Page 105 of My Killer Blind Date

‘So you are working together.’

‘It was your parents—’

Another fit of coughing laughter seems to overtake her, and she holds up a finger for me to stop while she recovers. When she does, little tears are streaking down her face.

‘Am I going to have to spell this out for you?’

And then it hits me.

It’s her.

The female dragonfish.

Not Devin; Zoe. The one with teeth. The one who feeds.

Fucking fuck! My head goes hot, then cold. This can’t be happening …

Brooke groans again, turning on her mat, reminding me that this is very much happening, and that there are innocent lives at stake.

‘You were supposed to move on,’ says Zoe, her eyes intense, almost tortured. ‘I disappeared. You were supposed to give up, but you didn’t, did you? You kept digging. Finally I realized you wouldn’t stop until you had a body part—’

My stomach turns. ‘You cut off your foot to stop me?’

Her gaze narrows. ‘In part. But I needed it anyway. For my painting.’

My voice is whisper-thin. ‘Sorry?’

‘My series.’

Oh … fuck.

‘Each painting contains the ashes of the subject,’ she says, her eyes glowing as if this is brilliant and she expects me to ooh and aah.

Now it hits me, what she’s saying. Zoe killed these women. My best friend of nearly a decade is a murderer. She incinerated the feet of her victims, as well as her own foot, and mixed the ashes into her paint.

‘Why?’ It’s all I can manage.

Zoe’s gaze cuts into me.

‘You haven’t figured it out? You were always so smart. I guess I overestimated your intelligence and underestimated your fucking stubbornness.’

I look at her as memories filter down. How Zoe saw herself as a victim at every turn – of her parents. The school system. The art establishment.

Then I remember Big Dog’s observation about tradwives and—

Of course.

It hits so fast, I’m kicking myself for not seeing it before.

She would have seen herself as a victim of these women’s messages, too.

Kayleigh, who wanted to take away women’s right to choose.

Crystal, who encouraged women to be sexually submissive.

And Brooke, who wanted women to stay home and in their lane.

Each, in Zoe’s view, asking her to give up her power in a different way. Asking her to become a victim. The narrative she built her life around – and the narrative she hated so passionately.