Every Vow You Break(66)
Alec held a jagged rock in his hand and was slowly battering Jill with it. Or maybe he wasn’t doing it slowly, but it looked that way, his arm raising and lowering while the world froze around him.
Everyone was silent; there was just the sound of the rock thunking into the side of Jill’s head, as he propped it with his other hand.
Then he untangled his hand from her hair and brought the rock down in a long sweeping motion, hitting her on the jaw and knocking her off the chair and onto the ground. He dropped to a knee and hit her three more times with the rock, bringing it down harder each time. No one moved, but even if someone had, it would have been too late. The final strike had produced a sickening crack, and one of Jill’s legs was spasming.
Porter came around the fire and grabbed Alec from behind, lifting him up and away from Jill. All the men followed, forming a semicircle around Jill’s body. Her leg had stopped twitching, but Abigail got a clear look at her destroyed head in the light from the fire.
“Jesus,” Chip said, his voice with a hint of actual fear in it.
Bruce was staring down, a hand over his mouth. The pilot pushed his mask off his head and it fell to the ground beside Jill.
Abigail stood up on weak legs. She thought everyone would look at her, but they didn’t.
A voice in her head said:
Run.
You’re a witness, and you need to run.
Chip grabbed Alec’s face and held it. “What the fuck, Alec?
What did you do?”
Run.
Abigail took two steps away from the chair. The men were only looking at one another.
They have to kill you now, she thought. Whatever chance you thought you had that they’d let you off this island is now gone.
You’re a witness to a murder.
Run.
But instead of running, she simply walked, putting one foot in front of the other, down the path that led out of the woods. She turned a corner, the path now dark because the fire was obscured by trees, then began to run, tripping on a root but managing to stay upright, her toe zinging with pain. The building that housed the pool and spa loomed suddenly in her vision on her right, its structure visible in the moonlight. She slowed a little; she hadn’t thought this far ahead, did not know immediately in what direction she should go. What exactly was she doing? Should she try to find someone—a staff member—and tell them what had happened?
No, she told herself. Even if some of the staff didn’t know what went on in the woods late at night, that didn’t mean they would suddenly take her side. Very rich men owned this place and did what they wanted on it. She needed to get off the island. It was her only chance.
She stopped completely for a moment. For right now she needed to hide, to get somewhere where they wouldn’t find her.
And then she could figure out what to do next.
Should she run into the deep woods down near where the bunks ended? Or toward the pond and around it to where the old girls’ camp was? Or should she double back around the lodge, try to hide in the building with the swimming pool, or in the lodge itself?
She ran across the front of the lodge, wondering if it was empty, if everyone on the island who hadn’t been to the ceremony was asleep in their beds. She was still wearing her Fitbit and checked the time. It was just past one in the morning. She thought she heard a voice behind her but didn’t dare look back, and when she got to the lodge’s farthermost side she cut right, deciding that doubling back was the best option. It would keep her away from the open lawn where they could see her, and maybe the move was unexpected enough that she’d get away with it.
She was also already winded, her lungs burning and her limbs weak. At the back of the main lodge she stopped for a moment, listening to the night and not hearing anything. Deciding to take the risk, she moved quietly up the back wooden steps and tried the rear door of the lodge. It swung open and she stepped inside into the dark.
CHAPTER 28
She stood as still as possible at the side of the lodge’s great hall. It was dark, except for a light from the balcony level that cast down, painting the wooden floor with a few yellow bars. Abigail thought that it was a light kept on all the time. At least during the nighttime hours. The lodge was silent, no voices, no sound of movement.
She told herself that if someone entered through the front doors, she could slip quietly back through the hallway she’d come in and make her way down through the tunnel that led to the swimming pool. From there she could exit back out into the night and enter the woods.
But for right now she thought that she was alone in the lodge, and that she might be alone here for a little while. They’ll be looking for me outside, she thought. Scouring the woods. Maybe this was all part of the plan—to kill one woman and let the other escape so that they could hunt her. But Abigail didn’t think so.
She’d watched Alec murder Jill, and she’d watched the reaction of the other men. It was not supposed to have happened. They’d find a way to cover it up, of course, but that meant Abigail was a witness. They would need to find her.
The panic began to rise from her stomach up to her throat, and she told herself to breathe, told herself that she was still alive.
Not only that, but she had done something smart, hadn’t she, by turning around and hiding in the lodge? She’d fooled them, temporarily.
She wondered what to do next. The thought of running exhausted her. Whatever drugs they’d given her were still in her system, weighing her down, making her thoughts fuzzy. Also, as she kept reminding herself, there was nowhere to run to. She was on an island, and she didn’t trust anyone on it. Not the other guests, nor the detective, nor the staff members. Maybe she trusted Mellie, who’d at least tried to warn her, but that didn’t mean Mellie could do anything to help. So maybe the best move was to hunker down and hide, use time to her advantage. If they couldn’t find her they’d panic. Maybe they’d make a mistake. Still, she knew that if she wanted to do that—to go to ground, so to speak— she needed food.