“What thefuck?”
Wes’s voice is like thunder.It’s a suppressed warning, the personification of a dark cloud that rolls over before a deadly lightning strike.And when I tear my eyes from the mezzanine and see what’s caused his entire body to go rigid, his face to go hard, fury almost crackling off him, I get it.I feel it, too.Because there, standing beneath the disco ball, is John.
And only John.
He’s already holding his hands up in surrender, the Midori bottle loose in one fist and a first aid kit hanging from the other as I try to figure out why he isn’t flanked by two well-dressed women and an asshole in plaid.
“I told him we shouldn’t split up.”
CHAPTER 12
“Killing isn’t easy; that’s why they call it murder.”
—NotThe Big Sick
“Stu wanted to find the exit before you,” John says, pausing to lift a hand in greeting to the two new additions to our group.Jennifer looks happy to see him, and I remember that before everything went down, it seemed like they had a nice date.
“He told Dani and Colette to go back into the basement together to see if any of the dead staff had phones.I stayed on this level, and he went up to the mezzanine.”
While the slasher fan in me is screaming that nothing good ever happens by returning to the scene of the original kill, let alone going down into a basement, I can admit trying to look for a phone on one of the staff is a good idea—one I wish I thought of before we made our way up.But why didn’t Stu tell the rest of us?Why turn an escape attempt into a competition?
He really is a dusty-ass piece of coal.And maybe he’s something worse than that.I’m starting to doubt whether that scream we heard while we were downstairs—the one that made me think the killer wasabove our heads and couldn’t be anyone in the room—is enough to reduce the number of suspects.
Then I realize—
“So, you’ve been alone this whole time?”I ask John.
The thought is terrifying for two reasons.The first is: What if he’d come up against the killer?What if he became the next person we found splayed out in the middle of a hallway?
The second is that unlike the four people beside me, John doesn’t have anyone to verify what he’s saying is true.My stomach clenches when the thought crosses my mind.Do I think he somehow killed two people, left a trail of rose petals—all while evading notice from his own group and ours—cleaned himself up, and made it back onto the dance floor to meet us?
No, I don’t.
Can I discount him as a suspect because I don’t think this sweet guy is capable of murder?
No… I can’t.
“I had to navigate this level on my own, I’m afraid.”John directs his crooked little smile my way, the one that’s cute and humble and apologetic all at once.“The hallway made a square kind of shape after I passed some restrooms.There was another bar, and then I hit a dead end.”His steel-blue gaze moves to each member of our group.We’ve made an arc around him, like the lifeless remains of a dance circle.
“I didn’t want you guys to come back and find no one here, so I turned around, and when I came across the bar again, I thought there might be a first aid kit.”The guilt of thinking he could be a suspect grips harder when he holds up the green fabric case, a white cross stark in the middle of it.“It might come in handy in case we find anyone who needs help.”
“I don’t think a few bandages are going to help the people wefound,” Billie mutters darkly, then at John’s furrowed expression she says, “Bodies.”
John’s face drops, and I realize there must have been a certain part of him that thought the bloodshed was done for the night.That what happened in the basement was like fireworks on New Year’s Eve: a sudden, explosive display of color and sound, an assault on the eyes, but over as soon as it had begun.He doesn’t know about the new bodies, or the blood, or the rose petals.He doesn’t know this is only the beginning.
“What do you meanbodies?”John looks between us all, but it’s Billie who juts a thumb over her shoulder.
“Two.In a hallway over there.”
Again I’m struck by how cold she is.How… unfeeling.If it came down to John or Billie being the killer, I know who I’d put my money on.
“Christ,” John mutters, his hair falling into his eyes as he shakes his head.I have the sudden urge to brush the light brown strands back from his face, but I push that thought away as he glances back up and looks around the group.“Where’s Campbell?”
“He ran off,” Wes says.He’s turned his gaze to the mezzanine level, looking up at the rails above our heads as if Campbell and Stu are going to walk out from the shadows and wave down to us on the dance floor.
“He’s probably the one doing this,” Billie interjects.“It’s always the quiet ones.”
“What if it’s Stu, though?”Jennifer says.She’s gripping onto her elbows now, and the skin around her fingers has turned white.“What if—”
