One by One(78)

I remember that huge, bulky ski suit, the way Liz was sweating, just standing around at the base of the lift. I even remember thinking that she was clearly wearing far too many layers, and wondering why, on such a nice day. Now I know why. It wasn’t inexperience at all. It was planned.

It would not have been very hard to have a second ski jacket on underneath the first. It would have taken seconds to unzip the baggy blue jumpsuit, take off the scarlet ski jacket beneath, and put it on over the top. With her helmet, goggles, and dark-colored ski pants, anyone seeing her at a distance would take it for granted that she was Eva.

And so she set off to ski La Sorcière, stopping just to make sure that one person at least—faithful little Ani, far above her in the bubble lift—would be able to back up her story.

I think of Ani’s last words to Tiger, her puzzled I didn’t see her.

We all thought she was talking about Eva.

But what if… what if she were talking about Liz. Liz, who was supposed to be on the bubble going down the mountain, at the same time Ani was coming up. What if that was what Ani realized, that Liz never passed them going back down? That she never took the lift at all?

It is plausible. It is all horribly plausible. And it would very likely have worked if it weren’t for one thing. Elliot’s geosnooping app, covertly gathering data on everyone in the party.

Because Elliot wasn’t stupid. As soon as he figured out that Eva had died, he would have looked at the movements of everyone else on the mountain that day. He would have known that the person who skied La Sorcière was not Eva but Anon101. Only even with all the info at his disposal, he could not be certain who Anon101 was.

So he followed Anon on Snoop. And he set about figuring it out by process of elimination. But he was killed before he could share his suspicions with Topher.

This theory explains almost everything. It explains why Elliot had to die, why his computer, with all the geosnooping data, was smashed up. It explains why Ani was killed.

There’s only one thing it doesn’t explain. Why.

Why Eva was killed in the first place.

Because Liz still doesn’t have a motive.

Still, I remember Danny’s words. I dunno. We could probably give them all motives if we needed to.

He’s right. Alibi is the key, not motive. And I have just smashed Liz’s alibi to pieces. There is one problem—if I’m right, that fact puts me next in line to be killed.

I am alone in an isolated chalet with a murderer, and there’s nothing I can do.





LIZ


Snoop ID: ANON101

Listening to: Offline

Snoopers: 0

Snoopscribers: 1

Who moved my suitcase?

The question gnaws at me like a rat as I walk slowly back downstairs. When I enter the living room I can see Erin is huddled under the duvet. Her eyes are closed, and she’s breathing softly and rhythmically. But it seems to me—and I can’t tell if I’m being paranoid here—that there is something a little fake about the way she is lying. Does anyone really look that composed in sleep?

“Erin,” I whisper very softly. She stirs, her eyelids flickering momentarily, but she doesn’t appear to wake.

I sit on the sofa bed beside her and try to think.

I am completely sure about the suitcase. At least I think I am. But I have not looked in that cupboard since Sunday. Anyone could have moved my case. Even if they moved it, that doesn’t mean that they looked inside the lining. It could have been Elliot—gathering information before he took his suspicions to Topher. It could even have been something completely innocent.

I could kill Erin. That is not the issue. I could put a pillow over her face, just like I did with Ani, but here is the problem: If I kill Erin, everyone will know it was me. There is no one here for miles around. I would have no hope of persuading anyone that an unknown intruder broke in and smothered her in her sleep.

I killed Elliot and Ani because I had to. I acted quickly, on the spur of the moment, working with what I had to hand. With Elliot, that was Eva’s sleeping pills, crushed into a cup of black coffee. He never suspected a thing when I offered him a refill. I guess that’s all I ever was to him: someone to fetch the coffee.

For Ani, it was her own pillow, pressed over her nose and mouth. She died quietly, her struggles muffled by the thick duvet wrapped around her. I felt… well, I would like to say that I felt guilty for them both, but the truth is, I didn’t really. Elliot brought it on himself, with his snooping and his prying. I did feel sorry for Ani. But she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. What I saw in her eyes when she stood, frozen in my doorway that night, was the sudden realization of what she had seen. What she had not seen. The empty glass spheres of the bubble lift, returning back down to the station, when one of them should have contained me.

She realized what it meant. I could tell that straightaway, from the moment our eyes locked and hers filled with sudden fear. She hurried back to her room, locking the door behind her. She probably felt safe. She didn’t know I had a passkey.

But I don’t feel guilty, even about Ani, because it’s not my fault, any of this. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time too. I never asked for any of this. I was caught up in something I couldn’t help, caught up in Topher’s and Eva’s own personal game of thrones—not even one of the major players, just a pawn for Eva to play against Topher when the time was right, my own past leveraged against me.