The Good Girls

“
HE DESERVES TO BE PUNISHED.
”

That's how it starts—with a simple statement like that. You might say it about a boyfriend who broke your heart when he kissed that skanky new girl. Or that former best friend who lied about you to save his ass. Or about a bully who went too far. You're angry and hurt, and deep down, all you want is to
get even
.

That doesn't mean you do it, of course. You might
fantasize
about fulfilling your darkest wishes . . . but you're a good person. You wouldn't actually go through with it. But as five girls learned, sometimes even
thinking
about revenge can lead to danger—and murder.

In other words, be careful what you wish for. Because you might get exactly what you want.

In a normal-seeming classroom in a normal-seeming high school in the normal-seeming town of Beacon Heights, Washington, thirty teenagers sat in darkness as the words
The End
flashed across the flat-screen TV before them. They had just watched
And Then There Were None,
an old black-and-white movie about justice, punishment, and murder. This was film studies class, a popular senior elective at Beacon High that was taught by the well-liked—and, at least according to most of the girls, totally gorgeous—Mr. Granger.

When Granger flicked on the lights, he had a smug, I'm-handsome-and-smart-and-you-should-worship-me smile on his face. “Amazing, right?” He swiftly divided the class into groups. “Discuss. What do you think this movie is truly about? Get some ideas for your papers.” Granger assigned an open-themed paper on every film they watched. It might seem easier that way, but his grading scale was brutal, in line with every
other
class at ultra-competitive Beacon High, so group discussions to come up with paper topics were key.

At the back of the room, Julie Redding sat in a group of girls who were, mostly, relative strangers to her. But she knew them in passing: There was musical genius Mackenzie Wright—word had it she'd played onstage with Yo-Yo Ma. Gorgeous Ava Jalali sat across from them, who'd done some small-time modeling gigs and apparently was snapped as a “trendsetter on the street” in
Glamour
. There was soccer
star Caitlin Martell-Lewis, who was twitchy as a caged animal. Next to Julie sat the only one she knew well—her best friend, Parker Duvall, whose only talent these days was being a pariah. And of course, there was Julie herself, the most popular girl at school.

The girls didn't know each other very well—yet. But soon enough, they would.

At first they talked about the movie, which was about killing people who had done terrible things—was that simply punishment, or murder? Suddenly Parker took a deep breath. “I know it's kind of sick,” she said, her voice low, “but sometimes I think the judge in the movie was right. Some people deserve to be punished.”

There was a shock wave through the group, but then Julie spoke up, always quick to come to Parker's defense. “Right?” she chimed in. “I mean,
I
know some people who deserve punishment. Personally, first on my list would be Parker's dad. The judge let him off too easy.” She
hated
Parker's dad for what he'd done to Parker. The scars of it were still all over her face, and ever since that night, Parker had gone from the most popular girl in school to . . . well, a damaged outsider. Parker hadn't even tried to regain the friends she'd pulled away from, though maybe it was easier to hide than to reveal exactly how broken she was.

Parker nodded at Julie, and Julie gave her friend's hand a squeeze. She knew it was always hard for Parker, talking
about her dad. “Or what about Ashley Ferguson?” Parker offered, and Julie winced. Ashley was a junior girl who tried way too hard to be like Julie, buying the same exact clothes, retweeting everything she posted, even dying her hair the same color as Julie's. It was starting to feel a little creepy.

The other girls in the group shifted. They weren't sure they liked where this was going, but they also felt the all-too-familiar tug of peer pressure.

Mackenzie cleared her throat. “Um, I would pick Claire, I guess.”

“Claire
Coldwell
?” Ava Jalali's eyes widened. The others were just as surprised—wasn't Claire Mackenzie's best friend? But Mackenzie just shrugged. She must have had her reasons for choosing Claire, Julie thought. Everyone had secrets.

Ava tapped her bright red nails on the desk. “I'd go for my father's new wife, Leslie,” she decided. “She's . . .
awful
.”

“But how would you do it?” Parker pressed, leaning forward. “For example, Ashley. She could trip in the shower, while she's washing her copycat hair. If you were going to commit the perfect crime, what would you do?” Her eyes traveled to each of the girls in turn.

Ava's brow knitted in concentration. “Well, Leslie's always drunk,” she said slowly. “Maybe she could fall off her balcony after she finishes her nightly bottle of chardonnay.”

Parker looked at Mackenzie. “And you? How would you take out Claire?”

“Oh,” the musician squeaked. “Well . . . maybe a hit-and-run. Something totally accidental.” She reached for her water bottle and took a nervous swig, then glanced around the classroom. Claire was
in this class . . .
but she seemed to be paying no attention. Only Mr. Granger was looking at them from his desk. But when Mackenzie met his stare, he smiled at her and looked back down at a yellow legal pad, his paper of choice.

“Parker's dad could get his ass kicked in the prison yard,” Julie volunteered in a small voice. “That happens all the time, doesn't it?”

Caitlin, who hadn't said a word, inched her chair closer to the others. “You know who I'd get rid of?” she said suddenly. She glanced across the room, her gaze cutting through group one and then Mr. Granger, who was peering at them again, until it finally landed on a guy in group three. The hottest guy in the room, actually. But his handsome mouth was twisted into a cruel smile, and his eyes narrowed dangerously.

Nolan Hotchkiss.

“
Him
,” Caitlin said gravely.

Each girl sucked in a breath. It was clear why Caitlin hated Nolan so much—her brother's tragic death said it all—he'd been tormented to his breaking point by Nolan.
Each girl's own frustrations with Nolan began to surface. He'd started nasty rumors about Ava after she had broken up with him last year. Mackenzie felt her cheeks redden as she thought of how she'd fallen for his Casanova act—and sent him some seriously embarrassing pictures. Julie hated Nolan for the same reason Parker did—if he hadn't drugged Parker that night, maybe her dad would never have hurt her like this. Maybe Parker would still be her old self, glittery and happy and full of life.

It was true, each of them thought: The world
would
be a much better place without Nolan. He was a monster, not just to them, but to Beacon as a whole. But even
thinking
these things felt dangerous. Nolan could ruin any of them with a snap of his fingers—and he had.

“How would you do it?” Ava asked, looking down. “If you were going to kill him, I mean?”

And so they talked it through—just for fun. They hypothesized a way to kill him, with cyanide, like in all the old movies. Not that they'd ever do that.

But then they came up with something they
would
do: prank Nolan. They could use Oxy, his drug of choice, to spike his beer. And then when he was passed out, they would write embarrassing messages on his face in Sharpie and post the pictures online. They'd make a fool out of him, just like he'd done to all of them.

At one point during the discussion, Nolan looked up
at the girls, an eyebrow raised. His gaze flicked to each of them in turn, and then he rolled his eyes and looked back at his group. It was clear he thought he didn't have a thing to worry about.

But that was just it. He did. Because a week later, Nolan was dead—of cyanide poisoning. Exactly the way the girls had originally planned.

After Nolan's death, the girls called one another and spoke in panicked whispers. What had happened? All they did was prank Nolan, with a single Oxy pill and some dumb stuff written on his face. How had
cyanide
ended up in his system? This wasn't their fault, they told one another. They were good girls, every last one of them. Not killers.

But they couldn't help wondering: Had someone heard them in class and decided to take advantage of their plan? Someone else who hated Nolan, too, maybe? That was
truly
the perfect crime—Nolan was dead, and the girls were built-in suspects.

At first the girls thought it was Mr. Granger. Hadn't they noticed him watching them carefully in class that day? But when Granger turned up dead, too, they were back to square one. The killer was someone else.

But how far would that someone go? What about all the
other
names on the list?

What if one of them was next?