Betrayal at the House in the Woods

Misleadings

After taking time to calm down, we worked together to move Thomas to be with Jessy and Lilly. I assumed he died the same way they did because of the blueness and the puncture wound on the neck.

To make each other felt better, we performed a search through the whole house, including each other's belonging, to ensure we didn't have anything to hide.

An hour later, we met back up at the lounge and had found nothing. Didn't mean she was not guilty, and I assumed she thought the same about me.

I remembered one of my first theories. There could be two perpetrators. Could they be Cleo and either Dan or Richy?

"Tell me," I decided to start another conversation. "You mentioned someone named Eira... Who is that?"

I figured I could ask about myself. I also hoped Jake came into the conversation. Jake... I just remembered in the craziness of things that I haven't really messaged him for the past few hours since dinner time.

"Oh, that's a pretty long and odd story..." Cleo bit her lip. "After Hannah went missing, a few days after, Thomas received a text from her with Eira's number in it. And then it somehow got deleted, but Thomas memorised the number and decided to make contact. But Eira doesn't know Hannah at all. We still don't know why Thomas received her number."

"That's very odd," I commented. "Is Eira from Duskwood too?"

Cleo shook her head. "No. She's a complete stranger. We don't even know where she's from. But we've been texting her. She's been helping us."

I squinted. "And you're not suspicious of her?"

I would have if I were them. They were suspicious of me at first, but not for very long. Not for very long, indeed.

"Of course," Cleo replied. "But we came to know her and I don't know. I don't think she's behind all of this."

That was sweet of her, but I was afraid I couldn't return the favour. "Is there anyone else involved in this? There seems to be so many of you," I tried to bait for more information.

"Well..." Cleo hesitated. "There's Jessy's brother, Phil, who was arrested recently."

Ugh, when would we get to Jake? But this was also good to talk about. "Why?"

Cleo shrugged. "We don't know. Jessy said the police said one of us witnessed against him."

"Did you?" I asked carefully.

Cleo snorted. "Of course not. He was being very suspicious, but we would never jump into any conclusion without any hard evidence."

"Suspicious how?"

I could understand why the police did heaps of interrogation. It made you feel like you were acheiving so much.

Cleo sighed. "Well, where do I start... When I asked him about Hannah, he said some horrible stuff about her that weren't true. He also threatened Richy and they found a matchbox from his bar next to Amy's dead body. And even more, Hannah was in a phone call with him the day she disappeared."

"Threatened" was a big word. Richy did show me a screenshot of his conversation with Phil. There were some odd things about it. First of all, I didn't quite see why they took it as a threat. It didn't sound like that to me at all. And second of all, Jake installed something for me so I could spy on the text messages sent by and between this group of friends. But I didn't see this conversation happened between Phil and Richy. I wasn't sure of the limits of my spying, but I reckoned it would have covered this one, considering I even saw Dan's conversation with a keymaker.

Oh, there was also that. Dan helped Thomas to make a key to Hannah's apartment. It was to get that bracelet because he thought it would lead to Hannah. It was things like this that confused me. Everyone in the group had a suspicious thing they did. U wanted to excuse them as trying to help to find Hannah, but some of them were just... confusing. Or I must say, misleading.

Misleading. Were they doing it deliberately?

"But I guess we now know Phil isn't guilty..." Cleo continued.

Unless he had help, which I didn't say out loud. I didn't really think he was guilty. But I honestly couldn't dismiss anyone.

"I know both our cars are out of action..." Cleo started again. "But maybe we  can find Thomas' key and get out of here. We should've done it from the start."

We could've. But we could have still been attacked while driving. There was also a problem of trust...

"Cleo... what were you doing the day Hannah disappeared?"

Cleo stared at me in confusion. "I was at work all day. Why?"

"And who told you Hannah had been kidnapped?"

Cleo paused for second before squinting. "Are you suspicous of me?"

I shrugged. "I'm just making conversation, just like before."

"Hmm." Cleo was definitely not happy with my answer but she moved on from it pretty quickly. "We received this strange message from someone claiming to be Hannah's friend and told us that she was in danger. When Thomas and Richy checked, Hannah was already missing. This strange guy claimed he witnessed the abduction."

Witnessed the abduction... Hmm. Now that I thought of it... Jake never said how he witnessed it. And also, from memory, Jake said that something hapened to Hannah and he saw it. He didn't exactly say she was being kidnapped... or did I remember it wrong?

"Do you think he's someone you know?"

Cleo shook her head. "We later figured out that his name is Jake. I mean, it could be a fake name, but I still don't think he's even from Duskwood."

I raised my eyebrows. "So how did he witness the abduction?"

Cleo paused. "We assumed he was videocalling Hannah."

Hmm. I just realised we never really talked about this.

"Anyway, he always acts so mysteriously so we never got much out of him. But I think he works with Eira to hack into Hannah's phone."

I squinted. "And did they find anything useful?"

"Yes and no. They don't always share with us." Cleo seemed to be drifting off a bit.

"And you still don't think they did it?"

Cleo shook her head pretty confidently.

"How can you be so sure?"

"Well, Jake claims to be Hannah's half brother."

I stood up abruptly. "You should have not known that."

Cleo stared at me blankly. "What do you mean?"

Ugh, I might have blown my cover. Oh well, I couldn't hide it forever anyway.  And also, Cleo now had become even more suspicious.

"Jake only told Lilly and me. And we both agreed not to tell anyone else," I said firmly. "So who told you that?"

Cleo frowned. "Wait, you know Jake?"

I rolled my eyes. "Come on, spit it out. You are behind all of this, aren't you?"

Cleo still looked confused. I must give it to her, she pretended well. "Lilly told me. She said she couldn't keep it a secret any longer," she answered confidently. "The real question is, how do you know?"

I snorted. "Can't you guess already?"

Cleo was about to say something, when someone came out of the kitchen behind her. It was a man wearing a mask... with a syringe on his hand.