“Yes, I know,” I say quietly. And then I take a step backwards, and I sink down on Elliot’s bed and put my face in my hands. Partly because my ankle is killing me, and the pain is starting to make me feel sick, and partly because my legs are shaking so hard I can’t keep upright anymore.
She stands there, looking down at me, her face blank and unreadable behind those huge glasses. The light from Elliot’s phone gives her face an eerie, up-lit glow. Behind her Elliot, the man she killed, lies sprawled across his desk—a terrifyingly immediate reminder of what she has done to protect her secret. The secret I now have. Oh God, what have I done? Danny, where are you?
“God, he stinks,” she says at last, wrinkling up her face. She cracks her knuckles, click, click, click, but it no longer sounds nervy. It sounds like someone limbering up for a fight. “Let’s get out of here. Come downstairs and we can talk this through.”
As if in a dream—or maybe a nightmare—I follow her out of the room. She holds the phone out in front of her like a candle, illuminating the corridor, and when we get to the top of the stairs she says, “After you.”
I hesitate.
I don’t want to make her angry—but at the same time, there is no way I am going down that slippery, precarious staircase with her at my back. I’m just not.
Liz sees my hesitation and gives a mirthless laugh.
“Okay, I don’t blame you. I’ll go first. But you keep a step back, okay? I’m not having you pushing me down the steps either.”
I nod. I don’t mind keeping my distance. It would be almost as easy for her to snatch my ankle out from underneath me as it would be for me to kick her in the small of the back.
God, this is surreal.
I watch her as she makes her way carefully down the stairs, holding the handrail, the phone guiding the way like a faint will-o’-the-wisp.
Downstairs, she moves away from the foot of the stairs and feeds another log into the burner, making it flare so that the room is bright with its glow, and I hurry down while her back is turned, my heart beating quicker until I am on solid ground. Then she straightens up and shuts the glass door of the stove.
I am alone with a murderer. I am alone with a murderer. Maybe if I keep repeating the words to myself it will start to feel real?
LIZ
Snoop ID: ANON101
Listening to: Offline
Snoopers: 0
Snoopscribers: 1
In a way, it is a relief to have it out in the open. I could tell there was something wrong, and I have always hated trying to read between the lines, second-guessing myself, attempting to parse a frown or a blank look or a pause that might be something or might be nothing.
Now we both know where we are. Which is a relief. But it is also a problem. Because I liked Erin. No, that’s wrong. I shouldn’t be using the past tense. Not yet.
I like her. I actually do really like her. I don’t want to have to do this. But she did something really, really stupid when she sent that text, and now I have no choice. She’s forced my hand, really. If anything this is her fault.
The sense of injustice boils up again. This is so unfair.
“I never wanted any of this, you know,” I say to her as she sinks down onto one of the chairs, staring into the flames. She is shaking. I’m not sure if it’s cold or shock.
“What?”
She looks up, and I feel anger bubble up inside me, and then I push it back down. Has she even been listening?
“I said I never wanted this.” I sink down into the armchair opposite her. I stare at the fire, feeling its heat on my face. “I would never have killed any of them if I could help it. I’m just as much of a victim here.”
She blinks—and for a minute it looks like she’s going to say something, but then she seems to think better of it.
“Tell me about it,” she says. And so I do.
ERIN
Snoop ID: LITTLEMY
Listening to: Offline
Snoopers: 5
Snoopscribers: 10
I am lost in thought as Liz sits down opposite me, and it takes me a moment to realize she is talking. What she is saying doesn’t make sense—some nonsense about her being the real victim in all of this.
I look up, and I meet her eyes, and I am overwhelmed with the urge to slap her, to shake her, to scream, You? Are you kidding me? What about Eva? What about Elliot? What about fucking Ani, who never harmed a fly?
But I don’t.
Because I suddenly know what I have to do here.
I have to humor her. I have to keep her talking long enough for Danny to get back here with reinforcements. He has seen the text. He knows what it means. He will be doing everything he can to help me. I don’t know what time it is, but it must be way after midnight. If I can just keep Liz talking long enough, I may be able to survive this. I may even be able to get justice for all the people she has killed.
Because I am a survivor, that’s what Liz doesn’t know about me. She sees a soft, posh girl from the same background as Topher and Eva, someone who has never had to work for her living, to scrap for survival.
But that’s not true. Not in my case. In spite of my family name, I didn’t grow up with a silver spoon in my mouth, not in the way Topher and Eva did. I’ve always known that I was second best, and that I would have to fight for myself. I know what it’s like to clean up other people’s messes for a living.
But more than that, the most important thing about me, something Liz will never understand, could never understand, unless she had stood in my shoes: I looked death in the face once, and I turned him away.
I can do it again.
“Tell me about it,” I say. There is a catch in my throat, and my voice is shaking with the effort of keeping it calm, when I feel anything but. But Liz doesn’t seem to notice. Instead, she smiles. Incredibly, unbelievably, she smiles.
And she begins to speak.
LIZ
Snoop ID: ANON101
Listening to: Offline
Snoopers: 0
Snoopscribers: 1
“You don’t know what it was like, starting at Snoop,” I say. It is easier not to look at Erin while I’m telling her this, so I look away again, into the fire, remembering that first day—opening the office door, and seeing them all, lounging around inside, laughing, bantering, so effortlessly, searingly cool. “It was like walking into a different world. Like something off the TV, where people were sleek and beautiful and witty. They were like a different species, and I wanted to be them so much. School—school was so horrible. I can’t explain it. I knew I was different from the other girls in my class, I knew they all laughed at me. But somehow I thought when I got to my real life it would be different. I thought that maybe I was just an ugly duckling.”
I swallow. It is strange saying all of this—unwrapping secrets I have carried for three years.
“But when I got to Snoop I realized that wasn’t true—I wasn’t going to magically grow into a swan overnight. Eva and Topher, even Elliot and Rik in a way, they had been different and special and beautiful right from the day they were born. And I wasn’t. I was never going to be a swan. I had to accept that. But the thing is, I was good at my job. Really good. And Snoop was doing well. And I cared about it—about them. So when the firm had problems raising money just before the launch, I offered Topher and Eva my grandmother’s money. I still remember the shock on their faces when I made the suggestion.” I laugh, remembering Topher’s expression when I spoke up in that meeting—as if his office chair had piped up, offering a solution to their finances. “I think they realized then that they’d underestimated me—that the girl who brought the coffee and took the minutes was a real human being who could understand a profit and loss sheet, and figure out when the company was in trouble. It was like they really looked at me for the first time. Eva offered to pay me back with interest, and it was a good rate too. I would have got back almost half as much again by the time it was all paid back. But Topher—Topher took me aside into his office and told me I should ask for shares, and hang out until I got them.