Page 99 of The House Guest

I paused. There were so many things I wanted to ask her.

‘Did Gabriel tell you how it all started? It was him and Mona together, right? At Columbia?’ I said.

‘You know how many times I’ve had to go through this with the Feds? But yeah, they started it – only it was a year or so after they left college. Mona had already given Gabriel the cash he needed to start playing the stock markets, and apparently they went out one night to celebrate his first big success. That’s when they came up with the idea.’

She traced a pattern on the island with her finger as she continued.

‘We all knew the origin story. It was part of our central mythology. One night, Mona got mugged, was convinced she was going to be murdered, except some passers-by happened to scare them off. That got her thinking about how even being wealthy couldn’t protect her from all the bad shit in the world. At the same time, Jack was doing some study into the psychology of gangs and criminal networks. How people in those kinds of groups feel safe because they have the protection of their fellow gang members. That’s what started it all. So they set out to recruit people. Gabriel and Mona had money and were starting to get influence. They needed muscle. It all grew from there.’ She stared into space. ‘It was simple, and seductive, you know? Being told no one will ever be able to hurt you again – and at the same time, they would teach you how to be confident, how to make money, how to walk through the world with your head held high.’

‘What about Jack?’ I asked. ‘Was he never part of it?’

‘No. Too wimpish, Mona said. We had a long, drunken chat about him one afternoon in a bar near their house.’

That must have been where Jack had seen Eden, when he was spying on Mona to look for evidence of her affair. An encounter that had led to his death.

‘She told me Jack was happy with his life, mostly. Too busy having tawdry affairs with students to worry too much about what Mona was up to. I asked her if Jack had any suspicions and she told me she thought he knew something, but preferred to stick his head in the sand. I could tell Mona got a kick out of it – having this massive secret from her husband. A much bigger secret than the affair she was having.’

I rubbed my face. ‘It’s my fault Jack’s dead.’

‘Mine too. But if it makes you feel any better, I think they were planning to kill him anyway. Mona knew Jack suspected she was cheating on him. If he’d found out it was Krugman – that would have posed a risk to the group. Gabriel was putting pressure on her to do something about it, and then when you turned up with my picture on your phone she was forced to act.’

‘Wait. Did Mona kill Jack herself?’

‘Um, hello? Didn’t you realise that?’

‘No, Krugman told me it was him.’ But that, of course, had been before I knew Mona was part of the cult.

She had murdered her own husband. I should have been shocked, but my capacity for surprise had taken a severe beating lately. And knowing they had been planning to kill Jack anyway didn’t make me feel any better about my role in it.

I decided to move on. ‘The stuff with Callum. Did you plan it all along?’

‘Yeah. Well ... I hated him. I joined up to get away from him and everything he did to me and my mom. He was an asshole. And I didn’t go looking for him, but when I saw him at the convention, once I’d recovered from the shock, I made a decision. I let him follow me.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I was already disillusioned. Let’s just say the scales had fallen away from my eyes. It was the way Gabriel treated women. His obsession with young actresses. You know Ruth wasn’t the first, right?’

Emilio had said something about that, and the police were trying to link the disappearances of two young actresses to Gabriel.

‘I’d been such a believer,’ Eden continued. ‘I thought Gabriel was my saviour. And there were parts of it I found hard to let go.’

‘Like getting revenge on people who crossed you? Like Jesse and Brandon?’

‘I’m not proud of that. I didn’t actually want them killed, but I told Emilio about it and he took it into his own hands.’ She sighed. ‘I couldn’t go to the authorities because I had no idea who I could trust. If Gabriel or any of the others suspected I was making plans against them, I would have ended up buried in those woods. So I had to pretend to go along with everything. It was hard. I couldn’t even risk saying anything to Ruth at the hideaway because I didn’t know if she’d slip up and tell Gabriel. Also, all the rooms, apart from the penthouse, were bugged. Gabriel was listening to us all the time.’

That didn’t surprise me.

‘I knew after I disappeared with Ruth that my dad would ask you to team up. And I had installed software on your phone so I knew where you were and could listen to your calls, read your messages.’

Seeing my face, she said, ‘Sorry about that. But it was necessary. If I hadn’t done it ...’

I shook my head. What did it matter now?

‘I needed my dad to get into the building. Once I’d discovered that you guys were getting help from Wanda, I sent information to one of her researchers that helped her connect Krugman to Gabriel. It was pretty straightforward. My dad was a former cop. I knew he’d make some arrangement with Wanda to call the Feds if he disappeared. Then all I had to do was wait for Emilio to bring you and my dad to the building. I knew they wanted to interrogate you. To be honest, I was kind of winging it after that. You obviously know that I pretended to kill Dad. When I talked to him and left him in a room with a gun, he wanted us to leave straight away. But I told him I wasn’t leaving without Ruth. And I also wanted Gabriel dead. I wanted the cult destroyed so they wouldn’t come after me. So I made a pact with him. If he did as I asked and came into the ceremony as soon as he heard a shot, we could talk about a reconciliation.’

I got up and refilled my water glass. This conversation was bringing it all back. I could really do with a proper drink.

‘Were you upset?’ I asked. ‘When he was killed?’

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