Pretty as a Picture

by Elizabeth Little

  Isaiah considers this. “You could take it out by boat?”

  “In that case, why not dump it in the ocean?”

  “Maybe the killer wanted her to be found.”

  “Why would you want a body to be found? For attention?”

  “If you want attention so badly you’d kill for it, would you stop at one girl?”

  “It’s not a serial killer, cause of death doesn’t fit. I mean, Jack the Ripper. The Boston Strangler. Hannibal the Cannibal.”

  “‘Blunt Force Trauma Frank’ doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.”

  “Maybe he was just trying to send a message?” I suggest. “Maybe Caitlyn was caught up in something—drugs or prostitution. Or maybe her father—”

  “We should get out of here,” he says, abruptly. “You look like Baby Jessica after they pulled her out of the well.” He swings his legs around and slips into the water with more grace than I would have expected. Like Esther Williams in a water ballet—if Esther Williams could deadlift a Camry.

  “Something funny?”

  “I’m just picturing you in a swimsuit.”

  His eyebrows jump up.

  “No, not like that,” I rush to explain. “A woman’s suit.”

  “Oh, well, in that case.”

  I cover my face. “Also not what I meant.”

  “Marissa.”

  I peek through my fingers. He’s holding out his hand—again.

  It’s getting a little too easy to take it.

  He cups his other hand under my elbow and guides me toward the passageway as I do my best doggy paddle.

  “Almost there,” he says.

  “I’m not going to freak out,” I say, surprised to discover I mean it.

  We reach the entrance to the passageway, and I rest my forearm on the ledge, ready to push myself up and put this whole thing behind me, when—

  What—the hell—is that?

  —my toe grazes something I’m absolutely certain is not supposed to be there.

  I snatch my foot back, nearly kneeing Isaiah in the stomach, but he catches my leg just in time.

  “There’s something under there,” I manage.

  Before I have a chance to object, Isaiah’s hands wrap around my ribs. He tosses me up onto the ledge like I’m a sack of produce and disappears back under the water. I land awkwardly, on my hip, and I’m still smarting when his head and shoulders reemerge, his arms weighed down by some object he’s apparently decided to drag up to the surface. I catch my breath.

  Isaiah’s neck tenses, and I can tell he’s about to pull whatever it is out of the water—

  My vision goes white around the edges.

  Please don’t let it be another body.

  A metallic clang echoes through the cavern. I look down.

  It’s the stolen computer.

  I blink the water out of my eyes. “Huh. So last night when I thought I heard someone—”

  He tugs me to my feet before I can finish the thought. “Take me to whoever told you about this place.”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Oh, it’s you.” Gavin leans his elbow against the doorframe, a greasy hank of hair falling over one eye.

  “Were you expecting someone else?” I ask.

  “There’s a cat—I don’t know if you’ve met her—but I made the mistake of feeding her one night, and she’s been coming to my door ever since.” He blinks; a frown puckers at his chin. “I thought we weren’t allowed to leave our rooms. Does this mean they’ve found him?”

  Next to me, Isaiah shakes his head. “No, not yet.”

  “Christ, what a fiasco.” Gavin turns and walks into his room, leaving the door open. “Well, come on in before someone catches you.”

  We follow him into a room that looks exactly like mine except it’s three times larger and has six times as many throw pillows. Gavin waves us over to the small seating area in front of the French doors and crosses the room to the minibar.

  I sit down and squeeze the last of the water out of my ponytail. We stashed the computer in Isaiah’s room and changed before coming here, but I was so focused on rebandaging my arm and knees, I forgot about the more socially relevant parts of my appearance. It didn’t occur to me to do something with my hair.

  Now the back of my shirt is soaked through and—I cast my gaze to the ceiling—yes, of course, I’m sitting directly under an air-conditioning vent.

  Gavin returns a moment later, a martini glass in each hand.

  “I don’t drink,” I say.

  “Please. They’re for me.”

  He sets the first glass down carelessly, half the cocktail sloshing across the table. He lifts the second glass to his lips. He swallows, shudders—coughs.

  “Gilbey’s,” he explains when his eyes have stopped watering. “I tried to bribe the policemen to bring me a bottle of Tanqueray, but apparently they have more important things to be doing.” He takes another sip—a much smaller one. “I never would have expected you to be out and about. Maybe I should have tried bribing you instead.”

  “Yes, well—”

  He smiles, showing teeth. “Why are you here?”

  “I would also like to know the answer to that question,” Isaiah says, his voice a low rumble.

  How do I explain this in a way that doesn’t implicate Billy? Gavin and I might be willing to give Billy the benefit of the doubt, but Isaiah has no reason to do so. I have to make sure he has the right context. Otherwise he’ll hear that Billy knew about the cave and immediately conclude that he was killer.

  I wipe my hands on my jeans and turn to Gavin. “I was hoping you could talk to Isaiah a little bit about how you’ve been preparing for your role.”

  Gavin sets the cocktail aside. He leans back in his chair, clasping his hands over his stomach. He draws a deep breath. “Well, it all started when I studied at the Actor’s Studio—”

  “No,” I say, sharply. “I mean tell him about your time with Billy Lyle. What you know about him. What he’s like.”

  He cuts his eyes to Isaiah. “Over the past two months, I’ve spent a great deal of time with Billy Lyle. We’d meet every few days so I could work on my characterization—physicality, mannerisms, that type of thing. Just sitting with him, mostly—he doesn’t talk much, I don’t know if you were with him long enough to notice that. And while he may not be the most stimulating company—I can’t say he’ll be making the guest list for one of my dinner parties any time soon—he never once gave me the impression he was remotely capable of malice. Granted, I may not have studied forensics or medicine or psychology, but I like to think I know a thing or two about human behavior—and I don’t believe Billy Lyle is capable of killing anyone.”

  Isaiah’s frowning. “But what does this have to do with—”

  I hold up my hand, keeping my gaze on Gavin. “Then why’d you take the part?”

  His hesitation is so brief—infinitesimal, really. If I hadn’t seen it a thousand times before, I would think it was just the natural rhythm of his speech.

  “What do you mean?” he asks.

  “Three of your last five parts have been murderers.”

  “Yes—and?”

  “The other two were rapists.”

  “What’s your point, Marissa?”

  “That you even took the part is probably enough to convince people he’s guilty.”

  Gavin casts his eyes up to the ceiling. “Can’t I play anything but the baddie? I’m sick of it. Christ, even Christopher Lee got to play the hero a time or two.”

  “So why didn’t you pass?”

  “I was going to. When I read the script, it seemed so cliché—‘disturbed young man stalks beautiful young girl.’ But then they told me Tony was going to be directing it, and I thought, well, if it’s worth Tony’s time, then perhaps there’s something to it.”
>
  I try to maintain a neutral expression, but I’m not quite fast enough: Gavin catches it.

  “You thought the same thing, too,” he guesses.

  I nod. “I signed on without even seeing a script.”

  Isaiah looks between the two of us but doesn’t say anything.

  “Things changed when I met Billy,” Gavin says, leaning forward, resting his forearms on his knees. “I just thought—I don’t know, that I could save him. God, that sounds arrogant now, doesn’t it? But I honestly believed that even if he wouldn’t tell me what happened that night, even if I couldn’t outright prove his innocence, maybe I could still perform him in such a way that I could change some people’s minds. Make his life a little easier.” He looks down at his hands. “You know his boat is still vandalized at least twice a year? Last winter someone stuffed a half dozen dead rats inside his ceiling. He didn’t know they were there until maggots started pouring out of the light fixtures.”

  “That’s all very noble,” Isaiah allows. “But do you have any actual evidence of his innocence?”

  Gavin sighs and reaches for his glass. “Well, that’s the problem, isn’t it? There’s just not much evidence on either side. It’s intuition vs. intuition, which means Billy’s at a disadvantage, because when people look at him, they just think he’s—”

  “Wrong?” I say.

  “No—not quite. If that were the case, they’d want to keep him around just so they could feel smug about it. That’s not it.”

  I blink. “Then why don’t they like him?”

  “Because he doesn’t hide what’s hard for him, and they take that personally. He makes them feel wrong. The tragedy is that he’s desperate for a connection. Billy is both incredibly lonely and incredibly solitary, and everything that’s gone poorly with his life is probably the result of a failed attempt to reconcile those two things.” He peers into his glass. “God, what I’d do for a smoke.”

  I fall back against the chair, stricken.

  “Last night you said you saw Billy just before the murder,” Isaiah says.

  “That’s right. Normally we don’t meet twice in one day, but I’d contacted him earlier because I wanted to tell him I was quitting. I had to do it in person—I couldn’t have him thinking I was abandoning the cause. Or him.”

  “And where was this again?” Isaiah asks.

  “The usual place—”

  I try to sit up—I try to say something. I try to stop him.

  Context. He needs context.

  But my body’s forgotten how to move.

  “There’s a cave just down by the beach,” Gavin goes on, blithely. “It’s the only place we could both manage to get to without anyone seeing.”

  Isaiah shoots a glance in my direction. “Did anyone else know about that cave?”

  “Oh, sure, it’s no secret,” he says. “Marissa was there with us just yesterday.”

  * * *

  —

  “Please don’t get mad. I wasn’t going to keep this from you. That’s why I brought you to Gavin! To tell you about the cave!”

  Isaiah glances back at me only briefly as he strides down the hallway. “Not here, Marissa.”

  “But your face is doing that thing,” I say, already out of breath—how are Isaiah’s legs so damn long? “I just want a chance to explain.”

  He stops; I promptly collide with his back. At the other end of the hall, two police officers are shining flashlights through the window of the hotel’s twenty-four-hour gym. Isaiah grabs my elbow and steers me through the door immediately to our right, pushing me in ahead of him.

  On the other side is the wine cellar—but it’s not a very good one. All the bottles are arranged in carefully color-coordinated tableaux atop elegantly aged oak barrels. There’s no sense of organization or any sign of labeling system. You couldn’t find anything in here.

  “Isaiah—”

  He holds up a finger and proceeds to conduct a swift search of the room, ducking down behind each set of bottles, checking for—I don’t know. Police. Murderers. Cats.

  When he’s finished, he turns and looks at me, fifty feet of rustic wood flooring separating us. “Why didn’t you tell me about Billy?”

  “I did,” I say. “You know everything I know.”

  “You’re protecting him. That’s information I could have used.”

  “If I’m protecting him, it’s only because I think that maybe everyone’s a little too quick to judge him. I mean, you say a name in low spooky tones often enough and eventually people are going to start thinking that person must be spooky. But Isaiah—it doesn’t make any sense. Honestly, there’s only one person I can think of who’s less likely to have killed Liza.”

  “And who’s that?”

  “Tony. He would never kill his lead actress, it would jeopardize the project.” I pause. “Although, he could always turn it into a documentary. That might actually make more money than a feature, especially now that someone else has died.”

  Isaiah squints at my face, and whatever he sees makes him laugh in a way I haven’t heard before, a sound that’s more like spitting up than spilling over.

  It’s awful. And for the first time it occurs to me to wonder how we look to him, to someone who has shouldered the weight of life and death. How silly we must seem—the wigs, the gossip, the special effects. We’re all playing make-believe while he’s busy in the real world, out there making a difference, risking his life and his team because he believes in truth and justice and kicking ass, and there’s a counterargument here, I know there is. I know that what we do matters, too—somehow. But all I can think right now is that I once spent three months cutting a live-action feature about an ostrich who moves to New York City because she dreams of making it as a Rockette.

  It’s very possible that we’re all terrible people.

  I pick up the first wine bottle I see and pretend to examine it. Something safe for my hands to do. For my face to do.

  “That came out wrong,” I say. Meaning, I suppose, that it came out easy.

  “Marissa.”

  My shoulders tense. I hate when people say my name like that.

  I turn my face to the side, peering at Isaiah through the half gloom. It’s not that I want to look at him. I just know this is a thing people do when they need to make clear they’re saying something they really mean: You reorient your body toward the listener, you flatten your lips into a solemn line, you take a beat.

  “I’m just trying to think about this logically,” I say.

  “But you’re not. You’re trying to think about this creatively.” He runs his hand over the back of his neck. “Marissa, I’m sorry, you’re kind and interesting and fun to talk to, but you are just the worst at this. You may be great at coming up with wild ideas, at shoehorning plot points into the most entertaining narrative possible, but real life—it’s just not that much fun.”

  “I think you’re overstating things slightly.”

  “I bet you could come up with a perfectly plausible argument—right now—in favor of any one of us being the killer.”

  I draw back, stung. “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Oh yeah?” He settles his shoulder against one of the rough-hewn wooden posts that line the length of the room. “So there’s no way that—say—Grace and Suzy could’ve done it.”

  I don’t know what my face does in that moment, but I know it does something. Maybe I flinch, maybe I wince, maybe my eyes go a little dreamy, just for a second, as I consider the possibilities. Whatever it is, I can tell from Isaiah’s vaguely pitying expression that I’ve given myself away.

  My shoulders slump. “Well, of course they could have done it. They think Billy Lyle’s innocent. Killing Liza could have been their way to get someone to take them seriously, to look into it for real. Alternatively, maybe they arranged for this to happen because the
y expected that Billy would have an alibi, which they hoped would absolve him of both murders.”

  “There are easier ways to go about making a point,” Isaiah says.

  “They’re children.”

  “You can’t have it both ways. Either they’re clever, or they’re not.”

  I smile, just a little. “Amy always says, ‘Shit creek’s littered with the bodies of people who think they’re smarter than the rest of us.’”

  His gaze meets mine. “You don’t say.”

  My hands have twisted themselves so tightly in the fabric of my shirt that the tips of my fingers are starting to go numb, but I need more than that, so I give in to the urge to pace the length of the room, setting my feet carefully to avoid the grout lines between the meticulously laid stone tiles, picking out a pattern as I go—circle-circle-square, circle-circle-square.

  “What are you doing?” Isaiah asks.

  I keep my eyes on the tiles. “In the business, we call this the dark moment.”

  Circle-circle-square, circle-circle-square.

  Everything he just said was true. I’ve trained myself to look for the best story, the most interesting story, the most compelling story—it’s what I do, every day. With my work. With my life. Of course I’d look at a photo or a phone or a pile of Post-its and see something sinister and shocking, something only I, with my hard-earned perspective and expertise, could recognize. Because that’s actually my favorite story, isn’t it? That I’m special, that I see things no one else can, that I have something valuable to offer the world.

  Circle-circle-square, circle-circle-square.

  But the truth is, the only useful thing I’ve done since coming to this island was falling in the fucking ocean.

  My legs go still, but my hands keep moving. Opening, closing, opening, closing.

  Two young women are dead, killed in what appears to be the same way. Whoever killed Liza was probably obsessed with Caitlyn. Whoever killed Caitlyn was definitely obsessed with Caitlyn. By all accounts, there’s one man who fits that particular bill.