Page 70 of The Unknown

I move on to the next suspect.

Azra.

The moment I finish writing the name, the mysterious scratching begins. It sounds like I’m continuing to write, using a pencil to scrawl across the cottage floor. I wait it out, listening, as the scratching continues for another minute or two before going suddenly, eerily silent. I stare at the name Azra, fearful, as if the mere act of writing it had summoned them.

I am, I realize, starting to seem like Julianne. Not that I think Azra is roaming the island, taking us one by one the same way they allegedly did the original women of New Avalon. That’s preposterous. Well, ninety-nine percent of the way. Which is why Azra is so high on my list. I can’t rule them out completely because no logical explanation for what’s going on has presented itself.

Except for the second-most-likely suspect.

Ronan.

An hour ago, he pulled me aside to say I shouldn’t feel bad about revealing he was the last person to see Susie. “You were trying to do the right thing,” he said. “Just like I should have done and put my foot down when Loretta insisted on all of us coming here.”

“I thought this was your idea.”

“I wanted to do it on set in North Carolina,” Ronan said. “It would have been the same deal, with all of you living like Daisy and the others, wearing their clothes, cooking the same way they did. To me, that was the important part. But when Loretta found out we could do it in the actual place where it all happened, she wouldn’t take no for an answer. She was determined to come here, cost be damned. Now Susie is missing.”

He looked at me then, his gaze searching.

“You believe me, right?” he said. “That I had nothing to do with this? Because I didn’t.”

Although Ronan seemed utterly sincere, I can’t entirely rule out the possibility that this continues to be some elaborate attempt at creating a sense of authenticity. He admitted as much after the obviously faked part of the séance. And while he claimed to have nothing to do with what happened after, there’s a small chance he was lying. He is, after all, the self-proclaimed “method director,” known for putting his cast through the same experiences their characters went through.

It’s possible he’s even taken it one step further. For all I know, there could be hidden cameras placed all over the island, filming everything we do. A movie about the making of a movie, shot documentary-style, chronicling the real-life reactions of actresses who didn’t know they were being filmed. ABlair Witch Projectfor a moviegoing audience who might not even know what that is. It would certainly explain Loretta’s continued absence. As the film’s producer, she would have to know about—and approve—this plan.

If that’s the case, then Susie could also be in on it, since she was the one stomping through the woods with a camcorder. But that’s where the plan falls apart. Susie’s not a good enough actress to pull that off. She looked genuinely terrified in that video. If that was fake, then she gave the performance of her life.

So that leaves Lindy Garrett, the prime suspect.

She’s here in Vermont; knows we are, too; and has definitely read Ronan’s script. And unlike everyone else on the list, living or dead, she has a motive.

“You said Lindy was angry about being fired, right?” Heather said as we spent the afternoon nervously sprawled across the front porch of the main house. “What if she’s taking that anger out on us?”

“I suppose that could be the case,” Ronan said, slumped in a chair brought out from the parlor.

“Then what’s stopping her from continuing to do it?”

Ronan’s answer—“Nothing”—did little to ease our anxiety.

“Is Lindy dangerous?” Violet said as she sat on the porch floor, her back against the siding, the exhausted opposite of prim and proper Mrs. Semple.

“I wouldn’t say that. But I got the sense that she might be…unstable.”

“Is that why she was fired?” Julianne asked.

“Loretta told me she refused to spend the week on New Avalon,” I said. “Apparently, this place scared her enough to quit the movie. Loretta told me she had no choice but to let her go.”

“That’s not entirely the truth,” Violet said, still on the floor. “Yes, Lindy refused to come here, but Loretta was willing to overlook that. I wasn’t. It was entirely disrespectful to the rest of the cast. On this movie, no one gets special treatment. That’s simply the way it must be.”

She paused a moment, picking dirt from her skirt.

“Then there was the fact that Loretta had shown me Lindy’s audition—and I was unimpressed. I was concerned she wasn’t the best acting partner. You know how important chemistry is. There needs to be a spark. So we met for drinks and, well, there was nothing. Just awkward, stilted conversation. And I knew that, in order for this film to truly work, someone else needed to play Daisy.”

So that’s why Violet showed up at my cottage with a thermos of martinis. It was a test to see if we clicked. I guess I passed, because I’m here and Lindy isn’t.

Unless she is.

Alone in the dim silence of my cottage, I can’t help but think the firing made Lindy snap, her anger overriding any fear she might have of this place. It’s entirely, scarily possible that she intercepted Loretta on the mainland before coming here and snatching Susie. I picture both of them bound and gagged in some dank cellar. Even worse, I picture Lindy rightnow huddled in the shadowy woods, planning to act out the next beat in Ronan’s screenplay: Jonquil’s disappearance.