Page 72 of Hide And Seek

“That doesn’t make me a murderer!”

“Itcould.And it might not even be about Carly,” Sutton said, arching a brow. “I mean, we all know you resent us for having money. And money is the center of the world, isn’t it? People kill for it all the time. So maybe that resentment of yours festered over the years, until you finally snapped.”

“You can’t seriously believe that bullshit,” Jasmine muttered, rolling her eyes.

“Guys, come on!” Caitlin stood abruptly, both hands coming up in a placating gesture. “Let’s not start a full-on class warfare thing right now. It’s only going to make things worse.”

“She’s right,” I said, forcing my voice to stay steady. “Also, Jasmine can’t be the killer. She was with me, Tamsin, and Wren when Rhys was killed. And she was with me all night when Sloane and Reid…” I trailed off, swallowing. “It’s not her.”

A few heads nodded. The tension didn’t disappear, but it shifted, losing some of its sharpest edges.

Caitlin exhaled slowly, then looked around the circle again. “I have an idea,” she said. “Let’s go around the group, one by one, and figure out who was where when the murders happened, and if someone else was with them to back them up. That way, we’ll know who has an alibi and who doesn’t. And if it turns out weallhave an alibi, which I suspect will be the case, then we can agree to stop accusing each other. Okay?”

“Fine,” Sutton muttered, folding her arms. “Let’s do it.”

Caitlin gestured to the person on her left. “You start,” she said. “Where were you after Sloane and Reid left the fire last night?”

It was slow going at first, people stumbling over details, second-guessing times and glancing at each other like they were afraid of saying the wrong thing. But gradually, everyoneaccounted for themselves for the time in which Sloane and Reid’s murder had to have occurred, and there was always at least one person who could back them up.

With each new explanation, the same conclusion kept circling back.

Everyone here had been with others during the time period in question. All in places that made it impossible for them to slip away unnoticed long enough to carry out two brutal murders.

“Okay,” Caitlin finally said. “It looks like the only person who was actually alone and unaccounted for while Sloane and Reid were killed is Rhys. And now he’s dead too, so obviously, he’s not the killer. So… can we all agree that it’s an outsider now? Not one of us?”

A beat of silence followed.

Then, slowly, a few people nodded.

“Yeah,” Garrett said. “Has to be.”

Several murmurs of agreement rippled outward, quiet but steady.

“Okay,” Caitlin said, her voice a little firmer now. “So we’re all on the same page. It’s not one of us.”

“So… who is it, then?” April asked, looking around. “Who would want to kill off all the Blackpine counselors?”

No one answered straight away.

“I think Alissa was right,” Caitlin said quietly.

Every head turned toward her.

“What?” Jasmine asked.

Caitlin’s gaze flicked to me briefly, then back to the group. “About the motive,” she clarified. “It has to be about Carly’s death. They think we neglected her. That we weren’t paying attention. That we let a kid die on our watch. What else could it be?”

A heavy silence settled over the circle.

“Butwho, exactly?” Tamsin finally said. “Who would actually come here and do all this insane shit?”

My mind was already turning it over, circling the most obvious answer whether I wanted it to or not.

Carly’s family.

It was the first place anyone’s mind would go, and it made sense on a level that was almost too neat. Grief, anger, blame. A need for someone to pay.

Also, they hadn’t believed it was an accident. I knew that for a fact, because I’d met them. Spent time with them. Sat in their house and listened to them talk about Carly. They hadn’t struck me as violent people, or even remotely capable of something like this. But that didn’t mean anything, really. People could always surprise you. They could hide things. They could snap.