Vicious Memories

Chapter 52

Too slow, I thought.

The bonfire roared with life, the glow expanding into a lake of flame that overflowed its banks. The light played across the faces of thirty alarmed villagers. They stood waiting for the hammer to drop. Cooper, Tana, and Scott each did an independent headcount to confirm everyone was present. A cloud of smoke washed over us; it filled my nostrils with its acrid smell and made my eyes water.

"Before anyone begins to panic, everyone is fine," Arun began, "so you can all relax a little. Nobody is hurt, nobody's been taken." He took a breath. Then another. A frown walked across his face. "Since we formed our village so long ago, we've been operating on a few foundations that have worked for us. Someone once said that, 'The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.'"

I shook my head, just barely managing to keep from rolling my eyes.

"Unfortunately," Arun continued, "that isn't not working for us anymore. Someone else once said, 'Trust, but verify.' Those are the words we now have to take to heart, which is why we're all here."

My stomach coiled into a series of knots that seemed to undo and redo themselves every few seconds. One of the people in this group was a murderer. They were so physically close, and yet so far from being caught. For now.

"We've spoken with many of you about this," I said, "but I guess it's time for us to say it out loud, as a group." I cracked my knuckles. "We believe that whoever killed Jessica and Sirus, and likely whoever kidnapped Mads and murdered Shana, is from the village."

Silence.

Then: "Qu'est-ce que tu dis?" Mads asked, her face horrified.

"What did you just say?" Finn repeated. "The person is standing right here?"

"Yes," I said. "Unfortunately."

"Who the hell would kidnap Mads?" Finn put a protective arm around her shoulders. "Which one of you assholes took Mads?"

"Finn. Please."

"Who would do that to Mads?" he pleaded, and for the first time I noticed that his boyish face didn't seem as young as it once had. He had aged a decade in the past few days.

"That's what we're here to find out."

Lukas remained in the prison cabin under guard, and I ruled him out quickly. With Arun and Alice's help, we formed the villagers into a single horizontal line. They grumbled slightly, but there was one thing I was counting on to ensure their cooperation: all but a single one of them was innocent. That meant they had nothing to hide, they were scared, and they still cared as deeply for one another as they had before this entire mess had started. If one person put up a fight or refused to cooperate it would be as good as an admission of guilt.

The main problem was that it had taken too long to gather everyone. At first I thought that if we gathered the group quickly enough someone would be conspicuously absent, or people would have seen someone coming back to the caves looking suspicious after they had been woken up. That hadn't happened. Too much time had passed.

Or, a nagging voice in my head argued gleefully, you're entirely wrong and Alice was attacked by a Stranger. This entire thing was a Stranger's doing all along.

No, I fired back, not possible. It has to be someone here. That's the only way any of this makes sense.

Right, right... because you've never been wrong about anything before.

Enough. I don't have time for this. Alice could be the next to die if we don't end this now. I would... I can't let that happen.

With Arun hovering behind me, I made my way down the line of villagers slowly, asking each person a few questions. "What did you do last night? Did you see anything suspicious in the last twenty-four hours? When did you go to sleep? Did you get up at all since then? Did you see anybody else get up?"

More than their answers - which Scott recorded in a notebook - I paid attention to their faces. A face could give answers that words tried to hide. Faces were difficult to control. And for those that did control them well, their expressions often failed to match their words.

So I watched. Closely.

And something was wrong.