Page 101 of The Unknown

“Lindy knew what you were planning, didn’t she?” I say.

“A mistake on my part,” Violet says. “She also knew Elise. They’d met a few times at auditions. I thought that connection would be enough to convince her to help. Instead, when she learned what we had planned, she told us she wanted no part of it.”

“So she quit.”

“Loretta fired her before she could,” Violet says. “To show there are no hard feelings, Loretta even decided to give her some money. If she signed an NDA, of course. That’s why Lindy’s here in Vermont. To tie up any loose ends and get her money. Compensation for wasting her time.”

“What about my time?” I say, realizing that they might not have any intention of actually making this movie. I hate how that’s my main concern after hearing what happened to Elise. That I might lose my starring role, my SAG card, my hundred grand. But it is. To deny it would be lying to myself. “Let’s say your plan works, Ronan confesses, and his career is over. What then? Are you still going to make this movie?”

“Of course,” Violet says. “We wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble if we weren’t.”

“But there’ll be no director,” I say.

“We’ll get a new one. A woman. Won’t that be nice?”

“And the script?” I say, knowing we can’t use one written by a sex creep.

“We’ll have it rewritten,” Violet says. “Start from scratch. Right now, we just need to finish what we started here. And we need your help.”

I hop to my feet, springing upward in surprise. “Myhelp?”

“Tomorrow night’s séance is the last chance we have at getting Ronan to confess. You have to be a part of it. Ronan will be suspicious if you’re not. Susie, Heather, and Julianne can’t do it because they’re supposed to be missing. It’s just the two of us now, Marin.”

Violet pulls me aside, away from the others, her voice an urgent whisper in my ear.

“I know things like this matter to you. You showed no hesitation in calling out Ronan when you thought Susie was missing. Not a lot of actresses would have done that. Not to someone with Ronan’s power. Not when such a huge role was on the line. But you did, Marin.”

I did. Without even thinking about it. I saw what had seemed like bad behavior and was quick to point it out. But that doesn’t make me special. At least it shouldn’t. I was simply being a decent human being. What they’re asking me to do now is different. They want me to take part in a deception that, until literally a half hour ago, was also aimed at me.

“What if I hadn’t seen Susie, chased her down, and forced you to tell me everything?” I say. “What was my role supposed to be in all of this? Gullible witness?”

“Objectivewitness,” Violet says.

“So you admit you were trying to scare me, too,” I say. “Because it increased the odds of Ronan believing something weird was happening if I did as well.”

And that meant exploiting my past trauma. I’m certain they all saw my audition tape and me talking so openly about Molly, about how I thought she had been haunting me. That’s the reason I got the job. Itwasn’t because of my “period look,” and it sure as hell wasn’t because of my acting skills. They needed a true believer. Someone who would easily fall for mock séances, fake hauntings, mysterious disappearances that weren’t a mystery at all. The fact that I eventually did makes me as angry with myself as I am with them.

“You used me,” I say, blood rising in my cheeks. “You used my dead sister.”

“We’re sorry,” Violet says. “It was wrong to do that.”

But they did it anyway. They stood there, watching me cry as I talked about my guilt over Molly’s death. They had Susie come to my window night after night, wet and dripping. They let me fear that they were lost, missing, dead.

“I was worried about you!” I look to Susie, Heather, and Julianne, their guilty stares making me even angrier. “Not to mention terrified that it was going to happen to me.”

“What we did was wrong, and we will all owe you deeply once this is over,” Violet says, trying to placate me. “Now, will you please help us?”

I don’t know. I honestly don’t. I’m too angry and confused and overwhelmed to think straight. So, rather than answer, I start to walk away, shaking off Violet when she tries to grab me.

“Where are you going, Marin?” she says, more resigned than concerned.

“Back to my cottage.”

“You’re not going to tell Ronan, are you?”

I keep walking, leaving them waiting for an answer. They’re all still watching me. I can feel the heat of their stares on the back of my neck. All around me, the island’s insects continue to screech, forcing me to raise my voice as I finally respond.

“No fucking comment.”