Final Girls Read online

  Praise for Final Girls

  “Sager does an excellent job throughout of keeping the audience guessing until the final twist. A fresh voice in psychological suspense.”

  —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

  “The Final Girls need you. You must sit down with this book, you must read. You must start flipping pages, faster, faster, faster. The Final Girls are tough, everything survivors should be. But the new threat is clever, ominous, even closer than you suspect. You are about to gasp. You might drop the book. You may have to look over your shoulder. But you must keep reading. This is the best book of 2017; The Final Girls need you.”

  —Lisa Gardner, author of Right Behind You

  “Final Girls is a compulsive read, with characters who are at once unreliable and sympathetic. Just when you think you’ve figured out the plot, the story pivots in a startling new direction. . . . A taut and original mystery that will keep you up late trying to figure out a final twist that you won’t see coming.”

  —Carla Norton, author of The Edge of Normal and What Doesn’t Kill Her

  “There are uncommon books and films that crack the ‘safe place,’ that have us forgetting it’s only a story. Nobody knows exactly how this is done, but when it’s done, we know it. Final Girls is operating on that plane; you will check your own arm for a wound a character suffers, you will look across the room when a character hears someone coming, and you will wonder if you yourself have the mettle to endure being a Final Girl.”

  —Josh Malerman, author of Bird Box

  “Part psychological thriller, part homage to slasher flicks and film noir, Final Girls has a little bit of everything: a suspicious death, a damaged heroine, an unwelcome guest who trades in secrets, and not a single character you can trust. Plenty of nail-biting fun!”

  —Hester Young, author of The Gates of Evangeline and The Shimmering Road

  “Smart and provocative, with plenty of twists and turns, Final Girls will have the reader racing breathlessly toward its shocking conclusion.”

  —Sophie Littlefield, author of The Guilty One and The Missing Place

  “Phenomenally drawn characters and an intriguing premise make this one of my favorite books I’ve read this year. An outstanding novel.”

  —Hollie Overton, author of Baby Doll

  “Captivating and compelling, with a refreshingly brilliant premise, Riley Sager is one to watch.”

  —Lisa Hall, author of Between You and Me and Tell Me No Lies

  “An intriguing original idea. We’ve all shuddered at bloodbath stories—but how does the survivor cope? It made me think outside the psychological box. Fresh voice, great characterization, and unexpected surprises. This stayed in my mind because it was different.”

  —Jane Corry, author of My Husband’s Wife

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street

  New York, New York 10014

  Copyright © 2017 by Todd Ritter

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  DUTTON is a registered trademark and the D colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Ebook ISBN 9781101985373

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Names: Sager, Riley, author.

  Title: Final girls : a novel / Riley Sager.

  Description: First edition. | New York, New York : Dutton, an imprint of Penguin Random House, 2017.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016034340 (print) | LCCN 2016046235 (ebook) | ISBN 9781101985366 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781101985373 (epub)

  Subjects: LCSH: Victims of violent crimes—Fiction. | Women—Violence against—Fiction. | Survival—Psychological aspects—Fiction. | GSAFD: Mystery fiction. | Suspense fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3618.I79 F56 2017 (print) | LCC PS3618.I79 (ebook) |

  DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016034340

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Version_1

  To Mike

  CONTENTS

  PRAISE FOR FINAL GIRLS

  TITLE PAGE

  COPYRIGHT

  DEDICATION

  PINE COTTAGE | 1 A.M.

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  PINE COTTAGE | 3:37 P.M.

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  PINE COTTAGE | 5:03 P.M.

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  PINE COTTAGE | 6:18 P.M.

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  PINE COTTAGE | 6:58 P.M.

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  TWO DAYS AFTER PINE COTTAGE

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  PINE COTTAGE | 9:54 P.M.

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  ONE WEEK AFTER PINE COTTAGE

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  PINE COTTAGE | 10:14 P.M.

  Chapter 32

  PINE COTTAGE | 10:56 P.M.

  Chapter 33

  PINE COTTAGE | 11:12 P.M.

  Chapter 34

  PINE COTTAGE | 11:42 P.M.

  Chapter 35

  PINE COTTAGE | 11:49 P.M.

  Chapter 36

  PINE COTTAGE | MIDNIGHT

  Chapter 37

  ONE YEAR AFTER PINE COTTAGE

  TWO YEARS AFTER PINE COTTAGE

  THREE YEARS AFTER PINE COTTAGE

  NINE YEARS AFTER PINE COTTAGE

  NINE YEARS AND ELEVEN MONTHS AFTER PINE COTTAGE

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  FOUR MONTHS AFTER PINE COTTAGE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  PINE COTTAGE

  1 A.M.

  The forest had claws and teeth.

  All those rocks and thorns and branches bit at Quincy as she ran screaming through the woods. But she didn’t stop. Not when rocks dug into the soles of her bare feet. Not when a whip-thin branch lashed her face and a line of blood streaked down her cheek.

  Stopping wasn’t an option. To stop was to die. So she kept running, even as a bramble wrapped around her ankle and gnawed at her flesh. The bramble stretched, quivering, before Quincy’s momentum yanked her free. If it hurt, she couldn’t tell. Her body already held more pain than it could handle.

  It was instinct that made her run. An unconscious kn
owledge that she needed to keep going, no matter what. Already she had forgotten why. Memories of five, ten, fifteen minutes ago were gone. If her life depended on remembering what prompted her flight through the woods, she was certain she’d die right there on the forest floor.

  So she ran. She screamed. She tried not to think about dying.

  A white glow appeared in the distance, faint along the tree-choked horizon.

  Headlights.

  Was she near a road? Quincy hoped she was. Like her memories, all sense of direction was lost.

  She ran faster, increased her screams, raced toward the light.

  Another branch whacked her face. It was thicker than the first, like a rolling pin, and the impact both stunned and blinded her. Pain pulsed through her head as blue sparks throbbed across her blurred vision. When they cleared, she saw a silhouette standing out in the headlights’ glow.

  A man.

  Him.

  No. Not Him.

  Someone else.

  Safety.

  Quincy quickened her pace. Her blood-drenched arms reached out, as if that could somehow pull the stranger closer. The movement caused the pain in her shoulder to flare. And with the pain came not a memory but an understanding. One so brutally awful that it had to be real.

  Only Quincy remained.

  All the others were dead.

  She was the last one left alive.

  1.

  My hands are covered in frosting when Jeff calls. Despite my best efforts, the French buttercream has oozed onto my knuckles and into the hammocks between my fingers, sticking there like paste. Only one pinkie finger remains unscathed, and I use it to tap the speakerphone button.

  “Carpenter and Richards, private investigators,” I say, imitating the breathy voice of a film noir secretary. “How may I direct your call?”

  Jeff plays along, his tough-guy tone pitched somewhere between Robert Mitchum and Dana Andrews. “Put Miss Carpenter on the horn. I need to talk to her pronto.”

  “Miss Carpenter is busy with an important case. May I take a message?”

  “Yeah,” Jeff says. “Tell her my flight from Chi-Town has been delayed.”

  My façade drops. “Oh, Jeff. Really?”

  “Sorry, hon. The perils of flying out of the Windy City.”

  “How long is the delay?”

  “Anywhere from two hours to maybe-I’ll-be-home-by-next-week,” Jeff says. “I’m at least hoping it’s long enough for me to miss the start of Baking Season.”

  “No such luck, pal.”

  “How’s it going, by the way?”

  I look down at my hands. “Messy.”

  Baking Season is Jeff’s name for the exhausting stretch between early October and late December, when all those dessert-heavy holidays arrive without reprieve. He likes to say it ominously, raising his hands and wiggling his fingers like spider legs.

  Ironically, it’s a spider that’s caused my hands to be coated in buttercream. Made of double-dark chocolate frosting, its stomach teeters on the edge of a cupcake while black legs stretch across the top and down the sides. When I’m finished, the cupcakes will be posed, photographed, and displayed on my website’s roster of Halloween baking ideas. This year’s theme is “Revenge of the Yummy.”

  “How’s the airport?” I ask.

  “Crowded. But I think I’ll survive by hitting the terminal bar.”

  “Call me if the delay gets any worse,” I say. “I’ll be here, covered in icing.”

  “Bake like the wind,” Jeff replies.

  Call over, it’s back to the buttercream spider and the chocolate-cherry cupcake it partly covers. If I’ve done it right, the red center should ooze out at first bite. That test will come later. Right now, my chief concern is the outside.

  Decorating cupcakes is harder than it seems. Especially when the results will be posted online for thousands to see. Smudges and smears aren’t allowed. In a high-def world, flaws loom large.

  Details matter.

  That’s one of the Ten Commandments on my website, squeezed between Measuring Cups Are Your Friends and Don’t Be Afraid to Fail.

  I finish the first cupcake and am working on the second when my phone rings again. This time there’s not even a clean pinkie finger at my disposal, and I’m forced to ignore it. The phone continues to buzz while shimmying across the countertop. It then goes silent, pausing a moment before emitting a telltale beep.

  A text.

  Curious, I drop the icing bag, wipe my hands, and check the phone. It’s from Coop.

  We need to talk. Face 2 face.

  My fingers pause above the screen. Although it takes Coop three hours to drive into Manhattan, it’s a trip he’s willingly made many times in the past. When it’s important.

  I text back. When?

  His reply arrives in seconds. Now. Usual place.

  A spot of worry presses the base of my spine. Coop is already here. Which means only one thing—something is wrong.

  Before leaving, I rush through my usual preparations for a meeting with Coop. Teeth brushed. Lips glossed. Tiny Xanax popped. I wash the little blue pill down with some grape soda drunk straight from the bottle.

  In the elevator, it occurs to me that I should have changed clothes. I’m still in my baking wear: black jeans, one of Jeff’s old button-downs, and red flats. All bear flecks of flour and faded splotches of food coloring. I notice a scrape of dried frosting on the back of my hand, skin peeking through the blue-black smear. It resembles a bruise. I lick it off.

  Outside on Eighty-Second Street, I make a right onto Columbus, already packed with pedestrians. My body tightens at the sight of so many strangers. I stop and shove stiff fingers into my purse, searching for the can of pepper spray always kept there. There’s safety in numbers, yes, but also uncertainty. It’s only after finding the pepper spray that I start walking again, my face puckered into a don’t-bother-me scowl.

  Although the sun is out, a tangible chill stings the air. Typical for early October in New York, when the weather seems to randomly veer between hot and cold. Yet fall is definitely making its swift approach. When Theodore Roosevelt Park comes into view, the leaves there are poised between green and gold.

  Through the foliage, I can see the back of the American Museum of Natural History, which on this morning is swarmed with school kids. Their voices flit like birds among the trees. When one of them shrieks, the rest go silent. Just for a second. I freeze on the sidewalk, unnerved not by the shriek but by the silence that follows. But then the children’s voices start up again and I calm down. I resume walking, heading to a café two blocks south of the museum.

  Our usual place.

  Coop is waiting for me at a table by the window, looking the same as always. That sharp, craggy face that appears pensive in times of repose, such as now. A body that’s both long and thick. Large hands, one of which bears a ruby class ring instead of a wedding band. The only change is his hair, which he keeps trimmed close to the scalp. Each meeting always brings a few more flecks of gray.

  His presence in the café is noticed by all the nannies and caffeinated hipsters who crowd the place. Nothing like a cop in full uniform to put people on edge. Even without it, Coop cuts an intimidating figure. He’s a big man, consisting of rolling hills of muscle. The starched blue shirt and black trousers with the knife-edge creases only amplify his size. He lifts his head as I enter, and I notice the exhaustion in his eyes. He must have driven here directly from working the third shift.

  Two mugs are already on the table. Earl Grey with milk and extra sugar for me. Coffee for Coop. Black. Unsweetened.

  “Quincy,” he says, nodding.

  There’s always a nod. It’s Coop’s version of a handshake. We never hug. Not since the desperate one I gave him the night we first met. No matter how many times I see him, that moment is always there
, playing on a loop until I push it away.

  They’re dead, I had choked out while clutching him, the words gurgling thickly in the back of my throat. They’re all dead. And he’s still out here.

  Ten seconds later, he saved my life.

  “This is certainly a surprise,” I say as I take a seat. There’s a tremor in my voice that I try to tamp down. I don’t know why Coop’s called me, but if it’s bad news, I want to be calm when I hear it.

  “You’re looking well,” Coop says while giving me the quick, concerned once-over I’m now accustomed to. “But you’ve lost some weight.”

  There’s worry in his voice too. He’s thinking about six months after Pine Cottage, when my appetite had left me so completely that I ended up back in the hospital, force-fed through a tube. I remember waking to find Coop standing by my bed, staring at the plastic hose slithered up my nostril.

  Don’t disappoint me, Quincy, he said then. You didn’t survive that night just to die like this.

  “It’s nothing,” I say. “I’ve finally learned I don’t have to eat everything I bake.”

  “And how’s that going? The baking thing?”

  “Great, actually. I gained five thousand followers last quarter and got another corporate advertiser.”

  “That’s great,” Coop says. “Glad everything is going well. One of these days, you should actually bake something for me.”

  Like the nod, this is another of Coop’s constants. He always says it, never means it.

  “How’s Jefferson?” he asks.

  “He’s good. The Public Defender’s Office just made him the lead attorney on a big, juicy case.”

  I leave out how the case involves a man accused of killing a narcotics detective in a bust gone wrong. Coop already looks down on Jeff’s job. There’s no need to toss more fuel onto that particular fire.

  “Good for him,” he says.

  “He’s been gone the past two days. Had to fly to Chicago to get statements from family members. Says it’ll make a jury more sympathetic.”

  “Hmm,” Coop replies, not quite listening. “I guess he hasn’t proposed yet.”

  I shake my head. I told Coop I thought Jeff was going to propose on our August vacation to the Outer Banks, but no ring so far. That’s the real reason I’ve recently lost weight. I’ve become the kind of girlfriend who takes up jogging just to fit into a hypothetical wedding dress.