The Cabin

by Natasha Preston

  "What did Wright mean about you having a police record?" I asked, jogging to catch up with him. Man, he could walk fast when he wanted to.

  Blake's eyebrows pulled together in a deep frown. "Nothing," he muttered.

  "Bull!" I grabbed his arm.

  He spun around, almost knocking into me. "What do you want? You're all over the place, running around trying to solve a murder. I. Didn't. Kill. Them," he said slowly.

  "Blake, I believe you."

  He looked into my eyes, trying to figure out if I was telling the truth or not.

  "I believe you," I repeated.

  "Good. You can drop it then."

  Turning around, he walked toward his truck.

  Not so fast, buddy! I followed, leaving a small distance between us. Whatever he was hiding in his police record, I wanted to know. Blake unlocked his car, and I tugged opened the passenger door. "What are you doing?" he asked. He sounded bored, and it made me smile. "What?"

  "Get in the car, Blake."

  He growled and got in, slamming the door.

  "Tell me," I pressed.

  "I'll tell you what's in my police file if you tell me something that no one knows about you."

  "Is that what you always do? Deflect?"

  He'd put up his wall. "If I'm going to tell you something only my dad knows, something that I'm not proud of, then I want the same in return," he said. "It's your choice."

  "Fine."

  "And you have to go first," he added.

  I chewed the inside of my cheek and looked out of the side window. I couldn't look at Blake when I told him. It was too personal, too intense. My heart broke as I prepared to talk about it for the first time since I was fifteen. I clasped my hands together as my body froze from the inside out.

  I don't want to do this. I don't want to relive this! Can I really trust him with this story? I took a deep breath and swallowed the football-sized lump in my throat. I knew I had to share if I wanted the same honesty from Blake. And I needed that honesty if we were going to figure out what had really happened that night at the cabin.

  Opening my mouth, I closed my eyes and waited for the words to form. My heart felt like lead as I whispered, "Three years ago I had...an abortion."

  Oh God, I'd said the words aloud. Pain wrapped around my heart and squeezed.

  I waited for him to say something, but he was silent.

  I went on. "I was fifteen, far too young to be a mom, and so scared. My boyfriend at the time had broken up with me a week before I found out and he'd turned...nasty. So I didn't tell him. I couldn't tell my parents because they would have been angry and so disappointed. I didn't want them to hate me. I had no idea who to turn to or where I could go. I was drowning and didn't know what to do. Every night, I cried myself to sleep after praying for help. But no one could help me--or at least, that's how I felt at the time. I'd never been so terrified before and I haven't since, not even finding Courtney and Josh. I was alone and didn't feel like I had any options at all, so I didn't tell anyone."

  The fabric of the seat rubbed loudly on Blake's jeans as he turned suddenly in my direction. "Mackenzie, you went through that by yourself?" he asked gently.

  I struggled to take a breath and blinked away the sting behind my eyes. You can do this. "I-I booked an appointment at the clinic. I didn't allow myself to think about it too much. I pretended I was going for a routine test." My hands shook as I was catapulted back to that day. I could still smell the cleanliness of the clinic and the feel the fear burning in my stomach. "When I took that pill, I pretended it was aspirin. When I felt the pains, I pretended they were from my period. The second I did it, I hated myself. I still do. It was the biggest mistake of my life," I whispered. "And Josh was the only other person who knew."

  Chapter Fourteen

  Blake reached across the seat, taking my hand in his own. I gulped back a sob at the comfort I felt from his kind gesture.

  "Josh knew? How?" he asked.

  I bit my lip as a scorching tear burned its way down my cheek. Thinking about it never got easier. "Josh saw me leaving the clinic. He was going to his after-school job at your uncle's office next door. I was a mess. I couldn't believe what I'd just done. It didn't take him long to work out what'd happened." My throat, chest, and heart were on fire.

  "What did he do, Kenz?"

  I pulled my legs up, wrapping my arms around them in a bid to protect myself from the conversation. "He blackmailed me," I replied. "It was nothing serious, really, mostly things like making me step out of his way when he wanted to get with Courtney, making me pick him up in the middle of the night when he needed a ride, give him money, false references for new after-school jobs he wanted, getting me and my friends to agree to go on trips he knew I wouldn't ever want to go on because we didn't like him."

  "Bastard," Blake muttered, clenching his jaw and grinding his teeth.

  "Every time I tried to convince Courtney that Josh was an arsehole, I pictured his face--that half smirk and one raised eyebrow, telling me he knew something I didn't want getting out." I took a deep breath. "I wanted Courtney to be free of him, but I couldn't let anyone know what I'd done. I hate myself for what I did, and I hate everything I did to keep it a secret."

  "Why have you still not told your parents?"

  Blinking rapidly, I looked up to stop fresh tears from falling. "Because I'm ashamed and because it's my biggest regret. I was such a mess inside, Blake. Dating Danny messed me up and just about broke me. I had no self-esteem or self-respect. He cheated constantly, and I never broke it off and never told a soul. My parents would be so disappointed in me for having sex so young, for being irresponsible, and for the abortion. I would do anything to go back in time and change what happened."

  Blake squeezed my hand again. He looked so out of his depth, but the fact that he was trying to comfort and support me meant the world. "Please don't beat yourself up. You were young, Mackenzie."

  "So? I was old enough to have sex. I was old enough to deal with the consequences." Well, I wasn't, but I'd made choices, despite knowing deep down I should have been making other decisions. "I just wish I had thought it through before I made a snap decision. Now I have to live with it."

  "I'm sorry that you had to go through that alone."

  "I make such a big deal out of everyone else not keeping secrets when mine is so..." I shook my head and pressed my forehead to my knees.

  "I put a man in the hospital," he said.

  I looked up through my eyelashes. "What?"

  "When I was sixteen, I was a bit of a fighter. Actually, I lived for it."

  "Why?"

  "I was angry," Blake said.

  "About?"

  He smirked. "Man, you're nosy."

  I turned my body to face his. "Hey, I told you my biggest, deepest regret that no one else knows. Your turn, remember?" He reached up and wiped a small tear from under my eye, and I stopped breathing for a second. "What happened, Blake?"

  "I don't have a good relationship with my mum, which you know already." I nodded. "I was angry with her for not caring enough, and angry at her for loving Josh more. She couldn't handle us both on her own, so she picked the golden boy. My dad worked a lot, so I was alone most of the time. I didn't have many friends--not real friends, anyway. A group of us would hang out on the street, drink, and get into fights."

  "Wow, drinking and fighting on the street. And you questioned our class for drinking in a park."

  A ghost of a smile pulled at the corners of his lips. "I never said what I did was classy. It was stupid. I was stupid. There was this guy mouthing off one night and I lost it. I can't even remember what he said. Anyway, I went too far, and when I was pulled off him, I realized why everyone was shouting so much. He was lying so still. There was a lot of blood." He stopped and frowned, remembering. "That was the last fight I got in."

  "Whoa." I blinked, shaking my head to absorb what he'd told me. At least he'd told me the truth, almost, about his Mum not wanting him. "You we
re an angry kid, but I understand why you were like that."

  He took a deep breath and tried to make light of the matter. "All right, no more psychoanalyzing me."

  "I imagine Wright was having a field day with that information."

  "You could say that. Although fighting and premeditated murder are two completely different things, I think I just got bumped to the top of his suspect list."

  "I wouldn't go that far, Mr. Harper." We both jumped at the sound of Wright's voice. My heart skipped a beat and the hairs on my neck prickled. I spun around and saw him leaning against the car beside Blake's. He was standing level with the back windows, just beyond where we could have seen him while talking. Both our windows were open because it was scorching out. He'd heard everything. "But, Mackenzie, I think maybe we should have another little chat."

  Wright turned on his heel and walked back toward the station, so confident that we would follow.

  My stomach bottomed out. "Oh God, Blake!"

  "It's OK. It'll be fine."

  "But he's going to think I killed Josh for blackmailing me." I'm going to be sick.

  "He already thinks that." Blake snorted and then grinned. "Mackenzie, anyone can see you're not a cold-blooded killer. You're too puny for one. You can barely open my car door."

  "Shut up. It's stiff!" I shoved the door open--which was easy from the inside--and got out. Blake followed me, laughing to himself. How could he be calm when I was so sure Wright was going to arrest me the second I walked into the building?

  I heard my pulse throbbing in my ears as I stepped into the all-too-familiar police station. Wright smiled and clicked his tongue. "Mackenzie, follow me." Blake's fingers brushed my arm, and he motioned toward the door with his head. Of course, he was going to split. Was it always the way? You always had to do the hard stuff on your own.

  "Would you like me to call your parents?" Wright asked.

  "No thank you," I replied a little too dryly.

  I sat down in the small, boring, magnolia-colored interrogation room. A black desk separated me from Wright. He closed the door and sat down. Leaning on the table he said, "You know the drill," and nodded to the tape recorder, which he flicked on, giving the date and my name. "So tell me about Joshua Harper blackmailing you."

  "It wasn't blackmail really. Josh never made me do anything truly terrible. I just wasn't allowed to tell Courtney what he was really like."

  The detective's bushy brow arched. "Which was?"

  "I've told you this before."

  He shrugged. "Humor me."

  I sighed. Telling him what I had told Blake in his car seemed like a bad idea, but I had no doubt that I had to repeat it. "Josh was selfish and thought everyone owed him something. I knew he would try to control Courtney. He did control her. She could have done better than him."

  "But Josh didn't allow you to voice your true opinion about their relationship?"

  "Well...no. He didn't." I bowed my head. "In the end, I told Courtney that if she liked him, he couldn't be that bad. I told her it was her choice if she wanted to date him. I didn't want her to get into a relationship with him, but I didn't want anyone to know that I'd had an...abortion."

  "And that's why you killed him?"

  I gasped and sat up straight. "No! I swear I didn't do it."

  "Josh was the only one who knew. He was the only one who could reveal your secret. With him out of your way, no one would ever know. His death has solved your problem, hasn't it?" Detective Wright pressed.

  "I didn't kill him! And if I had, why would I kill Courtney? She was my best friend! I would never kill anyone over a secret. You have to believe me!"

  "Here's what I think happened," Wright said and paused for a second to see if I was going to challenge him. There wasn't much point in that. "I think there was an altercation between you and Joshua and you lost control. Courtney witnessed it, and to silence her, you stabbed her too."

  "No, that's not what happened! I didn't do it." I knew I should remain calm, but that was practically impossible when someone was accusing you of something you didn't do.

  "Where were you yesterday at around eight at night?"

  "At home."

  "Was anyone else there?"

  "Blake was at my house until about half ten, and my parents were in all evening. I didn't hurt Pete."

  He held his hands up and smiled. "Just asking." He paused. "So Blake was with you all last evening?"

  "Yeah."

  "The whole time?"

  "Yeah. Well..."

  Wright raised his eyebrow and leaned forward. "Well?"

  "I mean he was in my house the whole time, but I wasn't with him for all of it." Wright stayed silent, waiting. "I went downstairs to help make dinner with my mum and Blake stayed in my room. But he was asleep and didn't leave the house."

  "How can you be sure of that?"

  "He would have had to walk past the kitchen to get out the front door, so I would have seen him."

  "Back door?"

  "The French doors off the living room," I clarified. "My dad was watching black-and-white films all night. He would have seen Blake, and there's no way he would let a boy leave the house without talking to him first."

  "So there was no chance he could have snuck out and back in again?"

  "No," I replied.

  "Did you leave the house?"

  "No."

  Wright smiled, and I thought he was going dig further, but he didn't. "Let me run through what I think happened at the cabin once more, shall I?" It wasn't a question, and I didn't have any other choice but to listen.

  "I think you killed Josh because he was threatening to expose your secret. Courtney witnessed the attack, which meant you had to kill her too. Peter Sheffield somehow--I haven't quite worked that part out yet, but I will--found out what you'd done, so you tried to kill him too."

  "No. It's not true. I bet you said the same thing to Blake, but that doesn't mean he did it either."

  He smiled tightly, narrowing his eyes. "Sure, but Blake's motive was different."

  I blinked, shocked. Was the detective admitting he'd accused Blake in the same way? He made my head spin. I couldn't figure him out. Whatever I thought Wright would do or how he would react, he always did something completely different. It was like it was a game to him.

  "You're free to go now, Miss Keaton."

  I was free to go. I didn't stay to talk to him about Lawrence--it would look like I was clutching at straws after Wright had revealed his theory, so I had no choice but to keep my suspicions to myself for now. I stood up and left the room, refusing to allow Wright to know he was getting to me.

  I walked quickly through the station and out the door. I was in such a bad mood I could have punched something.

  "Hey."

  My heart soared at the sound of Blake's voice. He stayed! He leaned against the brick wall, one leg slung over the other as if he didn't have a care in the world.

  "What are you still doing here? Were you waiting for me?"

  "Don't get too excited," he replied.

  Too late for that. It seemed like every damn thing about him excited me. You need help. "Wasn't going to," I replied nonchalantly.

  "Wanna go for a drive and talk? I'll bring you back to your car later," he said.

  The muscles around my mouth ached as I tried not to smile like a fool. "Sure."

  Chapter Fifteen

  I fiddled with my fingers as we sat silently in Blake's bedroom.

  "Who do you think killed them?" Blake asked, staring up at the ceiling. Neither of us had said a word since we'd arrived twenty minutes ago. It hadn't taken me long to calm down. Although Blake couldn't find the words to comfort me, he'd had no trouble letting his actions do the talking.

  I shrugged. That was a question I asked myself about a thousand times an hour, and the answer never changed. I don't know. "I don't want it to be any of them."

  "You'd prefer it to be me," he whispered, his hand freezing on my knee where he'd been making s
mall circles since we'd sat down.

  "No," I replied. I should've seen that coming. I hated that he felt like an outsider with everyone. As far as I was concerned, he was stuck with us. He was part of our group now. "I should probably want that, but I don't."

  He pushed himself up on his elbows and raised an eyebrow. "Of course you do."

  "I don't. Honestly. I don't want the killer to be anyone I know. There has to be another explanation."

  "But there isn't, is there? We both know Lawrence was pretty pissed off, but it's not him."

  Deep down I knew that, but I couldn't admit it aloud and make it real. "Eventually you're going to have to accept that one of your friends is a killer."

  "Who do you think it is?" I asked. He had said Kyle a couple of times before, but Blake's reasons were ridiculous. I think his suspicions had more to do with the fact that they'd got along the least that night.

  "I don't know." He flopped back on the mattress. "No one's saying much. I still think Kyle, but I'm not ruling the other two out just yet."

  They have said much, just not to you. I had learned things about my friends recently that had shocked me. Everyone had a reason for wanting to hurt Josh and Courtney. Should I tell Blake and see if he could figure it out from what I knew? He wasn't as close as I was to the others, so perhaps there was something blindingly obvious that I was missing.

  "Blake," I said slowly, still mentally debating whether I should say anything or not. Bad idea, Mackenzie.

  "Yeah?"

  I couldn't stop myself. "There are some things about Megan and Kyle you don't know." I was officially the biggest bitch on the planet.

  His expression didn't change. "What things?"

  "They had motives," I whispered.

  The air turned so thick I thought I was going to choke. I kept forgetting that Blake wasn't just around to help me out; he was a "person of interest" too and Josh's brother. "Go on..."

  Why had I ever thought it was a good idea to tell him? Of course he was going to think their secrets made them guilty. He wanted someone to pay for Josh's death and already thought one of them had blood on their hands.

  Not only was I a horrible friend, but I was an idiot too.

  But I'd gone and told him they had motives, so I couldn't backtrack without him getting suspicious and thinking the worst--of me. He'd probably think I was trying to cover my tracks.

  "Josh blackmailed me. You resented him," I said, making it clear we each had motives and he couldn't just jump into blaming the others. "Megan spiked Gigi's drink, which forced Courtney to drive the night of the crash that killed Gigi and Tilly, and Kyle was having an affair with Courtney." The words left a bitter taste on my tongue.