One by One

Then came Liz’s refusal to ski, and Topher’s bullying attempt to force her to do it.

Everyone agreed what happened next—Liz tore off her skis and walked back up the slope to the lift, to get on the bubble back down to the chalet.

But what if she hadn’t? What if she had gone through the little shack housing the lift and straight out the other side, towards the black run, La Sorcière. Then, at the top of the run, right by the steepest part of the piste, she stood and waited.

I try to imagine how Liz could have lured Eva across. Maybe she pretended she had slid helplessly down the black run, towards the sheer drop. Maybe she faked a problem with her boot or her ski. Either way, she must have called to Eva, and then, when Eva was very close to her, and off guard, she pushed her off the precipice.

That would have been the riskiest part. Not the risk of being seen—the visibility was too bad for that, and the lift building would have been between them and the skiers standing on Blanche-Neige. But the risk of failing to push Eva over the edge. If Eva had managed to save herself, or worse, if she had grabbed hold of her attacker and taken her over the edge as well, everything would have been finished. But it worked. It must have done. And now Liz just had to give herself an alibi—by ensuring that Eva was seen to be safe and well after Liz was supposed to have gone back down in the lift.

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.

Because here’s the thing—I am a good person. I never wanted any of this. I certainly don’t want to kill anyone if I don’t have to. If Erin didn’t look inside that case, if she hasn’t figured this out, well, I don’t want to hurt her.

I don’t need to act quickly. I have time to think about this. There is no way help can get here before morning. I can take my time to work out if she knows something, and if so, what I can do about it. It would have to be an accident, or look like an accident. Another slip on the stairs, maybe? A carbon monoxide leak with the stove? Though I am not sure how I would engineer that.