The truth? What are you talking about? Do you know something?
From: [email protected]
I know something that will bury him.
Now I remember where I’ve heard that name before. It was on the Post-it stuck inside Zach’s notebook—the one dedicated to Greer. He was going to meet up with her after the retreat. Was he the one who tipped her off about where the retreat was being held? Were the two of them collaborating on the book?
I reread that last message.Bury him. Does that mean she knows something that will ensure Tom Woods’s execution moves forward as planned? If there’s one thing Greer’s always been clear about, it’s how much she loves her father. If Steffani and Zach came up here, claiming to have information that could get him killed, how might she have reacted?
At first I think thethud-thud-thudis the sound of my heart walloping against my rib cage, but as it grows louder, I realize it’s not coming from inside my chest. Footsteps. The padlock on the door rattles. I reach for the broken statue.
The padlock clinks, and I scramble behind the door. The chain pulls loose, link by link, before smacking onto the ground. My fingers tighten around the statue. The door creaks open. “Nic?” Greer calls, stepping into the shack. Slung over her shoulder is the tool bag, and in her hands…
In her hands is the axe from the front yard.
Oh god, she’s here to kill me.
Greer stashed all the evidence in this shack: the cell phone, the murder weapon. She must be wondering if I’ve found anything. Though if I have, she’s already taken care of two problems on this retreat. What’s one more?
She walks to the center of the room, where the floorboard’s been pulled up, and stares at what’s left of her hiding place.
Go for the head, I tell myself.Just like she did. But as I bring the statue down, something stops me short, and it slams into the back of her shoulder instead. I can’t do it; even if she’s here to kill me, I can’t bringmyself to do the same to her. She stumbles forward, her sneaker disappearing between the planks, and collapses to the floor. The axe pitches out of her hands, clattering into a corner. A frustrated whine escapes her throat as she struggles to free herself. Her eyes go wide, like those of an animal caught in a trap, when she notices the statue in my grasp.
“Stop!” she shouts, moving her hands to block any imminent attacks. “I’m here to rescue you!”
Oh, fuck that. “You came to rescue mewith an axe?”
“If you haven’t noticed, there’s a murderer on the loose. I wasn’t about to go wandering through the woods unarmed.” She peeks out from between her splayed fingers. “I don’t think you killed Zach. But you lied to me, and I just… If you lied about Claire, I don’t know what else you might be lying about.”
I drop the statue to my side. “I never lied to you about Claire.”
“You said she was your girlfriend.”
“She was.”
“But she had a boyfriend.”
“… Yes.”
“You can see how that looks bad, right?”
“Thatlooks bad?” I lay the statue on the floor, take out the phone, and pull up the email exchange between Steffani and NBC. “Look.” I thrust the screen toward her. “Steffani was going to spill some deep, dark secret about your father and ruin his hearing. I’m willing to bet you would’ve done anything to stop that—including murder.”
Greer looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. “You think I murdered Steffani.”
I nod.
“Fuck me.” She tugs harder on her foot, and a loud rip fills the shack. Her sneaker reappears as she yanks herself free. “I didn’t murder Steffani.That”—she gestures toward the mainland—“wasn’t even Steffani. Her name’s Audrey Banerjee.”
My jaw drops. “Wait, you knew? For how long?”
“Since she showed up.”
“How?”
She rubs the sore spot on her ankle. Finally, she says, “I’ve never told anyone about this.”
