I Don't Wish You Well

by Jumata Emill

Overview

A teen investigative podcaster decides to dig into the truth behind a grisly murder spree that rocked his hometown five years ago, but soon discovers that this cold case is still hiding deadly secrets—in this chilling thriller perfect for fans of A Good Girl's Guide to Murder.

Five years ago, the infamous Trojan murders turned the small town of Moss Pointe, Louisiana into a living nightmare. Four teen boys—all star players on Moss Pointe High's football team—were murdered one after the other by a Trojan-mask wearing killer.

Eventually, the murderer was unmasked. But the community has never forgotten—and some folks in town still wonder whether the police got it right.

Eighteen-year-old Pryce Cummings is one of them. An aspiring journalist, Pryce is pretty sure he just stumbled upon evidence that throws the killer's guilt into question. It's the perfect story for his own podcast, and a reason to go back to the hometown he's avoided since coming to terms with his sexuality while at college.

But in Moss Pointe, digging into the past is anything but welcome. There's so much more to what happened there five years ago, and Pryce is ready to crack it all wide open . . . if he lives to tell the tale.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780593811023
Publisher:	Random House Children's Books
Publication date:	01/20/2026
Pages:	400
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x (d)
Age Range:	12 Years

About the Author

Jumata Emill is a journalist who has covered crime and local politics in Mississippi and parts of Louisiana. He earned his BA in mass communications from Southern University and A&M College. He’s a Pitch Wars alum and a member of the Crime Writers of Color. When he’s not writing about murderous teens, he’s watching and obsessively tweeting about every franchise of the Real Housewives. Jumata lives in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and is the author of The Black Queen, Wander in the Dark, and I Don't Wish You Well.

Read an Excerpt

Chapter 1

The morning after was still awkward for Pryce.

Each time he woke up in somebody else’s bed, not immediately recognizing his surroundings, he swore he was done with casual hookups. Lectured himself that no matter how irresistible the dude’s smile was, even if the person had good banter and they shared a million and one things in common, he wouldn’t go home with him and power through another walk of shame.

It wasn’t that there had been that many of them. But his freshman year at Whitmore University had gifted him a freedom he never had before. Wasn’t that what college was all about? Finding out who you really are?

When he turned over on his side, Pryce was reminded why he wasn’t waking up in his dorm room that morning. Darius, or was it Danny? Or had he said his name was Doug?

“Morning, Don Lemon 2.0,” whatever-­his-­name, Pryce was certain it started with a D, said with a boyish grin.

Darius-­Danny-­or-­Doug had perfect white teeth, the most hypnotizing pair of dark eyes, and the smoothest brown skin Pryce had ever seen. He looked like a marshmallow-­wrapped piece of candy, the way he was swathed in the thick white comforter warming them on his king-­size bed.

“Hey,” Pryce replied with a chuckle.

Flashes of the previous night cycled through Pryce’s mind in rapid succession. The strobing lights. Pulsating music. Him and Elisha dancing under the giant disco ball at Candies, the mostly gay dance club in town. They had been celebrating after taking their last finals that day. The club was packed with a bunch of other people doing the same. Darius-­Danny-­or-­Doug was eyeing Pryce from across the dance floor, slowly easing his way through the dense crowd until he made it to where Elisha and Pryce were cutting up. Darius-­Danny-­or-­Doug was shirtless, showing off a body Pryce assumed he ate a lot of grilled chicken breasts and broccoli to maintain.

“Are you one of those gym is life type of dudes?” Pryce had teased. To which Darius-­Danny-­or-Doug responded, “Are you one of those pretentious gays who pretend they don’t like muscles but really do?”

Elisha had politely excused herself once Pryce started to ignore her in favor of kissing Darius-Danny-­or-­Doug while dancing to a remix of Sabrina Carpenter’s “Espresso,” saying she was taking an Uber back to campus since she had to get up early the next day to catch her flight back to DC. Between making out until the club closed and the drive to Darius-­Danny-­or-­Doug’s apartment, which was less than ten minutes from Candies, Pryce had revealed that he was a journalism major who had his first sexual experience with another guy one month into his freshman year at college. Which for some reason Darius-­Danny-­or-­Doug had found so amusing.

“What time is it?” Pryce asked, stretching his arms over his head while yawning.

The bedsheets felt like a comforting brush against his exposed skin.

“Ten minutes after nine,” Darius-­Danny-­or-­Doug replied and then started drawing circles on Pryce’s chest with his index finger.

The tingle from his touch started waking up other parts of Pryce.

“Stop,” Pryce moaned, recoiling from Darius-­Danny-­or-­Doug’s playful tickles. “I don’t have time to be doing that.”

Darius-­Danny-­or-­Doug smacked his lips. “That’s right. You have to get back to campus and finish packing up your dorm room. God, I don’t miss those days.”

If Pryce remembered correctly, Darius-­Danny-­or-­Doug had said he dropped out of college his sophomore year to work at his family’s local business. Pryce was certain he told him what that business was, but everything about that portion of their conversation was foggy in his mind.

I’ve got to stop drinking so much, he told himself as he pulled back the covers and slid his legs over the side of the bed. His black Calvin Klein briefs were bunched up on the carpeted floor by his feet. The skintight jeans Darius-­Danny-­or-­Doug wore the night before were right beside them. Pryce leaned down to scoop up his underwear. The upper corner of Darius-­Danny-­or-Doug’s driver’s license was peeking out at him from the front pocket of the jeans. Pryce glanced over his shoulder first to make sure Darius-­Danny-­or-­Doug couldn’t see what he was doing before he pulled on the corner of the license to expose the rest of it.

Derrick! That was his name. I knew it started with a D.

Pryce stood up to step into his underwear. Derrick was pulling out a pair of sweatpants from the dresser on the other side of the spacious bedroom.

“Where did you say you were from again?” Derrick asked as he was sliding on some gray sweatpants.

“Moss Pointe,” Pryce said, looking around for his pants.

They were slung over the back of the recliner five feet in front of him. His short-­sleeved button-down shirt was spread out next to them.

“That’s not too far from Baton Rouge, isn’t it?” Derrick said.

“About a two-­hour drive,” Pryce replied, shaking out the wrinkles in his pants before stepping into them.

Derrick paused as he was about to slip a T-shirt over his head. “Why does that sound familiar? Moss Pointe?”

Pryce didn’t feel like getting into that. “You see my phone anywhere?” he asked.

Derrick walked back toward the bed. “I don’t see it,” he said, lifting the comforter. A red-­cased iPhone did tumble onto the mattress, but that wasn’t Pryce’s. “You want me to call it?” Derrick asked after he picked up his phone off the bed.

The last time Pryce remembered having it was when he checked his messages last night after Elisha texted him to make sure he was okay. He’d been standing on the other side of the room, admiring Derrick’s saltwater aquarium. Quickly, he glanced in that direction. Sure enough, Pryce’s phone was sitting on the corner of the wood stand the aquarium was on.

“There it is,” he announced, dashing across the room.

Derrick’s walk-­in closet was to his right. Pryce was amazed by how much was hanging inside. There weren’t enough days in the year to wear everything that was in there.

Pryce was relieved to find out he still had a 20 percent charge on his phone battery. His mother had texted him fifteen minutes ago asking what time he planned on leaving campus on Saturday.

“I knew I heard of it before,” Derrick blurted out, startling Pryce just as his attention was being drawn to a framed picture of an older man that was on the shelf above the aquarium. Derrick’s dad, probably.

“Moss Pointe is that town where those football players got murdered five years ago,” Derrick said, explaining his outburst as Pryce turned around. He looked up from his phone with wide-eyed curiosity. “Did you know ’em?”

Pryce returned to the recliner to grab his shirt, stuffing his phone in his back pocket on the way over. “Not really. I was a freshman when all that happened. Didn’t run in the same social circle as them.”

“Was it as crazy as they made it seem on the news?” Derrick said, scrolling through whatever article must have popped up when he Googled Moss Pointe. “Kinda seems like one of those Friday Night Lights football towns, filled with a bunch of homophobic bigots.”

“That about sums it up,” Pryce said while buttoning his shirt.

He had similar conversations whenever he told people at school where he was from. Mostly with the kids who weren’t from Louisiana but were close enough that the story had traveled to their regional news outlets. The questions were always the same: Did he know the kids involved? Was everyone scared when the murders were taking place? Why did Deuce Beales have to kill so many people because he hated who he was? It was crazy how entertaining other people thought the tragedy that still haunted his hometown, and Pryce, was in certain ways.

“Is it true what this guy is saying? That the kid who was accused of killing them was really innocent?” Derrick asked when he looked up from his phone again.

Pryce started putting on his sneakers, which he had just found behind the recliner. “The only person who ever said that was Deuce’s uncle. He actually died recently. I think they buried him a few days ago.”

“Nah, this is some dude named Herman Young. He posted about it on your town’s Neighborly page,” Derrick said.

Hearing that made Pryce’s shoulders straighten.

“Hold up, what?” he quizzed, standing up and limping around the bed with one shoe on.

Derrick held out his phone as Pryce approached. The page he was talking about filled the screen. Pryce grabbed the phone so he could read it for himself.

Neighborly.com

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Town of Moss Pointe

Admin • May 6 . . .

R.I.P. Sampson Beales. You were a great father and husband and one of this town’s dedicated entrepreneurs.

You will be missed.

Posted in General to Anyone

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Top comments v

Ann Grenton . . .

I truly hope he has finally found peace. First his lovely wife died and then his nephew murdered all those kids. That man was never the same after that.