Bright and Deadly Things

Berkley titles by Lexie ElliottTHE FRENCH GIRLTHE MISSING YEARSHOW TO KILL YOUR BEST FRIENDBRIGHT AND DEADLY THINGS BERKLEYAn imprint of Penguin Random House LLCpenguinrandomhouse.comCopyright © 2023 by Lexie ElliottPenguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.BERKLEY and the BERKLEY & B colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataNames: Elliott, Lexie, author.Title: Bright and deadly things / Lexie Elliott.Description: New York: Berkley, [2023]Identifiers: LCCN 2022038771 (print) | LCCN 2022038772 (ebook) |ISBN 9780593098721 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780593098745 (ebook)Subjects: LCGFT: Novels.Classification: LCC PR6105.L588 B75 2023 (print) | LCC PR6105.L588(ebook) | DDC 823/.92—dc23/eng/20220829LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022038771LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022038772Hand lettering by Lisa AmorosoCover design by Emily OsborneCover image by Lindqvist / plainpictureBook design by Kristin del RosarioTitle page art: Clock © kaluginsergey / Shutterstock; sphere background © Kotkoa / ShutterstockThis is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.pid_prh_6.0_142492537_c0_r0 CONTENTSCoverBerkley Titles by Lexie ElliottTitle PageCopyrightDedicationAuthor’s NoteChapter 1SofiChapter 2Chapter 3Chapter 4JulieChapter 5Chapter 6Chapter 7AkashChapter 8Chapter 9CalebChapter 10Chapter 11Chapter 12RobertChapter 13Chapter 14Chapter 15Chapter 16Chapter 17CalebChapter 18Chapter 19Chapter 20Chapter 21Chapter 22Chapter 23Chapter 24Official Chalet ChronicleChapter 25Chapter 26Chapter 27Chapter 28AcknowledgmentsAbout the Author At the risk of repeating myself . . .For Matt, Cameron and Zachary,always and forever. AUTHOR’S NOTEThe Chalet des Anglais does in fact exist. It sits at an altitude of 1760m on a plateau on Mont Prarion, one of the foothills of the Mont Blanc massif and has hosted summer chalet parties of Oxford University students and fellows since 1891 (barring interruptions for war and various other calamities), a view of Mont Blanc and alpine air having been thought to be conducive to better brain function. Since WWII, it has been held in a trust by three colleges of the university (Balliol, New College and University College), each of which hold annual reading parties. I was lucky enough to be invited to join one such party in 2000, which I am happy to report was a delightful experience without any incidents worthy of a suspense novel!However . . . the chalet in this novel is not a faithful representation of the real thing. There are two reasons for this: first and foremost, except for two short afternoon visits during the last decade, I haven’t spent any time there since 2000—and that seems very long ago now. Given that this novel was written whilst the Covid pandemic was disrupting all travel, it wasn’t possible to undertake a research trip to refresh those now rather dim and distant memories; even were I trying to be entirely accurate, I simply wouldn’t have been capable of it. But I wasn’t trying to be accurate, because the second of my two reasons is poetic license (i.e., the artistic privilege to tweak and change features to better serve the story). I’ve done exactly that with certain aspects of the layout of the chalet and its geographical surrounds, and with its past. For readers who want to dive into the history of the real Chalet des Anglais, Professor Stephen Golding’s excellent book Oxford University on Mont Blanc: The Life of the Chalet des Anglais—which, unfortunately, was published too late for me to be able to lean on 1There’s someone in the house.I know it as soon as I’m inside, though I couldn’t say how. Some indescribable change in the air, perhaps, or a sound I hadn’t consciously registered. A wave of adrenaline sweeps over my skin, prickling all hair follicles on end. I stand frozen, just inside the still-open front door, a layer of warm air and sunshine pressing at my back and the shadowy cool of the terraced house silently waiting for me. But it’s the wrong type of silence. I stand motionless, staring, my ears straining to catch any sound above my own racing heartbeat, which is thumping in my ears, thumping in my throat; waiting for a moving shadow or the thud of a footfall or even just the tiniest of creaks—but nothing comes. The house, the intruder, me: we are all holding our breath.I squint down the corridor that leads to the open-plan kitchen/living area at the back. Beyond the rectangle of the doorframe, I can see the bright saturated green of the back garden’s lawn through the floor-to-ceiling windows at the rear of the house, verdant in the sunshine after the rain we’ve been having. Call the police, I think. Call the police, call the neighbors and scream until somebody—anybody—comes . . . But even if I scream, no one will come: the residential street outside is quiet, drowsy with the heat; and anyway, most of my neighbors will be either at work or away for their summer vacation. And what can I tell the police? Come quickly because I have an absolute conviction that there’s an intruder in my house, even though I haven’t actually looked?But I know it’s true: there’s someone in the house. I can sense it with a pressing urgency, as if there’s music playing at a pitch that’s below my range of hearing, but nonetheless felt.Do something. Find something, some kind of weapon. Wait—I know . . .I check that my phone