a cold summer

Chapter Thirteen ~ A PIT of Lies

It was fake. All of it was fake.

Of course my friends hadn't been murdered by ghosts. How had I not seen that? The shock of their death had been clouding my judgement. On top of that, the whole power cut ghost display had really freaked me out. I should have paused to stop and think. I should have realised it was all a ruse.

I couldn't believe Xara trusted these people. I couldn't believe they'd lied to her and got away with it for so long. Or at least, I had to assume that it was them who set this up. Either way, it was their fault. If they were real paranormal investigators, they would have noticed and said it was staged. That's how I knew they were fakes.

I took a shortcut through the dark woods to get to the glass building. Ordinarily, I would have been too terrified to go through this woods. But now I had definitive proof that there were no evil spirits lurking in here. In fact, no one every ventured in here. I doubted any animals would want to live here. That actually made it quite safe.

I saw the glass building and quickened my pace. I needed to confront PIT and make them tell me the truth. I was sick of being lied to.

I threw open the doors to the glass building, ignoring the amazing scent of the cafe next to it. No one was here which meant they must be in the main office. So I threw open those doors too.

Stella was sat at her desk whilst Barry and Geoff were talking animatedly in the corner. They looked up at me in surprise.

"Ok people," I began. "What's the deal?"
Stella frowned. "Deal? What deal?"
"You lied to me," I said, my voice rising to a shout. "You knew that my friends weren't killed by ghosts but you still told me that they were. I've seen how you created the fancy show, making it seem like winter and making ghosts appear and terrorise me."
Stella became increasingly nervous. "We've shown you everything we could find on your friends' murder. All evidence points to it being a supernatural attack."
"Really? Then what's this?" I slammed the map on her desk. "Did you kill my friends?"

Stella's face fell. "Of course not. We would never do anything to harm another human being. We leave that to our clients."
Clients? I raised an eyebrow.
Barry sighed and handed me a business card. "We work for Illustrious Illusions. A company that creates the illusion of paranormal activity for movies and TV series. It looks more realistic than using CGI special effects."
"Ordinarily we would never do this to cover up a murder," said Geoff. "But we were offered a sum that we couldn't refuse. This island has different rules, so we wouldn't get caught."

My head began to spin. So they weren't killed by ghosts. But then, who did kill them?

"Who ordered this cover up?" I asked.
"We can't say," Stella whispered. "She said she would kill us if we didn't cooperate."
"A serial killer?" I asked.
Stella nodded.

That said enough. The serial killer Jesse and Isa were about to expose. She must have found out that they knew.

That's why they died.

"Do you know how they really died then?" I asked quietly.
"Ricin poisoning," said Barry. "It's extremely deadly and virtually undetectable in forensic analysis. That's why the report said they hadn't even been harmed at all."

"I need you to give me a name," I said gently. "If you tell me who she is, I can call Xara and she can finally put this psycho behind bars."
"I don't think that will help," Geoff began.
I frowned. "Look, the best thing we can do is get this punk arrested. You need to tell me her name."
"Don't you understand?" Barry yelled. "That's not the problem."
"Well then what is the problem?" I retorted.
"People can't arrest themselves."

I froze. It took me a minute to fully understand what Barry just said. People can't arrest themselves.

The serial killer was posing as a police officer on this island.

Geoff said calling Xara wouldn't help. Because Xara couldn't arrest herself.