by Ruth Ware
Except…
Except no one actually saw her get on the lift.
I try to think back to that final run down the mountain as everyone had described it. Eva was coming up in the Reine bubble lift. Carl had fallen over at the bottom, trying to get on, and Ani was helping him. Everyone else was standing at the top of the blue run, Blanche-Neige, huddled in the screaming wind, waiting for Eva, Carl, and Ani to arrive.
Then came Liz’s refusal to ski, and Topher’s bullying attempt to force her to do it.
Everyone agreed what happened next—Liz tore off her skis and walked back up the slope to the lift, to get on the bubble back down to the chalet.
But what if she hadn’t? What if she had gone through the little shack housing the lift and straight out the other side, towards the black run, La Sorcière. Then, at the top of the run, right by the steepest part of the piste, she stood and waited.
I try to imagine how Liz could have lured Eva across. Maybe she pretended she had slid helplessly down the black run, towards the sheer drop. Maybe she faked a problem with her boot or her ski. Either way, she must have called to Eva, and then, when Eva was very close to her, and off guard, she pushed her off the precipice.
That would have been the riskiest part. Not the risk of being seen—the visibility was too bad for that, and the lift building would have been between them and the skiers standing on Blanche-Neige. But the risk of failing to push Eva over the edge. If Eva had managed to save herself, or worse, if she had grabbed hold of her attacker and taken her over the edge as well, everything would have been finished. But it worked. It must have done. And now Liz just had to give herself an alibi—by ensuring that Eva was seen to be safe and well after Liz was supposed to have gone back down in the lift.
I remember that huge, bulky ski suit, the way Liz was sweating, just standing around at the base of the lift. I even remember thinking that she was clearly wearing far too many layers, and wondering why, on such a nice day. Now I know why. It wasn’t inexperience at all. It was planned.
It would not have been very hard to have a second ski jacket on underneath the first. It would have taken seconds to unzip the baggy blue jumpsuit, take off the scarlet ski jacket beneath, and put it on over the top. With her helmet, goggles, and dark-colored ski pants, anyone seeing her at a distance would take it for granted that she was Eva.
And so she set off to ski La Sorcière, stopping just to make sure that one person at least—faithful little Ani, far above her in the bubble lift—would be able to back up her story.
I think of Ani’s last words to Tiger, her puzzled I didn’t see her.
We all thought she was talking about Eva.
But what if… what if she were talking about Liz. Liz, who was supposed to be on the bubble going down the mountain, at the same time Ani was coming up. What if that was what Ani realized, that Liz never passed them going back down? That she never took the lift at all?
It is plausible. It is all horribly plausible. And it would very likely have worked if it weren’t for one thing. Elliot’s geosnooping app, covertly gathering data on everyone in the party.
Because Elliot wasn’t stupid. As soon as he figured out that Eva had died, he would have looked at the movements of everyone else on the mountain that day. He would have known that the person who skied La Sorcière was not Eva but Anon101. Only even with all the info at his disposal, he could not be certain who Anon101 was.
So he followed Anon on Snoop. And he set about figuring it out by process of elimination. But he was killed before he could share his suspicions with Topher.
This theory explains almost everything. It explains why Elliot had to die, why his computer, with all the geosnooping data, was smashed up. It explains why Ani was killed.
There’s only one thing it doesn’t explain. Why.
Why Eva was killed in the first place.
Because Liz still doesn’t have a motive.
Still, I remember Danny’s words. I dunno. We could probably give them all motives if we needed to.
He’s right. Alibi is the key, not motive. And I have just smashed Liz’s alibi to pieces. There is one problem—if I’m right, that fact puts me next in line to be killed.
I am alone in an isolated chalet with a murderer, and there’s nothing I can do.
LIZ
Snoop ID: ANON101
Listening to: Offline
Snoopers: 0
Snoopscribers: 1
Who moved my suitcase?
The question gnaws at me like a rat as I walk slowly back downstairs. When I enter the living room I can see Erin is huddled under the duvet. Her eyes are closed, and she’s breathing softly and rhythmically. But it seems to me—and I can’t tell if I’m being paranoid here—that there is something a little fake about the way she is lying. Does anyone really look that composed in sleep?
“Erin,” I whisper very softly. She stirs, her eyelids flickering momentarily, but she doesn’t appear to wake.
I sit on the sofa bed beside her and try to think.
I am completely sure about the suitcase. At least I think I am. But I have not looked in that cupboard since Sunday. Anyone could have moved my case. Even if they moved it, that doesn’t mean that they looked inside the lining. It could have been Elliot—gathering information before he took his suspicions to Topher. It could even have been something completely innocent.
I could kill Erin. That is not the issue. I could put a pillow over her face, just like I did with Ani, but here is the problem: If I kill Erin, everyone will know it was me. There is no one here for miles around. I would have no hope of persuading anyone that an unknown intruder broke in and smothered her in her sleep.
I killed Elliot and Ani because I had to. I acted quickly, on the spur of the moment, working with what I had to hand. With Elliot, that was Eva’s sleeping pills, crushed into a cup of black coffee. He never suspected a thing when I offered him a refill. I guess that’s all I ever was to him: someone to fetch the coffee.
For Ani, it was her own pillow, pressed over her nose and mouth. She died quietly, her struggles muffled by the thick duvet wrapped around her. I felt… well, I would like to say that I felt guilty for them both, but the truth is, I didn’t really. Elliot brought it on himself, with his snooping and his prying. I did feel sorry for Ani. But she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. What I saw in her eyes when she stood, frozen in my doorway that night, was the sudden realization of what she had seen. What she had not seen. The empty glass spheres of the bubble lift, returning back down to the station, when one of them should have contained me.
She realized what it meant. I could tell that straightaway, from the moment our eyes locked and hers filled with sudden fear. She hurried back to her room, locking the door behind her. She probably felt safe. She didn’t know I had a passkey.
But I don’t feel guilty, even about Ani, because it’s not my fault, any of this. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time too. I never asked for any of this. I was caught up in something I couldn’t help, caught up in Topher’s and Eva’s own personal game of thrones—not even one of the major players, just a pawn for Eva to play against Topher when the time was right, my own past leveraged against me.
Because here’s the thing—I am a good person. I never wanted any of this. I certainly don’t want to kill anyone if I don’t have to. If Erin didn’t look inside that case, if she hasn’t figured this out, well, I don’t want to hurt her.
I don’t need to act quickly. I have time to think about this. There is no way help can get here before morning. I can take my time to work out if she knows something, and if so, what I can do about it. It would have to be an accident, or look like an accident. Another slip on the stairs, maybe? A carbon monoxide leak with the stove? Though I am not sure how I would engineer that.
Slowly, I take off my glasses and lie down, but I don’t shut my eyes. I lie there, facing Erin, watching her. Watching her sleep.
ERIN
Snoop ID: LITTLEMY<
br />
Listening to: Offline
Snoopers: 5
Snoopscribers: 10
Liz is watching me. I don’t dare to open my eyes more than a sliver, but under cover of tossing in my sleep I move my head a little, letting my eyelids flicker, and I can see her, lying there, staring unblinkingly into the darkness.
With her glasses off she looks quite different. The owlish, impenetrable look is gone, and she looks younger, but at the same time there is something even more unsettling about her blank, unwavering stare. When I close my eyes and settle back down with a little fake snore, I can sense her gaze boring into me.
I feel light-headed with fear. What am I going to do?
I try to force myself to breathe slowly—to think this through clearly. Am I in danger? Immediate danger? I don’t know. If I am right, Liz has killed three people—but I don’t think she is killing for fun. I still have no idea why Eva had to die, but Ani and Elliot were only killed when they had concrete information about Liz’s guilt. If I can keep my suspicions under wraps until morning, I may be okay.
I squeeze my eyes shut, and I think about Elliot’s phone, plugged back into the battery upstairs, with the text message I sent to Danny in the outbox, waiting for a thread of connection. “SOS, please send help. IT’S LIZ.” A message I composed with trembling fingers, trying to walk the fine line between a message Danny would understand, a message that would act as a clue if something happens to me before morning, and a message that I could plausibly explain away if Liz somehow stumbles upon it.
I don’t think she has access to Elliot’s phone. But I don’t know. That’s the problem, I don’t know anything. She was doing something up there when she claimed to be going to the toilet. She spent much too long in her room, and I could hear her pacing around, opening and closing doors. She walked into the loo and immediately flushed it, without even closing the door as far as I could tell, let alone sitting on the toilet.
She knows something. She suspects something. I just don’t know what. All I know is that Ani was killed in her sleep, and so I don’t dare to let myself drift off.
LIZ
Snoop ID: ANON101
Listening to: Offline
Snoopers: 0
Snoopscribers: 1
Erin knows.
I was not sure at first, but as the time stretches out into what feels increasingly like an endless night, I am sure of it.
Because in spite of what I first assumed, she is not asleep. She is pretending to be asleep, but she is not. She is lying there with her eyes closed, and every now and again, when she thinks I am not watching, she opens her eyes just the smallest slit, to check if I am still awake. I see the glint of moonlight between her lashes, and then she squeezes them shut again and does a little fake snore.
It’s so unfair. God it’s so unfair!
I never asked for this. I never wanted any of it. I just wanted to be left alone.
It is all I’ve ever wanted. It’s all I wanted from the girls at school, with their bitching and their teasing and their prying.
It’s all I wanted at uni, with people badgering me to join up to clubs and attend freshers’ formals.
It’s all I wanted at Snoop. And at first they did—they left me alone, and you know what? It was fine!
And then it wasn’t. It all unraveled. And that’s why I hate them so much.
I hate Topher for dragging me into this, for saddling me with these shares like a millstone around my neck.
I hate Eva for meddling and meddling and meddling when she should have left well enough alone. I hated her Are you okay? and Is there anything I can do? and We’ll make this right, Liz, I swear.
I hate Elliot for poking and prying and being too clever by half.
I hate Rik for just—for just being one of them. So entitled. So slick. Swimming with sharks and never getting hurt because he’s one of them. Because he’s a man, and a private-school boy, and so very, very charming.
And now I hate Erin too.
Lying there, with her fake little snores, and her half smile, when all the time she has been putting two and two together…
Only it is too late. What can I do? If only I had been sure of this earlier—I still have eight of Eva’s sleeping tablets in my pocket. It would have been possible—not easy, but possible—to slip them into the cassoulet. I could have swapped our plates when Erin wasn’t looking. Now it is too late. Though perhaps that has already occurred to her. Perhaps that was what she was really doing in the toilet, when she took so long and came up with that transparent food-poisoning story. Perhaps she was making herself sick.
Could I stage a break-in? Perhaps I could pretend that Inigo came back for us? It could work—but not if Inigo himself has an alibi. And the problem is that if Inigo does have an alibi and if Erin doesn’t suspect me, then I would be exposing myself for no reason. I would be shooting myself in the foot.
I have to be very, very careful. I cannot afford a mistake.
But I have to know. I have to know what she knows.
“Erin,” I whisper, very quietly. There is complete silence, but it is not quite the silence of someone fully asleep. It is more like the silence of someone thinking it over.
At last there is a sigh, and Erin says, “Yes?”
“You’re still awake?”
“I can’t sleep. I keep thinking about the others, wondering where they are.”
It could be true. But then I think about that little slit of her eye, glinting at me in the dark. I don’t think it is. I don’t think that is what is keeping her awake. I play along.
“Are you worried about Danny?”
There is another long pause. I think she is trying to work out what to say. She is trying to figure out whether she needs to pretend to suspect someone else.
“A bit,” she says at last. “I hoped he’d come back tonight, you know?”
I am about to say something else, I’m not sure what, something meaningless about being sure Danny is okay.
Only then, in the silence as I formulate my words, there is a double beep. Very faint, and coming from upstairs, but completely unmistakable.
It is a sound that sets my pulse racing even before I have pinned down what it is.
It is the sound of a text message coming through.
ERIN
Snoop ID: LITTLEMY
Listening to: Offline
Snoopers: 5
Snoopscribers: 10
I can tell at once that Liz has heard. Her whole body goes stiff and alert, and she pushes herself up on her elbow, listening intently.
Fuck.
“What was that?” she says.
My heart is racing. I know bloody well what it was. It was Danny replying to Elliot’s text message. It must be. Elliot’s is the only phone in the house that still has any charge left on it. There must have been a blip of reception—the same sliver that allowed the notification from Snoop to come through.
But I keep my face carefully neutral.
“I have no idea—it sounded like a phone, don’t you think? But that can’t be right.”
Liz is staring at me, like she’s trying to figure out what’s going on behind my face. Oh my god she knows. She definitely knows. She just isn’t sure enough to act on her suspicions. I have to be very, very careful.
“It sounded like it was coming from upstairs,” Liz says. She grabs her glasses and swings one leg out of bed.
“Yeah…,” I say it slowly, my mind racing. At all costs, I can’t let her get into Elliot’s room. If she sees that message, I am in big trouble. She already suspects me. It would be very hard to explain that message away. “Yeah, it did.”
Could she kill me? I don’t know. Her knee is as screwed as my ankle. Could she out-hobble me if it came to trying to get away? I am trying to think of a plan. Could I lure her outside somehow? Lock the door? But then I think of Danny’s words, about Inigo turning up, begging to be let in, and I know he was right. I could never stand there and watch another hum
an being freeze to death inches away, only a pane of glass separating us. I just couldn’t. Not even Liz.
But I can’t let her find that text message.
My mind is racing, trying to remember what I could see on Elliot’s lock screen before I cleared it. Some people have their text messages show up in their entirety. Others only have the ID of the sender, or just You have a text. Which is Elliot? Why didn’t I check before I unlocked the phone and cleared his notifications? Of course if it occurs to Liz to use Elliot’s dead body to unlock the phone like I did, none of this matters.
“It sounds like it came from Miranda’s room,” I say slowly, trying to think how to put her off track.
“You think?” Liz says. Her face is skeptical. “I thought it sounded more like Elliot’s. It’d be just like him to have some kind of superlong-charge battery.”
My stomach flips. Of course. Of course she’s right. She knows these people. And now I realize I’m trapped. I can’t suggest we split up and I check Elliot’s room, when I already said I think the sound came from Miranda’s. I will have to go along with her suggestion.
“Should we… go and check?” I try to look doubtful. “It seems a bit disrespectful. Maybe we should rule out the other rooms first?”
Liz swings the other leg out of bed. She looks decisive.
“I think it’s more important that we get to the phone while it still has reception,” she says, reasonably, and I can’t find a way of contradicting her because the thing is, she’s right. That’s exactly what I’d be saying too, if I hadn’t sent that fucking text. “I understand if you don’t want to come,” she adds.
I waver. It’s tempting. But I can’t let her go up there alone. That would be worse. There may be some way I can get to the phone before she does, delete Danny’s reply.
“Of course,” I say instead, like I’m steeling myself to do something necessary. “Of course, you’re right, I was just being squeamish. It’s more important to get word out. Anyway, the door will be locked. You’ll need my key.”