The rifle swivels in my direction. “I wanted to . . . how do you say? Semer la pagaille. Provoke you. Make you think about Saskia and only Saskia until you cracked and confessed what you had done. I stole your phones, put hair under your pillow, sprayed the perfume. Left messages on your windows and mirrors. But getting answers was harder than I expected. I had to improvise.”

“The power, the music,” I say. “The bathroom door that you could only open from the outside.”

She nods.

“And you hit Brent,” I say.

“I pushed him,” she says, correcting me. “I was behind him on the stairs and I dropped the keys. I thought he heard me. I had to get away without him seeing.”

“And that trap in the snow?”

For the first time she looks a little sheepish. “I had to make sure you couldn’t leave before I learned the truth.”

“But any one of us could have fallen into it.”

She turns defiant again. “As it turns out, that didn’t matter, because none of you were innocent.”

“Did Dale walk into it by accident?” I ask, unsure I want to know.

Odette hesitates. “I called him over. He was surprised to see me. Very surprised. But I told him Heather had fallen down there and he went to look.”

My fingers clench. How could she?

Her eyes blaze. “I loved Saskia and he stole from her. Heather, too. I pointed my gun at her because I wanted her to say to my face that she spent Saskia’s money. Instead she told me so much more. About that morning. The cushion . . .” Pain crosses her features before her anger returns. “I promised myself I will hurt whoever hurt her. Dale and Heather hurt her.” She pauses a beat. Glances at each of us to check she has our full attention. “Julien hurt her.”

“What do you mean?” I say, resolutely shoving images of Dale and Heather’s final moments from my mind. “The writing on her mailbox?” Photos of Julien’s graffiti somehow ended up in the media as Saskia’s disappearance became national news.

“My brother brought me the newspaper in hospital and I knew immediately it was Julien. How dare he? He had to pay for that.” A ghost of a smile, which vanishes just as fast.

My stomach drops away. “The car accident? That was you?”

I glance at Curtis, but he seems to barely be following.

The rifle swings back to me. “And you, Milla. You were my favorite. I felt bad I had to involve you in this. I was almost sure it wasn’t you who had killed her. I missed you these last years.”

I remember the message on the window in my dorm and now it makes sense.

Odette’s eyes narrow. “I was wrong about you. You didn’t hurt her, but you hurt me.”

“I know,” I say. “I’m so sorry. The Crippler.”

“What?”