The Ugly Girls' Club: A Murder Mystery Thriller

by C. A. Wittman

  “Cassandra’s going to perform the song she wrote. The one she sang last night,” Hunter said.

  Emma craned her neck to look past Hunter at the railing.

  “Cool,” she said, trying to sound cool. Hunter frowned. Emma did a little toss of her hair, imitating Blue. A strand whipped across Blue’s face and she spit it away, then snorted. “Come on,” Blue said with an eye roll.

  Cassandra’s voice floated up to them from the microphone she was using.

  “This is dedicated to Wren and Poppy. It’s called ‘To Be Young’.”

  Emma walked over to the landing. There were easily a few hundred people trying to squeeze into the living room, the crowd spilling out to the courtyard. Cassandra’s face glowed as she struck the first chords. Blue put her fingers in her mouth and let out a shrill whistle. Dozens of people glanced up at the three of them, and then Cassandra’s voice rang out clear and strong. She sounded incredible, and a flash of goosebumps raced up Emma’s skin. Emma glanced at Hunter, who had closed their eyes. Tears snaked out from under their lids and ran down their cheeks, and they gave a little shudder. Emma put her arm around them and Blue caught up her other hand, giving it a squeeze. All eyes were riveted on Cassandra and, like the night before, she cast a spell over the party. When the song ended, someone in the crowd yelled, “That’s my bitch!”

  And then Jaylene stumbled forward on her spindly legs, her eyeliner smeared, a bottle of beer in her hand. “Oh my god, I loved that so much,” she gushed. Charlie pulled at her arm, talking in her ear, Anna and Lena keeping their distance, acting as if they didn’t know her. Jaylene yanked her arm out of Charlie’s grasp.

  “You’re so beautiful,” Jaylene said, her words slurred. Cassandra smiled.

  “Like, on the inside, though,” she added.

  A sharp silence followed her comment and then one of Sam’s friends called out, “someone get that skank bitch an Uber home.”

  Emma rushed downstairs and pushed through the crowd, the DJ starting up an electronica set to distract everyone. Where was her dad?

  Charlie struggled with Jaylene, and Cassandra remained seated, looking mortified as people came up to talk to her or continue to film the scene unfolding.

  “Here, let me help you,” Emma offered Charlie. Hunter grabbed Jaylene’s arm. She stared at them for a moment with dulled eyes.

  “Who are you?” She asked. “Are you a leprechaun?”

  “You’re on fire tonight, Jaylene,” Hunter said dryly.

  “We need to get her a car,” Emma said.

  “No way!” Charlie shot back, looking panicked. “She’s so fucking dead if she shows up at home like this. We all are.”

  “Don’t worry,” Blue said. “We’ll take her up to the bedroom and she can sleep it off there.”

  Emma felt a twinge of something at Blue’s words. The way Blue said, “we’ll take her to the bedroom,” it was almost as if she were acting like this was her house.

  “Where are Anna and Lena?” Charlie asked no one in particular, glancing around while Jaylene made kissy faces at her.

  “Your loser friends?” Blue said silkily. “They bailed outside somewhere.”

  Charlie looked crestfallen.

  They wound their way through the crowd and Emma heard a girl say,

  “What a stupid cunt,” of Jaylene. Charlie, close to tears, kept her head tucked down as they did the best they could negotiating a very drunk girl toward the stairs.

  But it all went wrong when they got to the second floor. Jaylene twisted out of their grasp and ran away laughing, Emma chasing her. She opened the first door she came to, Oliver’s suite, and darted in, then stumbled back, gaping.

  “What the fuck,” she said. Emma caught up with her and stared, shocked.

  There was her dad in his lounge, reclined naked on the love sofa, ankles and wrists handcuffed, a weird helmet thing on his head, and a large plastic-looking ping-pong ball stuffed in his mouth, Mia astride him. Oliver’s eyes widened when he saw Emma.

  And then the door slammed shut. Hunter had closed it, their face as tight as a fist, fury sparking from their hazel eyes.

  “Holy fucking shit,” Jaylene said, staring incredulously at Emma. “Was that your dad?” And then she vomited on Emma’s feet.

  The party had warped into a nightmare of grotesque proportions. Blue reached out a hand toward Emma, but she yanked herself away.

  “I’m sorry,” Blue said, her charisma and arrogant charm deflated. In that moment, she looked like a kid in an outfit too sexy for any fifteen year old to be wearing.

  The door to Emma’s dad’s room flew open and Oliver came leaping out with a towel around his waist, his bare chest saggy, grey hair awry. The cuffs still dangling from his left wrist.

  “Emma,” he said.

  Emma took a step back. “Get away from me,” she hissed.

  Hunter’s hand shot out, their palm making hard contact with Oliver’s chest, pushing him back into his room.

  “You’re pathetic,” Hunter yelled and shut the door. “We need to shut this party down. Emma, help Charlie with Jaylene. You,” they pointed at Blue. “Help me get everyone out of here.”

  “Yeah, of course,” Blue said, her face flaming red.

  Emma took Jaylene and Charlie to her bedroom and cleaned herself off in the bathroom. Giving up on her shoes, she dumped them in the bathtub, too embarrassed to even look at Charlie, who struggled to get Jaylene to wash her face.

  A low moan came from Cat. Emma poked her head into her room and watched Cat turn to her other side and resume snoring. Emma took a few steps toward her, then crossed her arms as the first wave of tears came.

  A hand landed gently on her shoulder. “I swear, I won’t tell anyone,” Charlie said. “And I don’t think Jaylene is going to remember any of this.”

  The hard, pulsing beat of music ended abruptly, and Hunter’s voice rang through the house, amplified by the microphone.

  “Party’s over. It’s time to go home.”

  There were groans and boos and then Blue was on the microphone, pleading with everyone to please leave and threatening to have security deal with unruly troublemakers.

  Emma sank to the edge of her bed.

  “Are you going to be alright?” Charlie asked.

  She nodded numbly.

  “Would it be okay if Jaylene stayed the night? I can check back in the morning. I’ll just tell my mom, she went home.”

  Emma nodded again, barely listening. She wanted this night to be over. She wanted to be in her house. Her real house. Wearing comfy pajamas, drinking a cup of tea, listening to her mom bustle around with the twins.

  She wanted Jill and her practical, matter-of-fact way of dealing with problems and challenges. Emma grabbed a pillow from her bed and went into her closet. She put the pillow to her face and screamed into it as loud and hard as she could, a trick Jill had taught her. More than anything, Emma wanted never to see Oliver again.

  Chapter 23

  “I love this piece,” Helen said, glass of champagne in hand.

  She stood dead center of Gumption Road’s painting. It portrayed Cassandra Baker, a sepia toned closeup of her face, earth-red lips the only color. The girl’s strong features were painted in slashes of brush strokes, and Cassandra’s image peered intensely back at the viewer, hair falling all one length. She appeared knowing, haunted, timid, and fierce. The portrait was arresting.

  Over the course of an hour, Gumption watched the guests of the private show stop and linger on the image, some inquiring about the price.

  “I’d like to take it to Griffith’s,” Helen said. She wore a coppery silk suit, hip bones jutting out against the material. The plunging V-neck of her buttoned blazer showed off her smooth skin. She was sixty and kept her skin impeccable and her body lean. Helen still had full-bodied, wavy hair, which she dyed the color of fall leaves. It fell in long layers to her shoulders.

  Gumption took a sip of her own champagne. “That can be arranged,” she said
of Helen’s offer.

  It had taken her a month to complete the piece, Cassandra stopping by whenever that bourgeois Barbie doll of a mother of hers was not at home.

  Cassandra always came with one of her friends, though. Never alone.

  The song she’d written about Poppy and Wren, performed at the graduation party in Malibu, had gone viral on social media. It was not just the potency of her voice or the poignancy of the lyrics, but the humiliation of a drunk partygoer praising her and putting her down in a single breath. The girl had become a pariah online from what Gumption gathered, listening to the gossip of Cassandra and her friends when they were over.

  Gumption had put Cassandra in touch with a friend who owned a small indie record label in Hollywood. From the connection, Cassandra had made an EP of three songs and had begun performing with an all-girl band through the label at small venues, building a name for herself with her hit song, “To Be Young”.

  Candace brushed up against Gumption. She wore a long, flowing floral dress that hung fabulously on her skinny frame, the balloon sleeves adding substance to her figure and covering her track marks. She’d tied her hair back with a ribbon, a girlish style. With her hair out of her face, Candace’s refined features were now prominent. Her dark, liquidy eyes gave her a nearly innocent look. Her only makeup, red lipstick, drew the eye to her mouth. When she didn’t smile, she gave off a delicate, vulnerable aura. But once she flashed her incisors and her eyes took on that fiery quality, it made a person look twice, which is what Helen did when Candace smiled at her.

  “They’re here,” Candace said of Cassandra and her friends before gliding away.

  “Frightening,” Helen muttered into her drink.

  “She’s a lovely girl,” Gumption said.

  Helen chose not to argue the point as a gang of kids approached them, Cassandra at the center.

  “Hi, Gumption,” Cassandra said. She wore a fedora and a men’s overcoat. In the past month, Cassandra had grown more confident in herself, more stylish.

  “Wow!” Nisha said of the painting as their group fanned out around Cassandra’s portrait. “Ms. G. You’ve outdone yourself.” It was Nisha’s first time seeing the finished product. She’d been in Lincoln Heights for the past few weeks.

  “Thank you, Nisha,” Gumption said with a small smile.

  Behind Nisha stood Emma. Out of the group, she’d changed the most. Gumption had never seen such a growth spurt. She was now taller than Nisha, who Gumption would have guessed stood at five-six. Emma had grown extraordinarily beautiful, her round features having settled into a heart shape, with almond-shaped mossy green eyes and long, wavy light brown hair hanging to her mid-back. Mermaid hair. She turned heads everywhere she went. Quiet and introverted before, it seemed she’d become even more so. Well, it was a lot to deal with, Gumption thought. All that beauty falling in her lap in one fell swoop.

  Cat and Hunter always seemed to be at Emma’s side like bookends, whereas Cassandra and Nisha moved about more freely.

  Emma looked at the painting for some seconds, then wandered off to view Gumption’s other work, Helen’s gaze following her, as well as every male in the gallery.

  “I hear you’ve made an EP,” Helen said to Cassandra, tearing her gaze away from Emma.

  Cassandra smiled and sighed, apparently high on life. “Yeah.” She turned to Gumption. “Thanks again for connecting me with Thomas Delinsky. I’m so happy with how it came out.”

  “Talent begets talent,” Gumption said and raised her glass. “To you, darling.” She drained the last few drops while Cassandra beamed.

  “I want to get a picture of you two with the painting,” Helen said.

  Gumption and Cassandra stood on either side while Helen clicked away. Afterward, Cassandra handed over her phone, wanting a picture of her and Nisha arm in arm. Then Nisha wanted a picture with Gumption.

  Loud laughter drew Gumption’s eye to the entrance. Cassandra’s sister had arrived with her flamboyant friends and the boyfriend. His dark eyes roamed the room, landing first on Candace. He watched her, shark-like, before finding Emma, his eyes softening, but not his stare. As though feeling his eyes on her, Emma met his gaze and Gumption saw them share a look before Emma turned away. Candace floated up to Emma and whispered something in her ear. Emma grimaced and wiped her ear when Candace moved away.

  What was that about? Gumption wondered.

  “Hey,” Samantha said as she approached them, giving the painting of Cassandra a cursory glance. “Just what she needs right now—an enormous portrait of herself,” she said to one of her friends.

  “Envy is not your color,” the friend said and moved closer to examine the painting. “This is gorgeous.”

  Gumption smiled and Helen walked away to greet a potential buyer, her heels clicking on the cement floor.

  The boyfriend approached Emma.

  “There goes Mr. Cradle Robber,” Nisha muttered.

  Sam’s head whipped around and she glared at the two, then ran her hand through her dark hair, refocusing on the painting before rounding on Cassandra.

  “I guess Emma doesn’t make the cut anymore for your little club,” she said savagely.

  Cassandra’s face darkened with a blush and Nisha looked Sam up and down, eyes hooded.

  The boyfriend wandered back after Emma, Hunter, and Cat moved to another part of the room.

  “What club?” Sam’s other friend asked, grinning bemusedly at Cassandra.

  Gumption felt a frisson of tension pass between Cassandra, Nisha, and Sam.

  Sam rolled her eyes.

  “They made this little club.” She laughed. It was a little too brittle and shrill. “What do you call it? The Ugly Girls?” Sam rolled her eyes again and shook her head.

  “I don’t get it,” the friend said, wrinkling her brow.

  Something cleared in the boyfriend’s expression. “You mean after the suicides?” He asked.

  “No. Nope.” Nisha shook her head. “We ain’t doing this with you,” she said to Sam, who looked a little stunned and chagrined at Nisha’s mild scolding.

  “Wait, let me get this clear,” the boyfriend said. “Are you capitalizing on Wren and Poppy’s deaths?” He glared at Nisha and Cassandra. Cassandra opened her mouth to respond, blotches of red appearing on her cheeks, but Nisha held her palm up at Cassandra.

  “Girl, I got you,” she said and stepped up closer to the boyfriend. “The only one who’s capitalizing,” she paused, opening and closing her hand like it was a mouth, her nails clicking together, “is you, capitalizing on little girls who are way too young for you.”

  The boyfriend’s face looked like thunder and, for a moment, Gumption thought he might hit Nisha. “Yeah. That’s right,” she said. “Go on with your old self. Cradle robber.” She turned to Sam next. “You wanna air secrets out in the open?”

  Sam grew still and Cassandra reached out a hand as if she were trying to stop Nisha from saying something, but Nisha shrugged her away.

  Gumption leaned forward, wildly curious if Nisha would go all the way.

  “Bitch,” Nisha continued, her eyes turned murderous. “Or maybe you used to be a dick.” All eyes turned to Sam, who was now very still. “I’m just sayin’,” Nisha said, looking her slowly up and down. “We got our secret, and you got yours.” She put an arm around Cassandra. “Tonight is about Gumption and Cassandra. There ain’t nothin’ here that’s about you, Sam, except a bit of genetics.”

  A hush of silence fell over their group after Nisha’s little speech, and then one of Sam’s friends sucked through her teeth and asked her in a low voice, “Are you okay?” A film of tears had formed over Sam’s eyes, and she shot the boyfriend a look. The color had gone from his face as he gazed back at her, shocked.

  Gumption had a new respect for Nisha. The girl had a bite, which Gumption found far more interesting than her gushing reverence.

  “What I like about this piece,” Candace said out of nowhere, seeming to have materialized from thin a
ir. “Is that you’ve captured Cassandra’s potency. Elle est une force de la nature.”

  “Do you speak French, dear?” Gumption asked, delighted to have discovered something new about Candace.

  “Un petit peu,” Candace said and smiled, flashing her sharp teeth, her girlish attire and dangerous-looking smile uncanny and disconcerting.

  “Well, I think this calls for more champagne,” Gumption said.

  “I have to go,” the boyfriend said.

  “Donovan,” Sam said softly.

  “Bye, Donovan.” Candace’s smile widened, catlike.

  He glanced at her, then stormed out of the gallery.

  Chapter 24

  “Three words. Off. The. Hook,” Nisha said.

  They were sitting on Venice beach. Nisha burrowed her toes into the warm sand. She’d been talking about an all-girl dance party that was regularly taking place at a yoga studio in West Hollywood. Girls showed up in their pajamas at two in the morning on Sundays and danced until the sun came up. You had to be fourteen or older to get in, and since they’d all recently turned fourteen, Emma the last to have her birthday, a week ago, they could all go. A Lyft driver had raved about it to Nisha, saying she went every week.

  Emma made a face. “I don’t know,” she said.

  “Girl, what?”

  “You guys go ahead. I don’t feel like it.”

  “What’s wrong with you? You never want to do anything these days. Ever since your dad threw that slammin’ party at his place, it’s like that’s it for you. You don’t even want to go over there anymore, even though his pad would be nice to hang at.”

  Emma exchanged a look with Hunter and adjusted the strap of her bikini top, trying to keep from getting tan lines on her shoulders. The other girls didn’t know what had happened that night—not even Cat, who had woken up the following morning with a pounding headache and a sore stomach, bewildered to find Jaylene passed out next to her.

  It had been a bleak day for Emma as she tried to avoid her dad. Mia and Blue had left the night before. Later that morning, Hunter and Charlie exchanged texts about Jaylene.