CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 28
Are You Near the End When the Third Murder Happens?
Harper is curled around Shawna’s body, and it’s in this moment that it occurs to me that there are so many secrets surrounding us that I don’t know how I’ll ever make it out of them.
I had no idea of the extent of Harper’s relationship with Shawna, which is evident to everyone as pain streaks her face like tears.
But everyone here is hiding something.
Like Fred.
Like David, and how he really feels about Tyler and Fred and Emma.
Like Emma, and the true nature of her relationship with Tyler.
They’re all woven together, but I can’t figure out the pattern. There are other tensions, too, other threads I haven’t figured out yet. Some connective tissue that brings all these disparate events and people together.
It’s not just the movie—which seems to me to be the occasion of the crime rather than the purpose—but something deeper, something more sinister. Something that might make it seem okay to dispose of people like tissue paper.
“What did she say?” David asks. “After she said she was sorry?”
“Something about doing what she was told,” Oliver says. He’s standing behind Harper, looking ready to step in if necessary, just like he always is, but there’s nothing anyone can do for Shawna anymore other than close her eyes and cover her with a sheet.
“Is she a Nazi?” Allison says.
“What?” I say.
“Doing what she was told? Isn’t that what they said they were doing?”
“What is wrong with you?”
Allison shrugs in that way she has—like nothing serious will ever impact her that deeply. Like she can brush off life like it’s dandruff on her shoulder.
“She’s just a lost kid.”
Harper looks up at me. Now the tears have come, shining on her face that is so like mine, but so different, too. “It was because of you and Connor. That’s why this happened.”
Her words hit me like a slap, but I understand where they’re coming from.
After all, I was just blaming myself for this very thing.
“No, Harper,” Oliver says, as always coming to my rescue. “No.”
I’ve never seen Harper like this. She almost looks dangerous.
She wheels on me. “And you protected him...The two of you together. You did this.”
I glance at Connor. For once, he doesn’t look like he has anything to say. And I’m at a loss for words, too. Because she’s right. Shawna wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for Connor and me.
None of us would.
“Harper, please...”
Harper’s breathing hitches, and she lets out a wail of grief. It’s a horrible sound, one that sends a chill through the room, freezing everyone to the spot.
We are terrible with grief, with wounds.
No one ever knows the right thing to say.
But I have to say something. I have to do something.
I inch toward Harper, then bend down and wrap my arms around her, pulling her up and away from the body. The front of her shirt is stained with blood, and the air is filling with that horrible metallic smell.
I turn her so she’s facing me. “I know you’re upset. But this isn’t my fault or Connor’s. Shawna chose to be here, to be involved in whatever’s going on. That was her decision.”
Harper won’t look at me.
“Look at me, Harper. Listen to me.” She turns her face. Her eyes are red and puffy, the tears falling in large wet beads. “Someone else did this to her. And we’re going to find out who it was.”
“I should’ve seen through her.”
“No. This isn’t your fault. And you can blame me if you want, if that’s easier, but it isn’t anyone’s fault but hers. Shawna and whoever she was working with. They’re the ones to blame. Them. ”
“It hurts.”
“I know.”
Her body’s shaking now, the shock setting in. “Why does this keep happening?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’m scared.”
“Me too. But we’re safe here. We’re safe, and we’re going to get Officer Anderson to come, and we’re going to figure out what’s going on before anyone else gets hurt.”
“You can’t promise that.”
“I am promising that. This has to stop. It’s going to stop.”
I’m not sure who I’m speaking to, but it feels like someone.
Instinct drives me to focus on Fred. He’s standing next to Emma with his hands by his side. Not comforting her, I notice. She has her arms wrapped around her waist, and part of me hates Fred because even if he’s not behind all of this, he should be thinking of her in this moment.
Helping her.
“This has to stop,” I say.
Fred puts his hands out in front of him, but he doesn’t say anything.
My suspicion builds in me like a head of steam.
Was he working with Shawna?
He had to be because of the texts.
The texts with all those dates and times and instructions to meet.
No, orders.
Is that what Shawna meant? That Fred was the one she was taking orders from?
Is that why she came to this room?
His room.
But why? To warn him they were about to be discovered? To ask for his help to extricate herself? To complete the plan?
Or was she hiding on the property, hoping to escape, and then...someone got to her first and this was the first room she could get to?
Did Fred get to her first?
But that can’t be because Fred was here. Fred was here when someone was killing Shawna. So if he’s involved, he can’t be the only one.
The room is eerily silent, only the questions loud in my head. 104 But maybe everyone else is thinking this way, too?
I search the room until I find Oliver. A moment of eye contact unsticks him from his place.
He crosses to the room’s phone and picks up the receiver.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Calling Mr. Prentice so he can locate Officer Anderson.”
“Good idea.”
As he makes his call, I walk Harper away from the body and sit her down on the couch. I can feel Fred’s eyes on me as I do it, but I don’t get any sense of danger from him.
Still, I have to ask.
“Was he here all night?” I ask Emma. “Fred?”
“What? Yes.”
“Are you sure? You didn’t fall asleep?”
“No. We came back here when Officer Anderson told us to, and we were talking until you showed up.”
“What about when you took off your dress?”
“I did that alone. And took a quick shower...But it was only a few minutes.”
“I didn’t kill Shawna,” Fred says. “How would I have even known where she was?” He’s speaking in that half-British accent he puts on when he’s being theatrical. It’s a bad tell.
“But you’re involved in this. You have to be.”
“Why?” Allison asks.
“Because of the texts on his phone. The phone no one knew he had.”
Fred clamps his jaw again and I realize my mistake. Others did know he had that phone. Tyler. José. Shawna.
Who else?
Just because there weren’t texts with anyone else doesn’t mean he didn’t send them.
Texts can be erased. 105
Oliver hangs up, and it’s only a moment before Officer Anderson is at the door.
She’s not alone.
She’s followed by Simone and Inspector Tucci. They’ve both changed out of their wedding clothes, Simone into one of her sets of coveralls and Tucci into what looks like flannel pajamas with a British hunting jacket over them.
Officer Anderson takes in the scene, then drops to the floor to check the body, but it’s obvious to all of us that Shawna is dead. She slips on a pair of gloves and pulls Shawna’s coat back. She’s still wearing the suit she wore to the wedding, but the white shirt is red now, caked thick, and it’s hard to see where the origin of the blood is.
But if I had to guess, I’d say it’s coming from her heart.
“Was she stabbed?” I ask because it doesn’t look like a gunshot wound.
And also: I want to know if someone on this island has a gun.
Besides Officer Anderson, that is.
“I think so. But the lab techs will have to determine that. When they can get here.”
I shudder. Two stabbings and a broken neck. This killer gets up close to their victim and then strikes. These aren’t stranger murders. They’re committed by someone who instills trust and confidence.
“Any idea how long ago it was done?” Oliver asks.
“It looks like she’s lost a lot of blood. Theoretically, it could’ve been hours ago.”
Oliver goes into the bedroom and returns with a sheet. He unfolds it and drapes it over Shawna as we watch him.
Officer Anderson’s words ring in my head. Shawna could have been stabbed hours ago . And who knows where Shawna has been since she escaped during the blackout.
We were last all together at one in the morning. It’s now three a.m. That leaves two hours unaccounted for.
I know where I was—with Harper and then with Oliver.
Oliver was alone for part of the time, but if there’s someone here I know isn’t involved, it’s him. 106
David and Allison were in their room when we got there. But that leaves at least an hour unaccounted for. I assume they were together, but I don’t know that. Then again, Allison made a mistake last time, in Italy. She kept a crucial piece of information to herself, and I almost died for it.
“Allison, where were you and David?”
“In our room, where you found us.”
“You sure? Neither of you left?”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
“Unless you’re working together,” Oliver says.
“That could go for all of us,” Allison points out. “We all have alibis in twos and threes.”
“A conspiracy of murder,” David says.
“That sounds like one of those book titles generated by AI.”
“What I want to know,” Oliver says, “is why Shawna was coming here. To this room.”
“I had the same question,” I say. “And what are you doing here, Simone? And you, Tucci? Where have you been?”
“I was with Officer Anderson,” Simone says.
“Why?”
She gives me a contemptuous glare. “She was questioning me.”
“And you, Tucci?”
Inspector Tucci runs his hand over his head, spraying out water as he goes. “I was investigating.”
“Give me a break,” Simone says.
“As I have been telling you since the beginning, I am a trained detective. I can help solve this murder. And the others, too.” I try to cut him off, but he puts up his hand. “As you were saying, Shawna came to see Fred and Emma before she died. She must’ve done that for a reason. Did she say anything? The victim usually says something before they die. Or perhaps she had something clutched in her hand?”
I take in a slow breath. Tucci’s like a child bashing around on a piano. Every once in a while, he hits on something that sounds like a tune.
“There wasn’t anything in her hand,” I say, even though I didn’t check. But she was waving her hands around when she came in and they were empty. “She did speak, though only to say she was sorry. And that she was doing what she was told.”
“I can’t believe you’re going along with him, of all people,” Simone says.
Inspector Tucci ignores her. “Ah, well, now, that is very interesting indeed.” He looks at Emma. “She was coming to see you, wasn’t she?”
“What? No.”
“It makes sense, of course.”
“How?” Emma says.
“The least likely suspect.”
“Seriously?” I say. “Simone’s right, you’re a nut.”
He gazes at me. “Isn’t that what you write in your books? You go through all of the suspects starting with the most obvious to the least likely, and that’s the one that it is.”
This is exactly what I do.
Not like I’m the only one. It’s a common technique.
But being called out by Inspector Tucci about it?
Do not recommend.
“What has that got to do with anything?” Harper asks. “Are you getting to some point? Because Shawna is dead right there on the floor, if you didn’t notice?”
Inspector Tucci is not deterred. “This is a play.” He puts his hand out in front of him in a sweeping gesture. “All a performance.”
“Tucci, I swear to God,” Simone growls.
“No, let him talk,” Oliver says. “What’s your theory?”
“We have been behind the killer the entire time. A new clue, a new misdirection, a new victim seem to happen right when we think we are figuring it out...But what ties them all together? What is the connective tissue?” He looks around us as if it should be obvious. “It’s Emma.”
“What?” Emma says. “Me?”
“Yes, you. Where did this all begin?”
“With the movie,” Connor says. “ When in Rome .”
“No, it was before. Long before.” He sweeps his hands in front of him, then forms a square like he’s directing the scene. “A love affair gone wrong.”
“What are you talking about? Fred and I only got together on set.”
“You and Tyler. I have watched you all this time, young lady. I have observed and noted, and it is clear you are not being truthful about that relationship.”
Emma rolls her eyes. “Give me a break.”
“It is true. You claim now that it was not serious, yes? That your heart was never involved. But I saw the way you looked at him. How your eyes followed him around the room and would not let him go.”
Emma starts to laugh. “So I’m in love with Tyler, but I married Fred? Why would I do that?”
“To make him jealous.”
“What?”
“That was your original intention. Perhaps you took it too far. Perhaps you fell in love with Fred and changed your mind about the whole thing. I cannot fathom your actions.”
“That doesn’t make sense, Tucci,” I say.
“Which part?”
“You’re saying Emma was in love with Tyler, so she took up with Fred to make him jealous and then, when that didn’t work, she decided to try to kill him at her wedding?”
“Precisely.”
“You’ve lost me.”
“Me too,” Allison says.
“Me three,” Oliver adds.
“Spell it out,” Officer Anderson says. “From the beginning.”
“I don’t have all the details, I grant you. But when Tyler rebuffed her attempts to reunite, she decided to use Fred to get back at him. Make him jealous. Win back his heart. And when that didn’t work, she decided to get revenge. To lure everyone here under the guise of a wedding and to kill Tyler.”
“And instead, I killed José and Ken and Shawna?” Emma says.
“They were your accomplices. Your decoys. No one would suspect the bride. It was the perfect plan.”
“Is anyone buying this?” Emma says. “Because this is the worst script I’ve ever heard of.”
My head is spinning trying to follow Tucci’s logic, but that word stops me: “script.”
The script .
Tucci is right about one thing.
This was all scripted.
It still is.
“You’re not making sense, Tucci,” Connor says. “You haven’t explained half of what you’ve said, only made vague assertions without any evidence. You’re as incompetent as the original.”
Inspector Tucci puffs out his chest. “I’ll have you know that—”
“I agree,” Officer Anderson says. “Your theory leaves too many unanswered questions. Shawna, for example. We haven’t uncovered any connection between her and Emma except for a superficial one.”
“She was working for her, as I said. Like Shawna said. She was just doing what she was told.”
Oh, shit .
Tucci’s right. Again.
He’s right.
Not about Emma. That part is stupid, and as Emma herself just said, the worst script ever.
But Shawna was doing what she was told. The whole time. The whole movie.
She was taking orders from one person.
Simone.
104 Did you know that some people don’t have an internal monologue? Like they don’t hear thoughts in their heads at all? It must be so quiet . I’m all internal monologue.
105 It’s actually very hard to erase texts. That’s what a law enforcement official told me when I talked to him for research purposes. Also, he was cute. Whatever. So not the point right now. All I’m saying is when you think you’ve hidden what you’ve done, you’re probably wrong. Everything leaves a trace.
106 This is not my way of telling you it’s him.