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“Today… when we saw the ship…”
“Don’t remind me.” Santana put her head in her hands. “God, that was one of the worst moments of my life.”
“Do you think it will come back?” Angel asked. I shrugged.
“I hope so. But listen, that’s not what I was going to say. Did either of you think Conor’s behavior was… odd?”
“Odd?” Angel sat back, picking a piece of coconut out of her teeth. “Psychopathic is the word I would have chosen, personally. Controlling. Highly dangerous. But if you prefer odd…”
“I meant about the ship. Why didn’t he try to light the beacon? Why didn’t he do anything?”
“Huh.” Santana crossed her legs, wincing a little as the scab over her wound tugged, and sat up, frowning. “You’re right. That was odd. He didn’t do anything at all. It was almost like…”
“Almost like he didn’t want it to see us,” I finished. “Yeah. That’s what I mean. Odd. And worrying.”
“But he must want to be rescued,” Santana said. She looked puzzled. “He may be dangerous, he may even be a killer, but he’s not suicidal. He doesn’t want to die any more than we do. Isn’t that what all of this has been about—making sure he’s going to come out on top in all of this? Making sure that he’s got all the food and water and supplies he needs to survive, and fuck the rest of us? Why go through all of that if he didn’t want to be rescued?”
“But why be rescued if you’re going to face prosecution for murder,” I said. There was a long silence while Santana and Angel grappled with this question. I could almost feel their brains ticking as they weighed up the pros and cons of what I was suggesting.
“What are you saying,” Angel said at last. It wasn’t really a question. At least, she didn’t phrase it as one. There was no upward interrogative tick to her voice, just a flat statement. “Because for sure he wants for him and Zana to be rescued.”
“I think he wants him and Zana to be rescued, yes.” My stomach twisted, and not just because all I’d had today was Conor’s fish and underripe coconut. The brioche had finally become too moldy to be eaten, and we had only a handful of cookies left. “I’m just not sure he wants us to make it as well. It would be a lot more convenient for him—” I stopped. I couldn’t say the words aloud, but I didn’t have to. Santana said them for me.
“It would be a lot more convenient for him if we all died too. Shit. I think you’re right.”
There was a long silence. Then Angel spoke, saying words that neither Santana nor I were ready to admit.
“So we must kill him, before he kills us. It has come to that.”
“We’re not killing anyone,” I said automatically. “Right, Santana?” But Santana said nothing. She was looking at the empty fridge, the fridge that had once held her insulin, and hugging her knees.
“Lyla, chérie,” Angel said, and now her face was compassionate, “listen to me. Perhaps you have never lived with a man like Conor. But I have. And I know this to be true, if it is him or you, he will choose himself every time. And he has killed before. He killed my boyfriend. He killed him in cold blood, in front of witnesses. And I think we both know that he killed Dan, and probably Joel, no? So how long do you think he would hesitate before killing you and me? He would do it right here in the villa; he would strangle us one after another, and there would be nothing we could do.”
“He can’t though,” I said, more confidently than I felt. “That’s the thing. I’ve been thinking about this, and he’s not going to kill us here. He’s been careful about that.”
“What do you mean?” Santana said, puzzled.
I took a deep breath and I pointed up at the unblinking black eye in the corner of the room—at the camera.
It took Angel and Santana a minute for them to realize what I was pointing at, and a minute longer to realize what I was saying. But then Santana frowned.
“The cameras? But Lyla—they can’t possibly still be working. There’s no electricity.”
“They’re battery-powered. And I have no idea where the footage is stored or for how long. Have you?”
“If it’s on a central drive there would be no record…” Angel said slowly. “Because the Wi-Fi is not working. But if it’s stored on the camera itself… that, I agree, could be a risk for him. But he could destroy the cameras, Lyla.”
I shook my head.
“Can you imagine if someone took down every camera on the island, only to be found as the only person alive two weeks later? It would be practically a smoking gun, no matter what explanation he gave. No. He can’t afford to do that. All he can do is make sure that everything that happens—every threat, every suspicious death—they all happen off camera. I’m pretty sure that everyone who’s died, it’s been either in the forest, or down at the beach. There are no cameras there.”
“What about the fight with Bayer?” Angel asked. “That was up at the cabana, and there are two cameras there.”
“Yes. One at each end of the main table. But Bayer wasn’t killed up there, he was killed on the steps, and there’s no coverage there. I’m not saying that was premeditated—” I said quickly, in answer to Angel’s skeptical look. “I think it was pure luck. But I think it made Conor realize he had a narrow escape, and he’s been careful ever since.”
“But our conversations,” Santana said. “All of our suspicions about him. The discussion about him stealing my insulin. They’ll all be recorded. Okay, it’s not murder—but it’s bloody incriminating for Conor. It’d be more than enough to throw suspicion on him if we all disappeared.”
“Not if the microphones aren’t working,” I said. Santana looked blank for a moment, and then realization dawned in her eyes.
