The Last Girls Standing by Jennifer Dugan

Author:Jennifer Dugan [Dugan, Jennifer]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2023-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

EIGHTEEN

“THIS CAME FOR you,” Magda said. She tossed an envelope onto Cherry’s bed, where the girls were currently sticking tape onto articles for the collage. The wall was half filled already, and Cherry had only lived here for a few weeks.

The press coverage had expanded exponentially since the announcement of the Morte Hominus group and The Fox’s plea deal, and it was taking most of the girls’ time to keep up. Sloan thought she shouldn’t be proud of their “collage of misery,” as Cherry had started to call it, but she was. She liked the way the edges combined. The way things blurred together into abstract splashes of color and black and white if you relaxed your eyes. A Jackson Pollock of murder and disappointment.

“What is it?” Cherry nudged Sloan’s knee. The envelope had practically landed on her, and she passed it to Cherry with an apologetic smile. She had been lost in her head again. She needed to get better about that.

“Kevin’s celebration of life,” Magda said softly. “It came the other day, but I forgot about it until just now.” She wrapped her robe tighter around her. Magda was trying to do her best impression of a caring mother right now, rather than her usual manic pixie dream MILF.

Sometimes Sloan was glad she had a mom like Allison instead of a mom like Magda—until she realized if Cherry got an invitation to a celebration of life, Sloan probably did too. Allison must have hidden it. Or thrown it out, more likely.

Sloan leaned closer to read. It was in honor of Kevin’s birthday tomorrow. She wondered what Magda meant by “the other day,” and was suspicious it was probably more like “weeks ago.”

Colleen, Kevin’s wife, had been the most organized of all the grieving families. There was no way she had just sent this out now. Especially not to the girls she believed her husband died trying to save.

Kevin had been murdered as he ran out of his office. Sloan didn’t remember that, of course, not with her brain, but she had Cherry’s version of events, plus she’d read the autopsy reports of everyone involved—had begged the families for them and convinced them it would give her closure, much to her mother’s concern—and knew where he had been found. One axe blow had severed his spine, and another had wedged in the base of his skull. He had been one of the last to die.

Sloan remembered his blank eyes staring at her while she hid under the boat. His warm, sticky blood sliding its way around her. The sound of his stupid Nirvana playlist droning on and on . . .

The reporters somehow got ahold of the autopsy reports too, even though they were supposed to be sealed as part of the ongoing investigation. Everyone has a price apparently, even the people in the Money Springs Sheriff’s Department.

The press had a field day when they found out Kevin was one of the last to pass. One of the only

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