The three friends walked back, lit by the moon high in the night sky. It must have been nearing eleven p.m. or even midnight. Plum didn’t want to glance at her cell phone and ruin her night vision to confirm it.
They walked through the open French doors and back into the conservatory. They were apparently the last ones to return from their search.
“The beach is clear,” Plum told the others.
“Nothing,” Shelley reported. “No one else is here.”
“Not on the second floor,” Cici reported. “Nothing on the first floor, either.”
“I could have told you that,” Warix said smugly. He’d apparently declined to join any search party, instead still sitting and clacking away on his computer.
“Look who knows so much,” Sean griped, stomping over to the wrought iron liquor cart.
“I don’t like to brag. Wait a sec—oh yes I do.” Warix smirked. He propped one of his galaxy-swirl shoes on top of the other, heel on toe, and waggled his feet in punctuation.
“Maybe we should start asking ourselves why you seem to know so much,” Shelley said, more annoyed than actually accusatory.
But Warix took the bait anyway. “What’s that mean?” he asked, frowning. “You trying to say something, Red?”
Jude moved between the two and held both hands out. His voice was soothing and encouraging at the same time, maybe the exact tone he took when talking to his teen fans on YouWow. “No one suggested it was you,” Jude soothed Warix.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself,” Sean muttered.
“Anyway, no one else is on this damn island.” Dude stopped twirling his mirrored sunglasses and propped them on his head.
Plum stared at the older man. He seemed genuinely scared or annoyed, or both. His eyes narrowed in suspicion.
“It’s just us,” Cici agreed. “We’ve been all through this house, and you’ve been all over this rock.”
Jalen got out his phone, tapped a few times, and then held it flat below his chin. “We’ve searched the island to no avail. Now we gather to decide the implications, because if we found no one, it means . . .”
Jalen looked at the others. He made a come on gesture with one hand, his eyebrows raised, waiting for any one of them to provide the next line for his podcast.
“That means, if there’s no killer hiding on the island . . .” Jude trailed off like a student trying their best to answer a teacher’s extremely difficult question.
“The killer is one of us,” Plum finished.
“Not one of us, of course,” Sofia murmured to Marlowe and Plum. “Not us us.”
“No, of course not,” Marlowe agreed in a whisper while Plum nodded.
“Indeed, listeners”—Jalen directed his voice toward his phone—“one of the voices you’ve already heard on our podcast is the killer’s. This is Bloody Grounds, and it’s only just beginning.”
“Hey, hold up!” Jude yelped. “I didn’t kill anyone!”
“Probably not,” Plum conceded. She didn’t get much of a chance to continue, because the room erupted in protestations of innocence and accusations, pointing fingers and yells.
“It wasn’t me,” Jude said in a wounded tone. “I’d never hurt anyone.”
“That’s what you’d say,” Sean snipped.
“Yeah.” Cici waved her hands. “Maybe this whole baby-deer routine is an act.”
Despite her still-perfect makeup, there was something frantic in her eyes.
Maybe it was in all their eyes.
“Baby deer?” Jude yipped in affront. He darted a sideways glance at the dark window nearby, instinctively checking his reflection.
“I said it!” Cici shouted back.
The room was on the verge of descending into chaos again.
“I know who the killer is!” Shelley announced. She extended her arm, sending rows of bracelets jangling as she pointed at Sean.
“It’s him!”