“Again?” Kelly asked.
“It’s the walls,” Nick said. He had his knife out, cutting through the thick plastic bag they’d wrapped Nikki Webb’s body in. He and Zane moved closer, handing their phones off to Ty and Kelly.
They examined the girl’s arms and legs, finding several scratches. The skin was reddened and torn in some places, just like Nick’s forearm.
Nick was nodding as he looked her over. “She mentioned being itchy when I interviewed her. I didn’t think anything of it. But whatever’s making me itch, it got to her too. She’s been inside the walls.”
“Wait a minute, so she’s one of our doers?” Ty asked. “Son of a bitch.”
“Looks like,” Zane said. “She could be the woman we saw on the beach. Means her partner killed her. He’s tying up loose ends.”
“Allies being killed means the endgame,” Ty pointed out. “And we don’t even fucking know what game we’re playing yet.”
“Hide and seek?” Kelly suggested.
“Shut up,” Ty huffed.
“Watch it,” Nick growled. He sounded truly angry. He and Ty stared at each other in the light of Kelly’s phone.
Zane could sense something coming to a head. He just hoped it waited until they were off this island.
Kelly subtly moved to stand between them. “We could be after just one person now. That’s good, right?”
“We shouldn’t assume that,” Zane told him. He took his phone back from Ty. “Let’s get back upstairs, check the power, and get some questions answered.”
They vacated the freezer, closing it carefully behind them. Zane took Ty’s arm and held him back as Nick and Kelly went up the stairs. “What’s going on with you two? What set him off?”
“What do you mean?” Ty asked, though he sounded a little too nonchalant to truly be clueless.
“I mean why does O’Flaherty look like he wants to deck you? And why’s it all coming out now?”
Ty shrugged, glancing up the steps. “Stress, I guess.”
“You didn’t say anything to him about him and Kelly, did you?”
Ty seemed offended that Zane would even imply that. He huffed in answer. “No. What’s bothering him, it’s our issue. Him and me.” He pulled his arm away and started up the steps. “And I don’t know how to fix it.”
When they reached the great hall, Kelly was trying to explain to Nick why they needed to go to the sunroom, but Nick had planted himself in the middle of the hall, arguing that he needed to get into Nikki Webb’s room and search her things.
“It might already be too late, but we need to see what she had up there. She might have answers.”
“We need to arm ourselves is what we need to do,” Ty countered. “Who cares who’s doing this or why if we’re all dead by morning?”
Nick glanced at him, then he and Kelly shared a look. Kelly nodded, but Nick’s jaw tightened.
“Gun room? Or our rooms?” Kelly asked.
“Both,” Ty said with a nod at Nick and Kelly. He tossed Kelly the key to their room. “Gather everything we’ve got from our rooms. You know where I stash my shit. We’ll head for the hunting stuff. Meet in the sunroom.”
Before they could separate, though, Stanton stalked out of the sunroom, two of his Snake Eater bodyguards trailing after him with lanterns.
“I hope you have a good reason for causing this sort of alarm, young man,” he said to Ty. His normally placid voice echoed off the walls of the great hall.
Ty took a few steps to meet them. “Sir, we’ll explain everything, but right now you and everyone else are safer together in the sunroom.”
“Then join me, won’t you? And explain now before there’s a panic.” Stanton waved a hand toward the sunroom doors, and Ty had little choice but to do as he was asked. The request wasn’t exactly unreasonable, after all.
Ty gestured for the others to come with him. Zane would rather have them there as backup if things got out of hand, so he was glad Ty was at least on the same page with him. The Snake Eaters took up their posts on either side of the doors, and they wouldn’t let Ty follow Stanton in until he submitted to a search.
“Are you fucking serious right now?” Ty asked.
English put a meaty hand on Ty’s chest and pushed him a step back. “You’re doing your jobs. We’re doing ours. Hands up.”
Ty did an impressive job of keeping a tight rein on his temper, doing as he was asked. English ran the wand over him, then let him in the room. The others each went through the same routine, with Nick’s hip setting the wand off again. Frost patted him down just as he’d done the first night, quietly joking about his shrapnel being inconvenient, then let Nick through. Nothing else pinged, though. Where and when had Nick stashed his gun?