One by One
“It sounded like it was coming from upstairs,” Liz says. She grabs her glasses and swings one leg out of bed.
“Yeah…,” I say it slowly, my mind racing. At all costs, I can’t let her get into Elliot’s room. If she sees that message, I am in big trouble. She already suspects me. It would be very hard to explain that message away. “Yeah, it did.”
Could she kill me? I don’t know. Her knee is as screwed as my ankle. Could she out-hobble me if it came to trying to get away? I am trying to think of a plan. Could I lure her outside somehow? Lock the door? But then I think of Danny’s words, about Inigo turning up, begging to be let in, and I know he was right. I could never stand there and watch another human being freeze to death inches away, only a pane of glass separating us. I just couldn’t. Not even Liz.
But I can’t let her find that text message.
My mind is racing, trying to remember what I could see on Elliot’s lock screen before I cleared it. Some people have their text messages show up in their entirety. Others only have the ID of the sender, or just You have a text. Which is Elliot? Why didn’t I check before I unlocked the phone and cleared his notifications? Of course if it occurs to Liz to use Elliot’s dead body to unlock the phone like I did, none of this matters.
“It sounds like it came from Miranda’s room,” I say slowly, trying to think how to put her off track.
“You think?” Liz says. Her face is skeptical. “I thought it sounded more like Elliot’s. It’d be just like him to have some kind of superlong-charge battery.”
My stomach flips. Of course. Of course she’s right. She knows these people. And now I realize I’m trapped. I can’t suggest we split up and I check Elliot’s room, when I already said I think the sound came from Miranda’s. I will have to go along with her suggestion.
“Should we… go and check?” I try to look doubtful. “It seems a bit disrespectful. Maybe we should rule out the other rooms first?”
Liz swings the other leg out of bed. She looks decisive.
“I think it’s more important that we get to the phone while it still has reception,” she says, reasonably, and I can’t find a way of contradicting her because the thing is, she’s right. That’s exactly what I’d be saying too, if I hadn’t sent that fucking text. “I understand if you don’t want to come,” she adds.
I waver. It’s tempting. But I can’t let her go up there alone. That would be worse. There may be some way I can get to the phone before she does, delete Danny’s reply.
“Of course,” I say instead, like I’m steeling myself to do something necessary. “Of course, you’re right, I was just being squeamish. It’s more important to get word out. Anyway, the door will be locked. You’ll need my key.”
“Of course,” she echoes, and for a second, just a second, her hand strays towards her pocket, where the missing passkey must have been hidden, in a totally involuntary gesture that I would have missed if I hadn’t been watching her every move. She catches herself before her hand makes contact, so that it just looks like she’s adjusting her ski suit. But I know what she was thinking.
As we make our way up the stairs, I have a sharp, piercing sense of déjà vu, the number of times we have crept up these stairs in daylight or in darkness, to some horrible discovery. Only this time, I know what lies at the top of them, and I am the one who is fearing exposure.
My heart is racing as we approach Elliot’s door, and when I reach into my pocket for the passkey, I find my hand is shaking.
“Are you okay?” Liz says. She has put her glasses back on, and they glitter in the darkness. “You don’t have to come in if you don’t want.”
“I’m fine,” I say, through gritted teeth. “Just cold.”
And then I turn the key and we are inside Elliot’s room, the stench of death somehow even worse than before, though I know, logically, that cannot be the case, not in the few hours since I was last here.
Liz gags, and puts her hand over her mouth, and her action gives me an excuse.
The battery block is down the side of the desk, hidden from the door. If I can get her to concentrate on the far side of the room…
“The smell’s pretty bad,” I say. “If you want to concentrate on the bed side of the room, I can take the desk.”
She nods, and moves over to the other side of the room. I am busy going through the motions, opening drawers, pretending to search for a phone I know full well is just out of sight, when I hear something.
And then—
“Erin.”
I look up, look towards the bed, but she’s not there. She has come up behind me. And she has found the phone.
My heart starts beating so loudly I am sure that Liz will be able to hear.
Run, run, run, a voice in my ear is screaming. But I don’t. I hold very still. Maybe I can still talk my way out of this. What does it say. What does it say?
I wish I could see the lock screen, but I can’t. Liz is holding the phone in her hand, angling it towards her, so that all I can see is the light from the screen reflecting off her glasses.
“That sound…,” she says, very slowly. She looks up at me, a frown furrowed between the lenses of her spectacles. “It was a text message. And it was to you.”
LIZ
Snoop ID: ANON101
Listening to: Offline
Snoopers: 0
Snoopscribers: 1
I stare down at the screen, and then up at Erin’s blank face.
This doesn’t make sense. Or does it?
Messages: reads the lock screen, and then a little preview pane showing the first line of the message. Fuck. Erin is that you?
Erin is looking at me like a rabbit in a snare.
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.