Perfect Dead Girl
my 2025 entry for the Hatchetfield Big Bang! Four whole years, can you believe it!
here on ao3
27,706 words
Rated M
Lex/Alice, Lex/Ethan
The first text Ethan received read simply do you have a map? Then, of Hatchetfield, then, puzzlingly, Alice Woodward’s dead body wants me to help her find something. ~-~-~- Lex has been watching Alice from a distance since they were kids, thinking she had the perfect life. Now Alice is dead- drowned suspiciously in the lake- and Lex is facing a world without her in it. Not that she doesn't have enough to worry about- work, her mom, her sister, Ethan. And then one day she comes home to find Alice on her front step, dripping lake water and reaching out for her help. Soon, Lex find herself embroiled in more than a murder mystery- there are things in the woods she can't explain, FBI agents asking questions nobody can answer, and, perhaps most importantly, a dead girl at her window, begging her for more than investigative footwork. Facing questions from her heart and the police alike, Lex is forced to reckon with the fact that maybe Alice’s life wasn’t perfect after all.