But it was a trick. A lie to get me to do his dirty work. He just wanted us all together, away from help and off our guard. Somewhere he could watch us, test us, trap us.
“You need to hear this, Luke,” said Mason, still brandishing the bottle, and blood dripping from his hand. “You need to listen to what they’ve got to say for themselves.”
“Mason, Jesus,” said Luke. “Put that down, will you? You’re . . . you’re bleeding. And you’re going to get someone hurt!”
Cora was looking from me to Mason, and back again. “You tricked us?” she said to me. “You and Mason were planning this from the start?”
“No! I wasn’t planning anything, I swear it! Mason came to me asking for my help. What exactly was I supposed to do?”
“But . . . the search party,” said Abi. “Does that mean we were never really looking? That the search party was never really real? What about Sadie? About her being hurt, lying out here in the woods somewhere . . .”
Even in the dark, Mason’s expression was plain enough. Disgust, ridicule, revulsion: you name it, it was written on his face.
“Sadie’s dead,” he said. “It’s obvious she’s dead. It’s been obvious since the day she went missing!”
“But . . . how can you be so sure?” I asked him, whining like a little kid.
“Because I know what the police do,” said Mason. “Remember? They threw it all in my face. They even sat there and watched me cry.” He adjusted his hand around the broken bottle, and I realized how badly he was bleeding. How much it must have hurt.
And not just the cut.
“Plus,” he went on, in a voice that was barely above a whisper, “if she were still alive she would have let me know. One way or another.”
Which, even given everything I was hearing, made me feel kind of sad. That he thought that. That he probably even believed it. He really loved her, you see. Far more than she could ever have loved him.
“So was it you?” said Abi. “All the stuff that’s been happening. The phones, the water, the noises we’ve been hearing in the woods . . .”
“Don’t give me that,” said Mason, rounding on her. “Don’t try and play all innocent. Why the fuck would I have messed with the water? The phones, maybe, if it had occurred to me, and if there’d been any reception out here in the first place. But I wanted you out here, remember? Why would I give you an excuse to go back? Which, by the way, is all any of you have been looking for since this started. So why don’t you tell me, Abi? Why were you so desperate to go home? What was it you were worried we would find?”
“Nothing! I wasn’t worried about anything! It was me who found Sadie’s phone, remember?”
“Too right I remember,” said Mason. “I remember you falling over yourself to pick it up. Because it was sitting there as plain as day, and you knew that if you didn’t, either me or Luke would have. And then you wouldn’t have had a chance to delete whatever you needed to in order to remove any link to Sadie. But you forgot about the photo on the lock screen, didn’t you? The passcode, too. Unless you simply ran out of time. Or maybe you freaked out when you noticed the blood.”
“No! That’s not what happened! Tell him, Fash! You saw me! I didn’t delete anything.”
I didn’t know what to say. I was still busy trying to come to terms with what was happening. With what Mason was doing.
“What happened, Abi?” Mason pressed. “Did you not know Sadie had the phone on her when you killed her? Did it slip out of her pocket when you were getting rid of her body? Or maybe . . . maybe it was never Sadie’s in the first place. Maybe you planted it deliberately—to fool the cops, to pull the search in the wrong direction. You bought the cheapest phone you could get, uploaded that photo, changed the code so it was the same as Sadie’s, and then—the finishing touch—applied just a dab of Sadie’s blood. Except it backfired. Just when everyone was about ready to give up, you accidentally gave us a reason to keep looking.”
“Mason, listen to me,” said Luke. “This is crazy! None of what you’re saying makes sense. Why would Abi want to hurt Sadie? Why would any of us?”
Mason ignored him. “Because you know that’s what the police think about Sadie’s bag, don’t you?” He was looking at Abi, but it was obvious he was talking to us all. “That it was put by the river deliberately, to make it look like Sadie had fallen in. They think the killer put it there. They think I did!”
Abi went white. I guess we all did.
“You’ve always been jealous of Sadie,” Mason said to Abi. “Of how popular she was, of how pretty.” He spat the word, and it was as though he were spitting at Abi. “Is that why you started all those rumors about her online? All those lies?”
Abi started shaking her head, faster and faster.
“Except it didn’t work, did it?” Mason went on. “It didn’t make you any less of a leper, and it didn’t make your dad suddenly love you as much as Sadie’s dad loved her. So what happened after that, Abi? Did Sadie find out? Did you argue? Did you kill her just to shut her up?”
Abi’s head was still
