In the Dark

by White, Loreth Anne

  She struggled to keep composed against the rush of emotion, against the tears that burned sudden and sharp. She knew it was fatigue. And once again, she didn’t know how people like Mason could deal so consistently with facing death. She lived to find subjects alive.

  “Okay?” said the paramedic.

  “Yeah, yeah, just . . . taking a break.”

  Her radio crackled. “Mason here for Callie,” he yelled over the noise.

  She sucked in a breath. “Go ahead, Mason.”

  “Any sign of the weapon down there—the rifle?”

  She looked. The white light from the helicopter washing over the ledge was bright.

  “Negative, Mason. No sign of weapon.” Then it struck her. If Deborah Blunt was the last one standing, where was the gun?

  NOW

  DEBORAH

  Sunday, November 8.

  Mason Deniaud watches my eyes as I tell him how—when the floatplane came in for a landing—we all became gradually aware that something was not what it seemed, that the lodge did not look from the air like the aerial photos we’d been sent in the brochure, or the images that populated the Forest Shadow Wilderness Resort & Spa website.

  He jots another note in his book. I can’t read it from this angle. I force myself to not look up at the camera, but tension crackles around the edges of my brain as I’m forced into revisiting the nightmare, the trap, the sick game we were all lured into.

  I shift in the plastic chair and place my hand on my belly. Relief washes through me again that my baby is fine. I almost can’t believe it. With the relief comes new tension. I need to get the story right.

  For you. Everyone deserves a chance . . . a clean, wonderful start in life. A chance I never had . . .

  “So it was on Monday, October twenty-sixth . . . that was the morning you all woke up and found Jackie Blunt missing?”

  I try to moisten my lips. “Yes.”

  He flips back a few pages and rereads his notes carefully, checking what I said last time.

  “Run me through it again. Please.”

  “But I told—”

  “We just need to get some sequences sorted out, and it’s for the recording.”

  I inhale deeply and nod. “We woke up when Steven Bodine called up the stairs that he had coffee ready for everyone.”

  “We?”

  I reach up to touch the bandage around my head. It’s itching. “Me, Monica, and Nathan—we were upstairs in our rooms at that point.”

  “And Steven was downstairs?”

  “Yes. I told you. He called upstairs that he’d made coffee—”

  “You said he’d been outside before that, in the early hours of the dawn?”

  “Yes. With Bart and Stella. Bart said he wanted to explore farther down a trail he’d found the day before, and Stella said she’d gone to see if she could fix the sabotaged radio on her plane. She discovered her de Havilland Beaver was missing. The ropes had been cut.”

  “Why would someone do that?”

  I stare at him like he’s mad. “Why? You tell me why. That’s the question that started to freak us all out. That’s when it all started.”

  “It all started?”

  “The head games. The second-guessing. The not trusting. Everything was set up in that lodge to mess with our minds—the checkerboard with the little pieces, like Agatha Christie’s ten little soldier boys. The old crime novel specifically left beside the checkerboard. The sinister rhyme inside the book suggesting our stay at the lodge was to echo the story in the book.”

  “Which is?”

  My eyes narrow. He knows. But he’s making me say it, and I hate him for it. I hate him so hard right now. My head begins to pound where it was hit. “The guests in the story had been invited to an island for a reckoning. They were killed off one by one. I already told you about the book.”

  “Tell me about the other props.”

  “There was the bowl of mushrooms, the knives and the cleaver in the kitchen, a grocery bag with kids’ cereal and a box of eggs in it, a painting of a little girl with the scales in Katie’s room, the rifle on the wall, bullets in the drawer . . .” My hands are trembling. I’m breathing hard. Blood pressure rising. Not good, not good for my baby. Nor for me. I need to stop this before it all makes me unwell. Why is Mason Deniaud doing this to me? Putting me in this position when I am the victim. When it could hurt my baby. When I’m the one who needs sympathy.

  “And when exactly did you become aware Jackie Blunt was gone?”

  “When Jackie didn’t appear that morning at the hearth for coffee along with the rest of us. When Stella called us together to tell us about the missing plane, the cut mooring lines.”

  He’s watching me closely. I glance again at the camera again, can’t help it. He sees me doing it, and it seems to interest him. He’s making me nervous. I really need to get out. This room is closing in on me. After being out there in the forest and mountains . . . it feels like a cell, a prison. With a roof on top—like a lid on a box.

  I don’t want to think of cells, prison.

  I start humming a little tune in my mind, the way the therapist suggested, to block out negative things.

  Hush, little baby, don’t say a word. Papa’s going to buy you a mockingbird . . . I will sing that to you, my baby. We’ll get one of those lovely old cradles that rock. We’ll have all the nice things my family never—

  “So what actually happened to Jackie Blunt?” he says.

  “I don’t know.”

  His eyes narrow slightly. He holds my gaze. He doesn’t trust you . . . Hush, little baby, don’t say a word . . .

  “There was blood on the dock. It looked like blood.” I find myself filling the silence in spite of myself. “We were worried she’d been hurt. We mounted a search party. But my ankle was still hurting from when I slipped on the dock, and I felt nauseous from my pregnancy, so I stayed behind in the lodge.”

  “Where?”

  “In my room upstairs. The other six divided into pairs. Stella with Monica. Steven with Bart. Nathan with Katie.”

  “Then?”

  “I fell asleep. At some point I heard someone come back into the lodge.”

  “When?”

  “I’m unsure of the timing. I was dozing in and out.”

  “Who was it?”

  “Two people came back. Monica and Katie. I . . . I think it was Katie first. Everyone was scared. They’d heard gunshots. Air horns in the woods. I heard the horns and shots, too, from inside the house. I don’t remember the sequence—who came back first, or if the gunfire came before the air horns.”

  “How many gunshots?”

  “Two. I was terrified. We all were. We went to lock ourselves in our rooms.”

  “Separately?”

  “Yes.”

  “As opposed to helping?”

  “You have to understand, we were scared of each other. We didn’t know if someone was out there, leaving things inside the lodge, taking the heads off the carvings, or if it was one of us. Then Stella came back in a state. She was covered in blood and mud. She told me Bart had been killed.”

  “Where were Monica and Katie at this point?”

  “Still in their rooms.”

  “Did Stella say how Bart Kundera had been killed?”

  “No. Only that she and Steven and Nathan were going to bring him back. She’d come looking for a tarp and ropes to drag him.”

  “Why bring him back?”

  “I don’t know.” The memory of the view I had from the kitchen window floats into my mind—the three of them working in the flickering yellow glow of the shed like wild creatures, witches. Bart’s body thudding into the freezer. I clear my throat. “I saw them put him into the freezer and start the generator. Then they shared some of a bottle of whiskey.”

  “Why did they do that?”

  “I don’t know. I guess they needed to calm their nerves, and one of them found the bottle.”

  “No, I mean, why put Bart’s remains in
to a freezer and start the generator?”

  I regard him. Is he kidding? What is he looking for in me?

  Slowly, I say, “To keep it cold. To preserve it.”

  “Preserve it.”

  “I . . . I think Steven said to preserve it for the police. Because it was a murder, and they wanted to keep the evidence for the police.”

  “So they were hoping help would come? They didn’t want to hide anything?”

  “Everyone there had something to hide. Everyone there was a liar.”

  “And you?”

  “Everyone lies. We all lie. Even you.”

  His finger twitches. He knows I’m right.

  “What did you lie about, Deborah? What secret do you have to hide?”

  I look away, getting tenser, tighter. I see what he’s doing. Misdirection. Sleight of hand. He’s trying to trip me up. Me, an innocent victim. I feel walls going up. “I’m thirsty.”

  “Water, juice, coffee, tea?”

  “Water.”

  “Okay.” He gets up, opens the door. He asks Hubb, who is waiting right outside, to bring two glasses of water.

  She brings them, hands them to him. He returns to the table, puts one glass in front of me, and goes around to the opposite side with his own. He retakes his seat, sips. He sets his glass down.

  “Katie Colbourne?” he says.

  “What about Katie?” I sip my own water.

  “When did you find her?”

  One more sip, and I set my glass down. He sees my hand is trembling. I hate him. I hate the detectives watching from another room. But I understand, they need to know what happened. It’s their job. And I have to tell them. As best I can. The others have loved ones who will need this closure. And if I tell them enough, then maybe they will leave me alone. Then I will be free.

  “After Nathan, Stella, and Steven came back inside,” I say, “I warmed tinned stew, and brought it on a tray to the coffee table in front of the hearth. That’s when we saw another carving had been toppled, and was missing its head.”

  “Did you see any mushrooms in the kitchen when you prepared the food?”

  “No. There was nothing like that.”

  He recorded something in his notebook.

  “What happened when you saw the carving had been decapitated?”

  “Nathan immediately thought something had happened to Monica—she wasn’t there. We all rushed upstairs after him.”

  “Your ankle was all right at that point?”

  “I . . . I guess it was okay. It was getting better. Monica came out of their bedroom door, disheveled and confused-looking. And it struck everyone at once. Katie Colbourne. She wasn’t with us.” I reach for my glass and take another sip of water. “The guys bashed her door open, and . . . and we found her.”

  “Describe.”

  “She was hanging by a rope from the rafter. A rope around her neck. She was dead.”

  “What happened to her camcorder? She’d been filming the whole trip—you mentioned it at the hospital, that she was always filming. She was brought on board allegedly to document the tour.”

  A frisson of cold chases through me. “I . . . I don’t know what happened to her camera.”

  “Waterproof? Small?”

  “The camera? I don’t know if it was waterproof. It was small.”

  He made another note, then glanced up. “Let’s go back to when you all decided to leave the lodge. You said last time, when we first spoke to you at the clinic, that you all argued about going, or staying in the shelter.”

  “Steven was going to die. He appeared to have eaten poisonous mushrooms. They’d been left there as a clue, a warning.” I rub my mouth. “A cruel act of psychological terror. Nathan, of course, knew what they were. He said he understood the mechanisms of the toxin, or the pathogenesis, I think he called it. He said Steven would die within two weeks if he did not get medical intervention, and most likely a liver transplant.”

  “A note was written in a notebook before you all left,” he says. “It explained where you were going?”

  “Monica wrote it. We all signed it.”

  “It was ripped out—someone took that note.” He holds my gaze.

  “I . . . I didn’t know that.”

  “Who could have done that?”

  “I . . . Stella was the only one who went back inside the house after we’d all exited. She said she’d forgotten something. She must have taken it. She wanted us all to die. She didn’t want help to come.”

  He eyes me for a moment.

  “So when Stella went back inside the lodge, she could have taken Katie Colbourne’s camera, too?”

  I feel nauseous. I need air. I don’t know why he’s gone off on another tangent. The cops must have already gotten proof about who Stella really was—that she was Estelle Marshall. They must know now what happened to her little boy. I’m scared. He’s coming closer to Stella’s motivation—the reason we were all lured there. What we did fourteen years ago.

  Careful. It’s coming. Remember, you are not guilty like they are. You didn’t kill Ezekiel Marshall. You were a victim of circumstances at the time. Afraid. Young. You need to tell him as much as you can now. You need to stay as close to the truth as you dare, or Ewan will learn you are an ex-con. Your baby, your child, will have to grow up under that shadow. Ewan might not marry you . . .

  “I suppose she could have taken the camera then.”

  “Why would she do that?”

  I frown. “Because, like you said, Katie had filmed the whole trip. It could be evidence.”

  He nods slowly. He’s watching my mouth, my body language. The words whisper inside me again.

  He doesn’t trust you. He’s looking for a tell. Be careful.

  “Who gave Steven the mushrooms?”

  “Stella.”

  “Did she confess this?”

  I swallow, and nod. “Yes, she . . . she had opportunity. The bowls had been left standing on the table downstairs. Then one of us warmed them up again. It . . . Yes, it was Stella who rewarmed the food. I remember now.”

  He sits back and regards me steadily. He clicks the back of his pen. Click, click, clickety-click, click.

  My heart pounds against my ribs. I’m sure he can hear it.

  “So when did you find out who Stella Daguerre really was, Deborah?”

  He knows things. He’s asking me questions where he already knows parts of the answers. Careful now.

  Perspiration prickles across my lip.

  “By the time the remaining five of us left that lodge, we all five knew Stella Daguerre was Estelle Marshall—the mother of the little boy killed in a hit-and-run fourteen years ago. Monica was the first, I think, to recognize her, even though Stella looks nothing like she used to. Monica said it was her eyes—she remembered her eyes from television, from pleading for someone to come forward with information on the blue BMW that had killed her son.” I hesitate.

  Do it. You have to tell him. As much as you dare.

  “It was Monica’s BMW.”

  He doesn’t blink at this information. He knows. Of course he knows. But how? Or maybe he didn’t know. He’s messing with me.

  Sweat pearls and dribbles between my breasts. I can smell the anxiety on myself now.

  “And I . . .” My voice goes hoarse. I reach for my glass, take two hungry gulps. I set the glass down. It wobbles. I clear my throat. “The pieces all started coming together from that point. That Steven was the driver. That Monica was the passenger. That they were having an affair.”

  “They were?”

  My gaze meets his. “Yes. Nathan McNeill helped Monica cover it all up—the accident. He took the damaged BMW to Bart Kundera, who fixed it under the table, and Bart said nothing to the authorities, even though news outlets everywhere were calling for information on a BMW with a damaged front.”

  “So Stella set this all up? It was her who lured you, sent out the fake invitations?”

  “She admitted it. On the trail.”

>   “Who helped her, Deborah? She had to have had help.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How did Stella come to reveal this to you all?”

  I inhale deeply, my mind darting back down the dark warrens of my memory to the terrible series of events before my fall down the cliff.

  “Monica freaked out along the trail,” I say carefully. “We were all hungry, tired, Steven getting sicker and sicker. Nathan hurt. The rain and cold just kept coming. We’d heard wolves following us. Their howls were coming closer at night. We were all going to die. We all knew it. We were not getting out of there alive. And Monica just said it—she said it to Stella around the campfire, that she was sorry. She was so sorry Steven had hit and killed her boy, and that they had never come forward. And she didn’t want to die without saying sorry. Everyone started fighting—Steven yelling at Monica to shut the hell up, Nathan yelling at both Monica and Steven for talking, and it came out. All of it. Stella had the rifle. She was aiming it at us, said she was going to kill us all right there if we didn’t look her in the eyes right then and all say we were sorry.”

  “This happened after you crossed the gorge?”

  Confusion chases through me. I try to remember which bits come first. Which come last. Feeling the terror all over again. And I realize he’s gone on another tack. Because he hasn’t yet asked me how I am connected to the hit-and-run. Why Stella wanted me to say sorry. Or how Jackie Blunt, Bart Kundera, Katie Colbourne, and Dan Whitlock were involved.

  He knows, goddammit, he does.

  Those detectives in the other room know.

  You are not guilty. Stay close to the truth, and you can still walk away. Think of Ewan . . . going home . . .

  Yet panic crackles around the edges of my brain. I’m skating on dangerous ice. My mouth is dry. My pulse races. Focus. Just focus.

  “Yes. It was after we crossed the gorge.” I think for a moment more. “Nathan hurt his leg while we were navigating the logjam. His foot slipped between two trunks, and he twisted his leg and cut it. Steven said he thought it could be fractured. Steven bandaged and splinted it on the other end of the gorge, and we helped Nathan up the trail into the forest on the other side. We moved very slowly, stopped several times. Nathan developed a fever. And Steven was worsening. His eyes and skin had turned dark yellow. He was growing weak fast. Shivering, shaking, hot, cold.” I reach for my glass and finish the last of the water.