After that, it seemed the best thing to do was return to their previous plan.
Stick in their groups: one on watch at the cliff, with a new signal fire ready to be lit. Another group resting, and a third to search the island again, looking for Brittlyn.
Peach had somehow managed to be in the resting group two times in a row. Maybe it was the power of fame, but none of the others seemed to mind.
“How about we volunteer for watch?” Plum murmured. “I could use a break from this house.”
“Yeah, and Henrietta could stretch her legs,” Sofia agreed.
The girls grabbed a few generic sodas and a sleeve of crackers, and headed out to the FEMA tent at the top of the cliff.
The sun was setting, a spectacular blaze of glittering diamonds cast across the ocean in a broad swath.
“I’m so scared,” Marlowe said conversationally as she stared out at the water.
Plum turned to her best friend. A fine net of wrinkles, unfamiliar on Marlowe’s usually smooth face, stitched across her brow and stamped into the corners of her eyes.
“Me too,” Sofia agreed.
They were sitting in the shelter of the FEMA tent, effectively blocking the entrance with their bodies, while Henrietta happily pecked among the weeds and grasses that they’d uprooted and thrown into the tent.
“This is so horrible. It almost doesn’t feel real,” Plum muttered. “I’m sorry, I know it is. I just can’t accept it.”
“We just got lucky, huh?” Sofia agreed sarcastically. “The one time I do something rebellious.”
“No, I got greedy,” Plum said. Something burned in her heart, a dose of hot pinpricks in her cheeks, nausea and regret and . . . shame.
“It doesn’t help to go into all this,” Marlowe said firmly. “We can’t go back and change the past. We’re here now. We have to figure out how to get out.”
“Do you really think we’ll be killed?” Sofia asked. “Since we weren’t the real target?”
“I don’t think the killer will care,” Plum said softly. “Whoever they are, they’ve been planning this thing for a long time. They’re not going to stop just because we showed up.”
“Adopt, adapt, and improve, eh?” Marlowe said, her voice sad and wry. It was a quote from an old British comedy sketch about a bungling burglar who realized he was holding up the wrong shop.
Plum sighed. “Yeah, exactly.” Even though she was looking out over the ocean and currently safe with her two best friends and their chicken, it was difficult not to feel a fatalistic pull. Difficult not to feel a twinge of hopelessness.
What else could they do? They were already doing everything they could think of.
Jude, Dude, and a bitterly complaining Warix were searching the villa and its grounds again, looking for the person Jude had bumped into in the thick smoke. Or for Brittlyn. Or both.
Peach, Shelley, Cici, and Jalen were resting in the ballroom, trying to get some sleep so they’d be ready for a later watch shift.
And they were out here. On watch. Facing Saint Vitus, praying for a miracle.
“Do you think they’ll find her?” Sofia asked, their minds running parallel as always, because no one had to ask who she meant.
Marlowe shook her head. “The more important question is, why would the killer move her body?”
Plum glanced away from the flame-edged horizon, looking away from the spectacular beauty of a Caribbean sunset to take in her best friend’s equally spectacular profile.
“Wait, what?” Plum asked. “How can you sound so sure that Brittlyn isn’t the killer after all?”
Marlowe glanced at Plum, a slight smile on the edges of her mouth. “I’m not, not really, but she looked dead, right?”
Sofia nodded. “Completely. Ow!” She twisted and shoved Henrietta back. “That’s a mole, you silly bird,” Sofia snapped. Henrietta torqued her head, pointing first one eye, then the other, at the tempting it-must-be-a-bug-seeming mole on Sofia’s shoulder.
“Here.” Plum handed her friend her tuxedo jacket.
“I’m not sure at all, but also, if this was a classic movie, it’s something the killer would do, right?” Marlowe continued once Sofia’s shoulder was covered.
“Move a body? Why?” Plum couldn’t imagine it. Sure, killing people made sense, she guessed, to a deranged killer, but why in the world would they take an already dead body and play hide-and-seek with it?
“To get us to think exactly what we were thinking,” Marlowe said. “That Brittlyn was the killer. That no one else is truly the suspect.”
Sofia’s eyes went round. “Oh,” she breathed. “Oh, that’s clever. And disturbing.”
They all paused to take it in for a second.
“I mean, it’s as disturbing as everything else,” Sofia amended. “It makes sense, in a sick sort of way. To divert suspicion.”
Marlowe stared back out at the sun, almost disappeared now. “Watch for the flash,” she urged them, as if there weren’t a whole other conversation going on about a rampant murderer. As if they were just having a normal island sunset on their spring break adventure.
As if they weren’t trapped on an island with dwindling supplies, no method of communication with the outside world, and one dead body. Well, two, probably, somewhere.
As if they might not be next.
The sun disappeared, and the turquoise flash arced out in a gorgeous blink-and-you’ll-miss-it shine.
“Beautiful,” Sofia murmured.
Marlowe sighed happily. Then she shook her head again. “If they find anything, it’ll be Brittlyn’s body. But I don’t think they’ll find even that. Our killer has other plans.”