Weekend - By Christopher Pike Page 0,54

question and you will give an immediate response. If I'm satisfied, you'll get a pill. If not, you'll get a bullet through your brain." He pressed the RECORD button on the cassette player. "You're first, Bert.

Where have you been?"

Bert went to wrap a blanket around his soaked, practically nude body, but changed his mind, probably thinking Michael wouldn't let him. He did not appear frightened, more amazed. "I was surfing and then I got lost in the dark," he said. "Are you going to kill me, Flynn Michaels?"

"Start from when you were drinking in the van," Michael said.

"Gotcha. Sol had to go to the bathroom. I dropped the tequila bottle on the garage floor and it broke. I tried to clean it up but I didn't want to cut my hands. Sol was gone a long time. I decided to go surfing again. Am I doing okay?"

"Go on."

"The rip-tide pulled me far away, far out. When I got to shore, I couldn't see the house. Then I guess I started walking the wrong way. My arm got real tired carrying my board. It got dark. I tried walking the other way. It started raining. Finally, I saw the house. I thought it was the house, but it didn't have a garage like the other one. I walked around it a lot of times before knocking on the door. No one came to let me in, and I was cold, so I just came in and found you guys playing with the snakes. What happened to the garage?"

Any other time, Shani would have laughed in joy and relief at Bert's story. But Michael would not have allowed that. Ignoring Bert's question, he pointed the rifle at Park. "Your turn."

"What do you want to know?"

"You insisted that Robin drink the beer. You knew she hated alcohol. What was your motive?"

"I was drunk."

"That's not good enough."

Park sized up the diameter of the barrel, glanced at Angie, and put his hand on Robin's shoulder. "I'm a horny teenager. Angie offered to go swimming naked with me. Then Robin showed up. I thought the beer would put her to sleep and I could slip off with Angie. Skinny-dipping with a girl has always been a fantasy of mine."

In the middle of tying the handkerchief over her sister's cut, Robin stopped. Her hurt was painfully obvious. "Why didn't you swim naked with me?" she asked.

"I didn't think that you would have wanted to."

"I would have. We had a big pool at our house. We - "

Michael interrupted. "Any other confessions, Park?"

Park was angry now. "Yeah, I have something else to tell Robin. But it's none of your business. Shoot if you want; I don't care."

Michael was amused. "Famous last words. You're next, Sol."

Sol was bitter, but more than any of them, he respected a gun. "I've already said my piece."

"So you did. Lucky for you that Bert got out of that garage when he did or you would be up for manslaughter. Carting around that dynamite was pretty irresponsible of you. But you'll end up paying, one way or the other. How about you, Angie? Tell me your piece."

"I didn't poison Robin!"

"Didn't you?" He let the question hang, shifting his gun as Angie shifted anxiously.

"This is crazy," Shani blurted. "What's happened to you, Michael? No one will confess. You'd just kill them."

Michael ignored her. She was not sure that he had even heard her. Except for a slight sneer on his mouth and a thin glaze over his eyes, his face was blank. She was right. This was crazy, for he was.

"You wanted Robin out of the way," he said. "You wanted Park. And it was your house, your poison.

You had the motive and the murder weapon. How convenient."

"I didn't do it!" Angie shouted.

"But you must have done something. Why, just this afternoon, when I caught Shani going through my luggage I saw you through the window throwing a burning stick at a blackbird as it ran into the garage.

That stick must have touched Bert's tequila; it started quite a fire. And what did you do? Did you try to put it out? No, you ran the other way. And then, of course, there was that awful explosion. I didn't say anything at the time because I didn't know about the M80s and I wanted to give you a chance to confess.

But you never did. In fact, you lied. And to tell you the truth, Angie, I think you lie a lot." He hardened his voice.