The Psychopath Next Door

9: Only the Good Die Young

Calla thought she'd rather face a thousand murder trials than go on one date with Cory Michaels.

She appraised herself in the mirror, eyes speculative. Frost edged the corner of her window, and yet Rachel had still insisted that she wear ripped jeans.

"Turn around," she complained, peering at Calla through the phone.

Calla sighed and did as commanded, letting Rachel get a good view of her ass.

"It looks fantastic," her friend confirmed with a smug smile. She was close to yelling, straining to be heard over the crowd of people nearby. "You'd look better in the cream sweater."

"It's cold out," Calla insisted, pulling at the green turtleneck at her throat. She opened her sock drawer and changed the subject. She'd heard the show a little skin mantra one too many times. "How was the game?"

"We won!" Rachel crowed. One of the Richardson brothers leaned over to stick his tongue into the frame. Rachel laughed, the bright lights of the stadium growing dim as she walked into the parking lot, following the crowd. "You should come to the after party. Bring Cory!"

Calla tried to hide her surprise, her free hand buried wrist-deep in a pile of socks. Her fingertips brushed something cold and hard. "You're going to a party?"

"Hello?" Rachel brought the phone so close to her face, Calla could only make out shadows. "It's tradition."

Tradition. Greenwitch seemed to have a great many traditions—each one boozier than the last.

"Seriously, Cal." Rachel pulled the phone back to show off a pout. "Please come."

Calla should have been leaping for joy. She'd grown tired of Rachel's mourning. Surely a party meant that her friend was finally on the mend?

She hesitated and sat on the edge of her bed, the knife she'd stowed away safely in hand. She took care to hold it out of Rachel's line of sight. "I promised Cory a date."

"At the movies? Puh-lease. Lame." Rachel smirked. "He can be your date to the party. Problem solved."

"Problem solved," Calla murmured, checking an incoming text. Cory, letting her know that he was running late. "I don't know, Rach."

She tilted the knife one way and then the other, watching the light glint off its razor sharp edges. Her educated guess had been correct; the bone white handle matched the set from the Smith's kitchen. It wasn't often that she and Rachel went to her cousin's, but they'd done so on occasion, running around its endless corridors as children and then, when they were older, hiding in the upstairs rooms to pregame a dance or one of the Smith's infamous holiday bashes. Calla had actually been there the day that Raymond Smith opened this particular set of cutlery. She remembered admiring the array of deadly weapons over his shoulder, standing at a safe enough distance so that he wouldn't notice her.

Funny. Most wouldn't consider a set of kitchen knives to be weapons. They were meant for slicing into apples and chicken filets. Not human throats.

Rachel glanced over her shoulder while Calla admired the knife off-screen. When she turned back around, she looked troubled. "Look. I don't want to be alone with Jess and Steph, alright? I need you. And I know you don't like Cory that much. You've been blowing him off since freshman year."

Things change, she almost said. He has information. And information makes him valuable. Maybe even attractive.

That had been all the motivation Calla needed to say yes to Cory's relentless attempts to get her out of the house and into his car.