Next Girl to Die Quotes

“dream,”
― Dea Poirier, Next Girl to Die

“dig through the files in the basement.”
― Dea Poirier, Next Girl to Die

“I’ve got more walls than a labyrinth, and every time he knocks one down, I know I’ll just build another. They say that the heart is a muscle and that you can strengthen it. But what they don’t tell you is that when your heart is broken by a loss as splintering as Rachel’s, it never heals right. Some days I swear I can still feel the shards, the remnants of the pain woven into me the day I lost her forever.”
― Dea Poirier, Next Girl to Die

“My hands tremble as I dart across the hall to Sergeant Michaels’s office. Though I take a deep breath to steady myself, it does absolutely nothing to calm the sense of dread rising inside me like the tide. In the few steps to his office, my mind speeds at a million miles an hour. He’s taunting us. He wants us to know he’s doing it. He wants to be chased.”
― Dea Poirier, Next Girl to Die

“I take a deep breath to settle my nerves, but it does nothing to uncoil the anxiety wound inside me. Carefully, I open the folder, as if I’m afraid jostling it too much might trigger something. A picture of Rachel’s lifeless body lies on top, as though warning me about the other horrors waiting inside. It’s different seeing her laid out like this, her neck purple, her lips blue. She’s so pale that she’s nearly the color of the fresh blanket of snow beneath her. All at once, the breath goes out of me. I knew what had happened to her, but I’ve never seen the pictures—I’ve never had the evidence scattered across my lap. My stomach bottoms out, and a bolt of pain hits my heart. I look away and catch my breath. I’m not sure this is something I can compartmentalize, but I’ve got to try. Her body is laid—no, posed—exactly like Madeline and Emma. The folder is as heavy as it would be if her body were laid across me. I’ve seen pictures like this a thousand times, victims, cases I had to solve—but this is different. This is my sister.”
― Dea Poirier, Next Girl to Die

“Being back here, I see Rachel everywhere I go. Her ghost lingers in every shadow, the memory of her written on every street. It’s as close to a haunting as my life is ever going to get.”
― Dea Poirier, Next Girl to Die

“It’s something I hear all the time. It could have been anyone else’s kid, anyone else’s sister—but this time, it wasn’t. It’s not some stranger in the news; it’s a piece of you, a part of your life that’s torn away. I know he’s not wishing anyone else died instead, but I also know the desperation of loss. Bargaining to the point that you’d trade anyone and anything to get them back.”
― Dea Poirier, Next Girl to Die

“No parent really knows their teenager. It’s not just police work that’s taught me this. Whatever parents think is a well-constructed farce created by their child. They underestimate them at every turn and live in a world of their child’s creation. Or maybe they just don’t want to see the truth.”
― Dea Poirier, Next Girl to Die

“It doesn’t help that this place doesn’t feel like home. I’m cast adrift here. Being on this island feels like I’m intruding on someone else’s life. It’s like staying in a house you’ll never quite feel welcome in.”
― Dea Poirier, Next Girl to Die

“There are outlines along the wall of where the previous tenants’ furniture used to be. I stare at them, and they remind me of footprints in the snow—a shadow of a life that came before me.”
― Dea Poirier, Next Girl to Die

“The ferry’s horn echoes across the bay, a low tune, a lament. With each roar of the engine, we press closer to the island, and my stomach creeps into my throat, bringing regret along for the ride. What the hell was I thinking coming back here? I”
― Dea Poirier, Next Girl to Die

“I was supposed to be free. I thought beneath the towering skyscrapers and the crumbling Motor City, I’d be just another no one. And most days, I’d much rather be no one than the sister of Rachel Calderwood. It hasn’t gone as I planned, though. Now the whole world feels like hers, not just the island we grew up on. I guess that’s what happens when someone dies. It’s impossible to see the world without wondering what it’d look like if she were still in it.”
― Dea Poirier, Next Girl to Die

“At some point, as you get older, you stop counting things—how many times you’ve been on an airplane, driven across the country, or solved a murder. No matter how many murders I solve, it won’t fix me.”
― Dea Poirier, Next Girl to Die

“For the first time it’s not the specter of the past I see; it’s the future ahead of me.”
― Dea Poirier, Next Girl to Die

“You’re never going to be the same again. But one day, you’ll be okay. Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not next week, but one day you will be.”
― Dea Poirier, Next Girl to Die

“Death either brings people together or forces them apart.”
― Dea Poirier, Next Girl to Die

“Compartmentalization is the most useful skill I’ve ever learned.”
― Dea Poirier, Next Girl to Die