Final Girls: A Novel - Hardcover

Sager, Riley

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1101985364 ISBN 13: 9781101985366

Verlag: Dutton, 2017

Inhaltsangabe

THE NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • WINNER OF THE 2018 INTERNATIONAL THRILLER WRITERS AWARD FOR BEST HARDCOVER NOVEL

“The first great thriller of 2017 is here: Final Girls, by Riley Sager. If you liked Gone Girl, you’ll like this.”—Stephen King
 
Ten years ago, college student Quincy Carpenter went on vacation with five friends and came back alone, the only survivor of a horror movie–scale massacre. In an instant, she became a member of a club no one wants to belong to—a group of similar survivors known in the press as the Final Girls: Lisa, who lost nine sorority sisters to a college dropout's knife; Sam, who went up against the Sack Man during her shift at the Nightlight Inn; and now Quincy, who ran bleeding through the woods to escape Pine Cottage and the man she refers to only as Him. The three girls are all attempting to put their nightmares behind them and, with that, one another. Despite the media's attempts, they never meet.
 
Now, Quincy is doing well—maybe even great, thanks to her Xanax prescription. She has a caring almost-fiancé, Jeff; a popular baking blog; a beautiful apartment; and a therapeutic presence in Coop, the police officer who saved her life all those years ago. Her memory won’t even allow her to recall the events of that night; the past is in the past.
 
That is until Lisa, the first Final Girl, is found dead in her bathtub, wrists slit; and Sam, the second Final Girl, appears on Quincy's doorstep. Blowing through Quincy's life like a whirlwind, Sam seems intent on making Quincy relive the past, with increasingly dire consequences, all of which makes Quincy question why Sam is really seeking her out. And when new details about Lisa's death come to light, Quincy's life becomes a race against time as she tries to unravel Sam's truths from her lies, evade the police and hungry reporters, and, most crucially, remember what really happened at Pine Cottage, before what was started ten years ago is finished.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Riley Sager is the pseudonym of an author who lives in Princeton, New Jersey. Riley is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels The Last Time I Lied and Final Girls, a national and international bestseller, which has been published in more than two-dozen countries.

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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 fa�ade 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 cafe 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 cafe 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...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Dutton
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2017
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1101985364
• ISBN 13: 9781101985366
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 352
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Dutton; https://www.penguin.com/dutton-childrens-overview/; ; Im Mittelfeld 25; K?ln; Deutschland; 51105; Deutschland