‘Could someone really have done that to Hannah?’ Mira had kept asking, again and again. ‘But who – and why?’
‘I don’t know – it’s impossible. It makes me think it must have been a terrible accident, instead. I just can’t imagine anyone wanting to hurt her,’ Naya had said. ‘Hannah seemed so... I can’t thinkof any reason she’d have an enemy, you know? Her whole purpose in life is – I meanwas– to try and help people, to do good. It makes no sense.’
‘And what about those messages from her?’ Ben had wondered. ‘How could she have sent us those selfies from Golfito this morning, if she was already dead?’
‘Well, she couldn’t have – she just couldn’t have,’ Mira had mused. ‘Someone must have faked them somehow – or perhaps Hannah even took them another time herself. Or... or...’ She’d faltered then, probably realized she was unable to come up with another viable explanation for something that was so nonsensical.
‘Well, there’s at least one thing we can be sure of,’ Scott had said.
‘Oh? What’s that?’ Carly had asked.
‘I was thinking about it and, if someone reallydidmurder her, it can’t have been any of us. We weren’t here when she... you know, when Naya thinks it happened, were we? None of us were even in the area – we were making our way here.’
There’d been a silence while the group digested this. Ben swallowed. ‘Hang on, man. Does that mean you even considered that as a possibility? Did you seriously think any of us could have killed Hannah?’ he’d said.
‘Yeah – are you saying you suspected one of us, Scott?’ said Carly, an edge to her voice. This line of thought had clearly rattled her – as it had rattled him too.
‘Nah, I’m not saying that. Not saying I thought it was any of you – of course not. I just mean, it’s good that we can put that possibility from our minds. And the police can too.’
Naya had cleared her throat. ‘I don’t know... we werestill the ones to find her – we were still on our way to the retreat around the time she died. From the perspective of the police, that’s going to make all of us seem suspicious...’
Something whooshed by now, uncomfortably close to Ben’s ear – a bat, most likely; through the moonlight his eyes had caught a bunch of them swooping through the trees, identifying them through their fluttering, erratic movements and sharp, chaotic turns. It brought him back to the present, lying there alone, awake in the dark.
He thought the same thing now, though: that it was impossible to imagine any of the group here could have killed Hannah. And he still had the nagging suspicion that the real cause of this might lie elsewhere; that Hannah might have managed to get herself tangled up in something she wasn’t meant to. All those news articles he’d read about supposedly innocent tourists getting caught up in drug gangs and cocaine cartels were still floating around in his head. It was most likely that Hannah had gotten herself involved in something out here in the Costa Rican wilderness that she shouldn’t have. But he had to know; one way or another, he had to find out:who did this to her?
Ben imagined these same, inevitable questions running through the minds of the police when they got here. As well as Hannah’s friends and family, of course, and her followers. They’d be desperate to find the culprit. Then, surely, those questions would start to take on a shape, a focus. They’d zoom in on the people who’d been in contact with Hannah close to the time she died – wouldn’t they?
A flash of light to his right-hand side, a few feet away, caught his attention, and he pushed himself up to sitting.Underneath the beam of her torch, he could see Carly, her face eerily hollowed out and bony white under its gaze. She hadn’t even tried to lie down in the hours they’d been here, by the looks of things; she was just sitting on the trunk of a fallen tree, moving her flashlight around the space. She looked like she was keeping watch for – Ben wasn’t sure.Something. Just like him, Carly was too scared to sleep – to even close her eyes.
Ben squirmed, shifted on the spot, then: ‘Ouch,’ he said, as something sharp dug into the base of his spine, sending a wave of hot pain through his back.For fuck’s sake.He was getting nowhere with this. He might as well get up, have some company instead of being stuck alone with his awful thoughts.
‘Hey, Carly?’ he whispered.
It took her a few beats to respond, then finally, ‘Yeah?’ he heard back. Her voice sounded thick with something: sleep, or maybe tears, he couldn’t be sure.
‘How are you holding up?’ he said.
‘I’m... not sure I am, really,’ she said.
‘Yeah, me neither. I can’t sleep – I keep thinking over and over about... and besides, I can’t get comfortable enough on the ground. Do you want to take my spot over here? Try and get some rest?’
Another pause, then: ‘I don’t know. Shouldn’t one of us stay on the lookout? You know, for any predators – animal ones, I mean.’
Or human,thought Ben.
‘I can do that,’ he said. ‘Give me your flashlight and I’ll take over for a while, so you can get some rest.’
There was a crunch of footsteps and then Carly was next to him. ‘Are you sure?’ she said, the beam from her flashlightbouncing again off the grooves and hollows of her face. ‘I wouldn’t mind lying down for a bit.’
‘Totally sure, you can take my spot,’ said Ben, pointing to the pathetic nest behind him. ‘Just let me grab my bag.’
He reached for his rucksack, then fumbled his way to the lookout point where Carly had been sitting. He sat down, stared at his bag.
Just a small one.
After everything I’ve been through... finding Hannah... the shock.
I can’t do this any more without a hit.
