Elliot’s phone is a thumb lock. It makes what I have to do next very easy.
I reach out, and grab his cold, heavy hand.
“No!” Erin yelps, and she reaches for the phone, but it is too late. I am in.
SOS, I read, feeling fury begin to kindle inside me, making my cheeks hot. Please send help. IT’S LIZ.
I stare up at Erin, looking her right in the eye, feeling my jaw fall open with shocked betrayal.
That bitch. That total bitch.
ERIN
Snoop ID: LITTLEMY
Listening to: Offline
Snoopers: 5
Snoopscribers: 10
I see Liz’s face change as she reads it and I know, instantly, there is no way of explaining my way out of this.
Her face goes white, and she stays very, very still, but I don’t think it’s fear that’s paralyzing her. I think… I think it might be something else. I think it might be anger.
“You don’t understand,” I say weakly, but my voice is croaky, and I know there is no point in this. I don’t know how I ever thought that text was ambiguous. Seeing Liz’s face, I understand now, there is only one way for her to take it.
“You know,” she says, and her voice is horribly calm. I want her to scream and shout—anything would be better than this icy chill.
But there’s a kind of relief with her words, because now I can stop pretending. I can stop this horrible dance of Does she know I know she knows, and just face up to the truth.
“Yes, I know,” I say quietly. And then I take a step backwards, and I sink down on Elliot’s bed and put my face in my hands. Partly because my ankle is killing me, and the pain is starting to make me feel sick, and partly because my legs are shaking so hard I can’t keep upright anymore.
She stands there, looking down at me, her face blank and unreadable behind those huge glasses. The light from Elliot’s phone gives her face an eerie, up-lit glow. Behind her Elliot, the man she killed, lies sprawled across his desk—a terrifyingly immediate reminder of what she has done to protect her secret. The secret I now have. Oh God, what have I done? Danny, where are you?
“God, he stinks,” she says at last, wrinkling up her face. She cracks her knuckles, click, click, click, but it no longer sounds nervy. It sounds like someone limbering up for a fight. “Let’s get out of here. Come downstairs and we can talk this through.”
As if in a dream—or maybe a nightmare—I follow her out of the room. She holds the phone out in front of her like a candle, illuminating the corridor, and when we get to the top of the stairs she says, “After you.”
I hesitate.
I don’t want to make her angry—but at the same time, there is no way I am going down that slippery, precarious staircase with her at my back. I’m just not.
Liz sees my hesitation and gives a mirthless laugh.
“Okay, I don’t blame you. I’ll go first. But you keep a step back, okay? I’m not having you pushing me down the steps either.”
I nod. I don’t mind keeping my distance. It would be almost as easy for her to snatch my ankle out from underneath me as it would be for me to kick her in the small of the back.
God, this is surreal.
I watch her as she makes her way carefully down the stairs, holding the handrail, the phone guiding the way like a faint will-o’-the-wisp.
Downstairs, she moves away from the foot of the stairs and feeds another log into the burner, making it flare so that the room is bright with its glow, and I hurry down while her back is turned, my heart beating quicker until I am on solid ground. Then she straightens up and shuts the glass door of the stove.
I am alone with a murderer. I am alone with a murderer. Maybe if I keep repeating the words to myself it will start to feel real?
LIZ
Snoop ID: ANON101
Listening to: Offline
Snoopers: 0
Snoopscribers: 1
In a way, it is a relief to have it out in the open. I could tell there was something wrong, and I have always hated trying to read between the lines, second-guessing myself, attempting to parse a frown or a blank look or a pause that might be something or might be nothing.
Now we both know where we are. Which is a relief. But it is also a problem. Because I liked Erin. No, that’s wrong.