Chapter 16 #3
With each new explanation, the same conclusion kept circling back.
Everyone here had been with others during the time period in question. All in places that made it impossible for them to slip away unnoticed long enough to carry out two brutal murders.
“Okay,” Caitlin finally said. “It looks like the only person who was actually alone and unaccounted for while Sloane and Reid were killed is Rhys. And now he’s dead too, so obviously, he’s not the killer. So… can we all agree that it’s an outsider now? Not one of us?”
A beat of silence followed.
Then, slowly, a few people nodded.
“Yeah,” Garrett said. “Has to be.”
Several murmurs of agreement rippled outward, quiet but steady.
“Okay,” Caitlin said, her voice a little firmer now. “So we’re all on the same page. It’s not one of us.”
“So… who is it, then?” April asked, looking around. “Who would want to kill off all the Blackpine counselors?”
No one answered straight away.
“I think Alissa was right,” Caitlin said quietly.
Every head turned toward her.
“What?” Jasmine asked.
Caitlin’s gaze flicked to me briefly, then back to the group. “About the motive,” she clarified. “It has to be about Carly’s death. They think we neglected her. That we weren’t paying attention. That we let a kid die on our watch. What else could it be?”
A heavy silence settled over the circle.
“But who, exactly?” Tamsin finally said. “Who would actually come here and do all this insane shit?”
My mind was already turning it over, circling the most obvious answer whether I wanted it to or not.
Carly’s family.
It was the first place anyone’s mind would go, and it made sense on a level that was almost too neat. Grief, anger, blame. A need for someone to pay.
Also, they hadn’t believed it was an accident.
I knew that for a fact, because I’d met them.
Spent time with them. Sat in their house and listened to them talk about Carly.
They hadn’t struck me as violent people, or even remotely capable of something like this.
But that didn’t mean anything, really. People could always surprise you.
They could hide things. They could snap.
My stomach twisted.
I knew I needed to say something, to at least put it out there.
But I couldn’t tell the others why I knew anything about what Carly’s family believed, because if I did that, they’d realize I lied about my reasons for coming here.
And then they might start looking at me the way Sutton had looked at me earlier.
Like I had something to do with it. Like I was part of the vengeful murder scheme.
I swallowed, my fingers tightening together in my lap. “I, um… I might have something,” I said.
Every head turned toward me.
“I…” I hesitated, forcing the lie into place. “I can’t remember who it was, but on the second day here, I overheard someone talking about Carly’s family. They said they never believed it was an accident. So… maybe it’s one of them?”
The idea landed a lot flatter than I expected.
Sutton snorted. “No shit,” she said. “That’s old news. We all know they didn’t believe it was an accident. But I didn’t even think of mentioning them because it just seems too obvious. Like, there’s just no way.”
A few heads nodded around the circle, the reaction more resigned than surprised, like it was a conclusion that had already been ruled out in a discussion I hadn’t been part of.
“Yeah, it feels kind of clichéd,” April said. “Angry family comes back for revenge. Also, they’d have to know they’d be the first suspects on anyone’s mind. So why would they risk it?”
“Well, maybe they don’t care about getting caught. Maybe they just want revenge, no matter what happens to them in the end,” Simon suggested, raising a brow.
“Maybe. And to be fair, they were very vocal about it at first,” Wren mused, head tilting. “Talking about negligence and threatening to go to the media.”
“But they shut their mouths after they got that big compensation payout,” Sutton said.
“Publicly, at least. Part of the deal was signing something that said they accepted it was an accident. No more accusations. No more drama.” Her mouth tilted.
“Privately, though? They never bought it. Talk about biting the hand that feeds you.”
I blinked. “Excuse me?”
“I’m just saying,” she said casually, like she hadn’t heard the edge in my voice. “They’ve been given so much, and they still complain.”
“And you can’t imagine why?”
She rolled her eyes. “Just listen for a minute. You’re new here, so you don’t know the whole story with that family.”
Try me, I thought, silently seething.
“They’re working class from Queens,” she went on.
“There’s no way they could ever afford any of the top private schools in the city, or a summer camp like Blackpine.
But Carly was super smart. Scholarship kid.
Got into Beatrix Prep on a full ride when she was…
what, ten?” She glanced at the others for confirmation, then kept going.
“After that, doors just kept opening for her. Her best friend’s parents paid for everything because the girls never wanted to be apart.
Vacations, camp, extracurriculars. Europe trips, ski seasons, the whole thing.
Sometimes they even covered costs for her entire family. ”
“And your point is…?”
“My point is the Martins had a lot handed to them,” Sutton said. “Things they didn’t earn. So you’d think there’d be a little more gratitude instead of jumping straight to conspiracy theories about evil bullies driving their little girl to drown herself, or whatever theory they’re clinging to.”
“Wow,” Jasmine said frostily. “That’s got to be the absolute cuntiest thing you’ve ever said, and the bar was already pretty low. Honestly, I won’t even be surprised if the killer goes after you next.”
Sutton shrugged. “I’m just telling it how it is.”
“Oh, right, of course.” Jasmine’s voice was dripping with sarcasm. “The Martins should definitely shut up and forget their grief because they got a six-figure payout from the camp in exchange for their daughter’s life. Totally reasonable take.”
“Guys. Please.” Caitlin pushed to her feet again, both hands raised. “Can we not do this right now?”
Silence stretched for a second. Then Caitlin looked back at me. “Alissa has a point,” she said. “Carly’s family members might seem way too obvious to be suspects… but sometimes the most obvious explanation is the correct one.”
“Occam’s Razor,” Wren said. “The simplest answer is almost always the correct one.”
Caitlin nodded. “Well, the people with the clearest motive for revenge against the counselors are the Martins. So, as unbelievable as it might sound to us… one of them is likely our killer. Or killers.”
“Okay, but how does that actually help us?” Maren said, frowning. “I mean, even if we somehow knew for an absolute fact that it’s Carly’s dad or uncle or whatever… what are we supposed to do with that information?”
“Well, if you know who you’re dealing with, you’ve got a better chance of surviving it. You know their weaknesses. How to beat them at their own game and survive.”
Maren raised a skeptical brow. “That sounds good in theory, but do you actually know anything about the Martins and their weaknesses?” she asked.
She paused and looked around. “Does anyone here even remember what they look like? Because honestly, all the parents start to look the same to me after a while. They just blur together.”
“Just look for the ones with the cheap shoes,” Sutton said. She aimed the snide comment at Noura in a whisper, but everyone heard it anyway.
“God, someone really needs to knock that bitch out,” Jasmine muttered, head shaking.
“Okay. Guys.” Caitlin pushed to her feet yet again, her voice cutting through the tension before it could spike any higher. “Look… we’re clearly not getting anywhere like this.”
No one argued.
Her gaze moved around the circle, lingering briefly on all of us in turn.
“We’re all running on adrenaline, hardly any sleep, and…
everything that just happened,” she said.
“Rhys died less than an hour ago. So this is probably the worst possible time for us to be trying to have a calm, rational discussion about anything.”
A few people shifted in their seats. Someone exhaled shakily.
“So I think we need to take a break and let everyone cool off,” she went on. “Just step away from this for a bit.”
“And do what?” Jensen muttered, scrubbing a hand over his face.
“Anything that doesn’t involve us sitting around sniping at each other,” Caitlin said. “Read. Go lie down. Or we could grab a movie from the media library and put something on in here. Just something normal. Something that gives our brains a minute to reset.”
Silence hung for a beat as everyone considered her words.
“Then later,” she added, “we can figure out dinner. And after that, when we’ve all got full bellies, we’ll come back to this conversation. Hopefully by then we’ll be capable of talking without being at each other’s throats.”
Jasmine huffed quietly beside me, but she didn’t argue. Even Sutton didn’t snap back, though her arms were still folded tight across her chest.
“Yeah,” Garrett said, dragging a hand through his hair. “That sounds like a good idea.”
A few others nodded, murmuring their agreement. The tension didn’t disappear, but it loosened, just enough for people to start looking away from each other instead of squaring off.
“Wait.” Maren sat up straight again. “It’s almost half past two.”
Caitlin blinked. “And?”
“Hello? Brad and Olivia!” Maren threw her hands up. “They’re supposed to be back here with the cops by now! So where the hell are they?”
The room fell quiet again.
In the rush of everything that had just happened; the arguments, the accusations, Rhys’s death… Brad and Olivia had somehow slipped to the edges of all our minds.
But Maren was right. Where were they? Where was the help we’d all been waiting for?