Page 75 of Five Survive

Red couldn’t hold Oliver’s eyes for longer than two seconds. He won. She dropped her gaze.

“What?” Simon said, voice escaping before he’d even formed the end of the word.

“Don’t be ridiculous, Oliver,” Reyna said. “No one here is working with the shooter.”

“Why is it ridiculous?” he snapped, puppet strings back, spinning his head. “The sniper knows things he couldn’t possibly know. What we’re saying in here, what our plans are, that fucking note. And let’s not forget how we ended up here in the first place.” He paused, eyes flashing under the overhead lights as he cracked the bones in his neck. “This road wasn’t on our route. We got lost. So either the sniper somehow predicted exactly which wrong turns we’d take, or he was listening through a bug he’d planted and following us, or”—he swallowed—“someone in this RV led us right to him.”

He looked pointedly at Simon, Arthur and Red, one hand balling into a fist at his side. He stretched it out, fingers ropy and long, as he studied the three of them. Something tightened in Red’s gut, twisting uncomfortably as she watched Oliver’s hand bend and flex.

“Not this again,” Simon sighed. “We were lost. No signal. None of us directed the RV down this road on purpose.”

“I’m not sure that’s true anymore,” Oliver said. “It was you three, you three giving the directions at the end. I lost the map on Reyna’s phone, so we know it wasn’t me. Maddy didn’t say anything.”

“But Reyna was driving,” Simon said. “So by your logic, she could be a mole too, right? Because she’s the one who physically brought us down here. Or is it just us three that are under suspicion?”

“She only took the turns you were telling her to,” Oliver retorted, pointing a finger toward Simon’s chest. “And if I remember right, Simon, you were the one who was most insistent.”

“I was trying to be helpful,” Simon shouted back. “I was drunk!”

“Hm,” Oliver said, with a wicked smile. “You seem to only be drunk when it suits you, though, huh? Slipping in and out of it. I thought you were supposed to be the actor here.”

“Fuck off, Oliver,” Simon spat. “I don’t have anything to do with this.”

“You’re a crook like your fucking uncle.”

“Stop, please!” Arthur shouted, stepping forward to place his body between Oliver and Simon, turning his head to look at both of them. “This is fucking stupid. We can’t turn on each other.”

“And what about you?” Oliver directed his voice at Arthur now. “You were the one giving those last directions, they came from your phone.”

Red shook her head. That wasn’t fair, Arthur was just the one who happened to lose signal last, on a different network from the others. She should say something. She should stand up for him.

“And I got it wrong, I’m sorry.” Arthur held up his hands. “I was just trying to follow the map.”

“Red.” Oliver’s eyes landed on her now. “I remember you were theone who told us to keep going. I wanted Reyna to turn around and you told her to keep going.”

She had, he wasn’t wrong. Her fault.

“Red didn’t do anything,” Arthur said, and that was how it felt—was it?—to have someone on your side, on your team. To stand up for you whether it was right or wrong. Red breathed out, gripping the walkie-talkie too hard, like it was Arthur’s hand and they were back there standing in the doorway, about to watch two people die. Two people were dead, remember. Right outside. And that red dot was still out there, waiting.

“She was just trying to find the way to the campsite,” Arthur continued. “Like the rest of us.”

“And in doing so, one of you led us into this ambush, to a man waiting with a fucking rifle! That was no accident!”

Maddy wasn’t saying anything. Did that mean she agreed with Oliver, was she taking his side? How many sides were there? Us versus them. Simon, Arthur and Red against Oliver, Maddy and Reyna, splitting the RV in half, and half of thirty-one feet was fifteen point five.

“Oliver, stop!” Reyna grabbed his arm, pulled him back. No, not us versus them, Reyna wasn’t taking sides. Lavoy-adjacent, but not a Lavoy, and didn’t they both know it. Red certainly did now, gaze creeping to Maddy.

“It doesn’t mean one of us is involved,” Reyna continued. “If there’s no listening device, maybe he planted a GPS tracker somewhere outside the RV and that’s why we haven’t found it. Maybe that’s how he followed us to this road.”

“Occam’s razor, Reyna,” Oliver said, shaking his head. “The simplest solution is usually the correct one.”

“This isn’t helping,” Maddy spoke up. And what did that mean? What side did that come down on? “Please, we have to work together.”

The knot in Red’s gut loosened a little. She hadn’t lost Maddy to the other side. Because they were best friends, almost sisters. Knew each other inside and out. It was in the blood, even, because their moms were best friends before them. College roommates to working side by side as prosecutor and police captain. Would Red and Maddy ever have jobs that went side by side? Probably not; Maddy was going to UPenn and Red was going nowhere. Red couldn’t stay Lavoy-adjacent forever, she wasn’t sure Maddy would even want her to. But, for now, it counted.

“Lift up your shirt, Red,” Oliver said, gesturing, an upward motion with his fingers. “You too, Arthur.”

“What are you talking about?” Maddy asked, shrinking back as Oliver returned her gaze.

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