Page 99 of Hide And Seek

That was just Knox.

Jasmine told me he had an honesty tell, and that was how she knew he wasn’t lying when the guys filled us in on their plan. But all she’d said about Rhys was that she could never read him. Never tell what he was thinking.

So Knox could very well have told us the truth about the plan… but it could’ve just been a version of the truth that Rhys had given him.

A faint pulse started up in my throat as I considered it.

Rhys could’ve gotten Knox on board with the scheme for the exact same reasons Jasmine and I were later told: to confuse and disrupt the killer in the hopes of luring him out. But there could’ve been another reason behind the plan that Rhys kept to himself.

A reason that positioned him as the killer. Because if hewas… then ‘dying’ could give him exactly what he needed. A way to disappear. To step completely off everyone’s radar.

No one would ever suspect him, because no one would ever question someone who was already dead. It was just like what he’d said to me about Brad and Olivia earlier.

My mind started moving faster now, picking up speed in a way I couldn’t seem to stop.

Most of the guys had gone out to search the woods not long after Brad and Olivia left for their walk to Millhaven, and Rhys had been with Jensen and Zach, scouting along the northwest side. That part of the grounds was pretty close to the camp road.So he could’ve split off from the other two guys, just for a few minutes. Could’ve told them he was covering more ground that way.

My chest rose a little faster as I considered the possibility.

It wouldn’t have taken too long. Not if he’d planned it. Not if he’d hidden stuff out there beforehand.

A bow.

Arrows.

My fingers curled tighter into the blanket as something else occurred to me. Rhys’s family owned half the telecommunications infrastructure in the country, so if anyone could figure out how to cut us off out here…

No. Stop it.

Guilt was flooding in now; a sour, heavy knot settling in my stomach.

I’d already done this once. Already let my mind turn Rhys into something dangerous, something malicious, only for it to blow up in my face when he died.

Except he hadn’t really died, and now I was right back here again, accusing him. Even if it was only in my head.

After everything he’d said to me today. The way his voice had dropped when he told me my safety mattered more than anything else. The way he’d looked at me like he really meant it. He’d been nothing but good to me. Yet I was still lying here, picking him apart like he was the enemy.

A shaky breath slipped out of me as I stared at the ceiling. I was honestly losing my mind when it came to this man. One minute I liked him. Trusted him. Slept with him. Let myself feel something I hadn’t planned on feeling at all out here.

And the next—

Suspicion. Doubt. Running through every possibility where he was the one behind it all.

The shift was so fast it made my head spin. Like something in me kept flipping a switch back and forth.

God, what the hell was wrong with me?

I squeezed my eyes shut, forcing myself to breathe, slow and steady. This was what fear did. It twisted things. Made you turn on people. Even people you really—

I cut the thought off before it could finish, because that part only made it worse.

Despite my best efforts to squash everything down, more unwanted thoughts began to creep in.

What if I was actually right in the end? What if I kept my suspicions to myself out of sheer guilt and confusion over my feelings toward Rhys… but then it reallywashim all along? How could I ever forgive myself for staying quiet?

I cleared my throat and turned back to Jasmine. “Are you still awake?” I whispered.

“Yeah. How come?”