One by One(46)

As we make our way down the corridor to the staff part of the building, where Danny and I have our private rooms, my mind is racing, ticking through possibilities. But it’s only when we’re safely in my little bedroom, the door closed behind us, that I feel able to voice them.

“What I just said—”

“Eva’s death?” Danny looks troubled, but skeptical. “Yeah, how d’you make that out? Elliot, sure. There’s some kind of hanky-panky there. But Eva? She skied a black run in a fucking blizzard and fell off the edge. It’s a tragedy, but I can’t see how it’s anyone’s fault.”

“Listen,” I say. I’m speaking very low, even though we’re behind two sets of doors. Somehow it feels like I need to get these suspicions out in the open, like it might even be dangerous to keep quiet right now. Because if I’m right, it was Elliot’s silence that killed him. “Listen, we’re missing the important thing here. Whoever killed Elliot—”

“If he was killed,” Danny breaks in.

“If he was killed,” I echo impatiently, brushing his words away like irritating flies. “But the point is if he was killed, whoever killed him didn’t just get rid of him, they got rid of his computer. Why would they do that? It’s really hard work to destroy a hard drive—it takes a while, and they must have risked someone noticing their absence or hearing them do it.”

“So… you’re saying… he was killed for something on his computer?”

“Yes. He was killed for something he knew, but it must have been something he’d figured out from his computer data.”

“Something about Snoop?”

“Maybe. Kind of. Look at the timing. Elliot is coding this geolocation update, whatever they’re calling it. Then he realizes that the information he’s got can lead him to Eva. That much we know. But what if he began to track back from that? What if he was looking at her movements before she died? What if there was something fishy about them, like perhaps she didn’t shoot off the edge, but stopped for a chat with someone, and was pushed?”

“Holy fuck.” Danny’s face is stricken. “You’re saying… someone in that group got rid of Eva and then killed Elliot to cover their tracks?”

“I don’t want to believe it, but… I can’t see what else makes sense.” I feel sick even saying the words. “There is one other possibility, but I don’t know if it’s much better.”

“Which is?”

“Well, Elliot is the only person without any kind of alibi the day Eva died. He was supposed to be here, working on his code, but there’s no corroboration of that. It’s not impossible he had something to do with her death. Maybe… maybe he couldn’t live with that knowledge any longer.”

“You’re saying he topped himself out of guilt??”

“I’m saying it’s a possibility.”

“Okay, yeah, but even supposing he killed Eva to help Topher, then had an attack of conscience, why would he destroy his computer? If he’s dead, why would he care about the evidence?”

I swallow. This is why this possibility isn’t really any more comforting than the others.

“Because whatever was on there, implicates someone else. Someone he’s trying to protect.”

“Flaming Nora.” The words should sound funny, coming in Danny’s deep, matter-of-fact voice. In fact, they’re anything but. Actually I think I want to be sick.

“So you think I’m right?”

“I think…”

I can see Danny’s brain processing furiously, trying to find holes in my logic and failing. He pulls off his bandanna irritably, scrubs his face with it. “Fucking hell. I don’t know. I think you could be, and that’s enough to give me the cold heaves. What do we do? We gotta tell someone, right?”

“Who can we tell? And what could they do even if we did?” I wave a hand at the window, where the vicious wind is whipping the snow past the glass with the scouring force of a sandstorm. No one can go out in that, let alone fly a helicopter. You’d be mad to try.

“FUCK!” Danny bellows it, standing up and running his hands over his short hair like he can cudgel an idea out of his head.

“Shh!” I say frantically. “Be quiet! The others’ll hear.”

“But we have to tell them!” he says. “Don’t we? I mean what’s the alternative, we keep quiet and let some homicidal prick pick them off one by one?”

“We can’t tell them!” My voice is a screaming whisper now. “Are you mad? Tell whoever’s responsible for this that we might be onto them?”

“We can’t not tell them!” Danny takes my arms, and for a minute I think he’s going to shake me, like an actor in an old movie dealing with a hysterical woman, and I feel a desperate urge to laugh in spite of the predicament we’re in, but he doesn’t; he just stares into my face, his dark eyes very wide and as scared as I feel. But somehow seeing my own fear reflected back at myself, the realization that Danny’s as terrified as me, and that we’re in this together, it anchors me. I take a deep, shuddering breath, and Danny says quietly, “Erin, I’m shitting myself as much as you are. But I don’t think I’m going to be able to go down there and act normal, knowing that one of those hipster wankers might be an honest-to-God murderer. Look at me—” He holds out a trembling hand. “I’m shaking like a bloody leaf. Whoever’s done this, they’re going to figure out that we know something, and if we haven’t told anyone what we know, we’ll end up the same way as Elliot. The best way to make ourselves safe is to not keep this a secret.”