Sneak Peek: Marie Antoinette, Serial Killer by Katie Alender (Excerpt)
Sneak Peek: Marie Antoinette, Serial Killer by Katie Alender (Excerpt)
Sneak Peek: Marie Antoinette, Serial Killer by Katie Alender (Excerpt)
ANTOINETTE,
SERIAL
KILLER
Also by
K atie Alender
Bad Girls Dont Die
From Bad to Cursed
As Dead as It Gets
MARIE
ANTOINETTE,
SERIAL
KILLER
By K atie Alender
Point
For G,
my dearest girl
I
In her apartment high above the streets of Paris, Gabrielle
Roux stood in front of the bathroom mirror, still wearing her daringly
short purple dress and sky-high platform heels. The light glanced off her
golden hair as she brushed it and thought back to the glittering party
from which she had just come.
There had been at least twenty girls there, and Gabrielle was sure that
she had been the most beautiful and most admired. Six boysat least
one of whom had a girlfriendbegged for her phone number.
Of course, she wouldnt text back any of the boys. They just werent
good enough for someone like herself. After all, at only nineteen years old,
she was already an almost-famous model. She didnt need to resort to
stealing an ugly girls not-cute-enough-and-not-rich-enough boyfriend.
Once her Italian Vogue cover came out, she would naturally start hanging out with people who were more worth her time and attention.
Gabrielle wet a washcloth and gently removed her makeup, patting her
high cheekbones. As she reached into the cabinet for her eye cream (it was
never too early to protect her porcelain complexion), she scowled, catching
sight of her arm. There was a dark smudge just above her wrist. She
scrubbed her forearm with soap until the skin around the splotch was
pink. When that didnt work, she used rubbing alcohol. But still the dark
stain remained.
With an angry grunt, Gabrielle walked out of the bathroomand
froze.
All the lights were on.
But she hadnt turned on any of themcertainly not the light in the
kitchen.
Maman? Papa? she called, irritation in her voice. Her parents
were supposed to be out of town. It would be just like them to come home
early and ruin her weekend.
But would they really return at two thirty in the morning?
There was no reply.
Well. She squared her shoulders, tossed her shiny hair, and walked
toward the living room. Gabrielle wasnt scared of anything.
But as she reached the arched entryway to the luxurious sitting room,
the skin on the back of her neck began to tingle...
And she knew she wasnt alone.
Ever so slowly, she turned around, expecting to see a stalker (preferably a smitten, handsome young man who d broken in so he could proclaim
his undying love).
But it wasnt a crazed fan.
A woman stood in front of her, wearing a long pale-pink dress with a
wide-open lace-trimmed collar. Her hair was white and piled in frothy
curls that extended nearly a foot into the air above her head.
CHAPTER 1
You would think it would be impossible to lose a large
suitcase inside an apartment that was, itself, approximately the
size of a large suitcase.
You would be wrong.
Id searched my room, Moms room, and my little brother
Charlies room (Id had to sneak in, as things were still pretty
tense after the mornings blueberry muffin incident), and had
dug through the unpacked boxes in the living roomall with
no luck.
Mom! I yelled. Did Dad take all the suitcases?
My mother was in her bedroom, trying to condense a walk-in
closets worth of clothes into her new closet, which was about
three feet wide. No, she said. We have the big blue one and
the little brown one.
Ive looked everywhere. I leaned against her doorjamb. I
cant find them.
Mom sighed. There were dark circles under her eyes, and she
still had to work the closing shift at Macys that night.
Never mind, I said. Ill call Dad.
I know where they are.
The voice came from behind me. I turned around to see
Charlie standing at the end of the hallway, smirking.
Where? I asked.
Why should I tell you?
Because, I replied, if I dont have a suitcase, I cant go to
Paris tomorrow, and then youre stuck with me for all of Spring
Break instead of having a nine-day sister-free bonanza.
Good point, he said. Theyre down in the garage.
I narrowed my eyes, trying to figure out if he was messing
with me.
In the storage closet, he added. In the very far-back
corner.
My heart fluttered.
Have fun, he said, heading for his bedroom.
Wait! I stepped into his path. Have I ever told you what a
good brother you are?
Nice try. He moved around me. Watch out for spiders.
Charlie! I cried. Come on, please. Id do it for you.
He stood up to his full height, five foot sixan inch taller
than me, even though I was sixteen and he was fourteen.
Suddenly, he looked like a young man and not just a twerpy
boy. And when he spoke, he sounded world-weary, like he was
the older sibling. You would not, Colette.
Well, okay, no, I probably w
ouldnt. But admitting that
5
ouldnt help. Im sorry I ate your muffin, okay? Ill buy you
w
more as soon as Im back from France. Please
Charlie shrugged, slipping past me into his room. Its not my
problem youre scared of the dark.
Im not scared of the dark! I yelled at his closed door. Then
I stood in the silent hallway for a minute, formulating a new
plan. Hey, Mom?
Forget it, Colette, she said. Youll be fine. Its not that dark
down there.
Anger flared up inside me like an explosion. I am NOT
scared of the dark!
ReallyIm not afraid of the dark. Im just afraid of a lot of
places that happen to be dark. What Im scared ofwhat I
hateis feeling confined. Elevators, windowless basements,
overcrowded public spaces...
And storage closets.
Five minutes later, I stood in the underground parking
garage, looking at the cluster of doors.
The ceiling was low and seemed to sagin fact, the whole
garage felt like it was pressing in on me. The sound of water
plinking into shallow puddles echoed from the far reaches of
the structure, and the waiting cars were like sleeping monsters
guarding the darkness.
A train whistle sounded outside on the tracks that ran about
a hundred feet from our building. The sound, low and mournful, lent a chilling loneliness to my surroundings.
The key was warm and slippery in my clammy grip.
Be rational, Colette, I said out loud.
6
You are a junior in high school. You are about to spend nine days in
Paris, without your parents. You can handle one stupid little closet.
You know how, in fairy tales, the prince cuts his way through
the deadly thorned vines, past piles of skeletons, to get to the
dragon?
I felt like one of the skeletons.
The third door from the left had 203 written on it in what
looked like goopy black nail polish. A gritty coating of rust on
the knob turned my hand pinkish red, and the door squealed in
protest as I pulled it open and peered inside.
The storage area was about four feet wide and eight feet deep,
with filthy cinderblock walls. The sides were piled high with
boxes and plastic storage tubs, leaving a narrow path all the
way to the back. I stared at the suitcases, which were at the very
bottom of the stack at the very far end.
Okay, no.
I would just have to pack what I could into my carry-on and
do without a few extraneous items. Like, you know, shoes.
I considered begging Mom to come down, but that was basically hopeless. She was sympathetic to my claustrophobia up to
the point where she decided I was just working myself up over
nothing.
Dad would get it out for me. I felt a little twinge of guilt as I
thought about my father. I still hadnt broken the news to Mom
that I planned to spend the summer in New York City with
him...and maybe stay there for senior year, too.
And then I heard a noise behind me.
Scritch, scritch, scritch...
7
I swung around and looked for its sourcefor the first time
in my life actually hoping Id see a rodent of some kind. But
there was nothing, and immediately I imagined that someone
had followed me down here and was hiding between the parked
cars, watching me...waiting to pounce.
I could hardly breathe.
Scritch, scritch, scritch.
Hello? I called. Whos there?
And then I heard breathing. Soft but unmistakable, echoing
lightly off the low ceiling.
Only the fear of being murdered could have made me do
what I did nextI plunged into the closet and pulled the door
shut behind me. Then I stood in the dark, holding on to the
doorknob and wondering if there was a way to lock the door
from the inside. If not, Id just made things worse for myself.
A wave of nausea hit me, and I doubled over. Flashes of light
seemed to blast through my peripheral vision, a familiar symptom of what I was feelingpure panic.
Outside, footsteps approached. Someone pulled on the door
from the other side.
I pulled back with all my strength.
Colette?
I paused. Was it a trap?
Charlie? I said.
What are you doing? he asked.
I let him open the door, and then I ran out of the darkness,
plowing into him. I was on the verge of tears, gasping for air.
Be careful, I said. Theres someone down here.
8
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
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Day 8
Day 9
The outside had once been sumptuous dark-red silk, but now
it was worn and patchy, leaving a fine red fuzz on my fingertips. I opened the cover slowly, fighting the stiffness of the old
hinges.
The inside was lined with black velvet, still thick and soft
after who-knows-how-many years.
On the velvet lay a shining silver medallion with a tiny, intricate vine around its edge. At the top of the medallion was a
simple hole where a black ribbon was looped, and in the center
was an engraved keythe old-fashioned kind, with big square
teeth. The round part of the key had a cutout in the shape of a
flower with six spiky petals.
I delicately lifted the medallion and looked at the writing on
the other side. I held it closer to the light, but all I could really
understand was one word:
Iselin.
My last name.
Ive spent enough time browsing antique and vintage stores
to know that Id stumbled across something uniquethe kind
of thing they keep locked up in the glass display cabinet by the
register, not just sitting out with the old belts and costume
jewelry.
This had obviously belonged to someone really important
or at least really rich.
It rested in the center of my palm, the size of a fifty-cent piece,
heavy and cold.
I knew my fathers family had come from France. Big deal
everybody comes from somewhere. But maybe being from an
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