“Um…a murder?” Jack asks through a veil of midnight-dark bangs.

“Long time ago,” I say, marveling at how carefree I’m able to sound. “Don’t worry.”

While Darcy licks her pudding cup clean and Marcos signals Lacrishia for another lemonade, I clue Jack and Vance in on the barest minimum of what Darcy and I need: Ricky Hannigan’s Expulsion tapes from the watchtower. Jack is keenest on the task—he moves quickly and softly, and a litheness is essential for this operation. But it’s Vance who adds the wrinkle: “What if the Reverend made Bill hide the rest of those tapes in the bunker instead?”

“Damn…” Darcy whispers.

“The bunker?” I ask, alive with the memory of Ricky’s Expulsion. Stanley mentioned—all too happily—that Ricky was headed for the bunker as some kind of extra dose of Nightlight punishment. It was the only time during the tape when the Reverend’s sadistic future tendencies peeked out.

“It’s jail, and you don’t want to go there,” Marcos whispers.

“The bunker is an outpost, one of the cabins by the lake,” Darcy says, folding her hands to her mouth, her mind racing through possible solutions to this complication. “Bill sleeps there, but there are jail cells too—animal cages. It’s secluded and far from camp. You can’t sneak off there without someone noticing you’re gone—”

“So, one of us needs to get sent to jail,” I blurt, on the edge of either a happy dance or a nervous breakdown. I’m one nasty remark away from a night in the bunker anyway, and I’d have tons of time alone to look through Bill’s room for tapes. And I’d have the Walkman to listen to them. “Am I suddenly useful again as one of your spies?”

“Mayhaps,” Darcy says slowly. “Before we do that, we should search the watchtower. It’s easier. Then if we do your bunker plan, you’ll need keys to let yourself out of the cage to snoop…”

This time, accusatory eyes fall on Marcos, one of the trusted keepers of Nightlight’s key rings. “You can’t use my keys,” he says, fingers snapping. “They’ll know I helped you and—”