“Someone else played that music and screamed for Briggs?” Marcos asks. Between the two of us, the puzzle pieces are locking together faster and faster. Too fast. The momentum can’t be stopped.

“The Reverend did this.”

“No, he was with us at lunch the whole time. So were Bill and Briggs and everybody.”

“Drew was bringing me this Playbill, I know it. He wanted to help. It has to be the Reverend!”

“Connor, I watched Drew fall. It couldn’t have been the Reverend. It has to be someone who wasn’t at lunch.”

“Someone who was in the watchtower during lunch? We’ve been here since Drew fell. How could they have had time to sneak away?”

“Maybe they’re still up there.” The words escape Marcos so quickly, he doesn’t immediately realize the implications of what he’s said. But realization does come—crashing as loudly as silverware clattering onto a kitchen floor.

Molly clears the ladder’s final rung, and we move in slow motion. Gripping the slats, she looks down at me, her face twisted in fear. “Connor…” she whispers. “Someone’s up here—”

The killer stands, throws off the tarp that’s been concealing her, and emerges from her hiding place like a great white shark out of the ocean depths. Miss Manners straightens the filthy hem of her lemon-print dress and smiles at her new company. Molly’s hands jolt off the ladder rungs like they’ve transformed into snakes, and—shrieking—she plummets back to earth.

CHAPTER THIRTY

CHAPTER THIRTY

NOBODY MOVES,
NOBODY GETS HURT

“Molly!” I shriek.

Pins and needles trap me on my knees next to Drew’s body. Molly hurtles downward so quickly—and the shock of discovering Miss Manners has stunned us so completely—that Marcos is only able to reach her in a photo finish. Molly’s screams continue until she crashes into his arms, the impact slamming both of them into the dirt in a tangle of limbs. If the gray-shirts had placed Drew’s body a foot to the left, we’d be scraping Molly off the Coral Road with a shovel. Luckily for her, Marcos is practically made of pillows. Pillow arms, pillow thighs, pillow chest, and a pillow…well, let’s just say when Molly struck him, he landed on his ass and seems fine.

Molly rolls off Pillow Man like a concussed person staggering out of a car wreck. Dazed and silent, she crawls toward the dense jungle wall beyond the watchtower. Still on his back, Marcos stares catatonically upward, but I don’t need to follow his gaze to know who’s holding his attention.

Miss Manners.

She heard everything we said. She knows what we’re up to. And she hanged Drew, already dead, to make it look like he did it himself.

You’re next, whispers the voice in my head.