high-heeled, miniskirted dates hover nervously around them. Horrified, I remember Natalya telling me there would be lots of cute guys here tonight.

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