This alerted Kate that Lana wasn’t alone; that I was in the room with her.
Kate understood. She smiled and played along. She nodded.
“I’m booking my flight right now.”
4
They didn’t tell the others about the plan until they were on the island.
Lana kept putting off telling Agathi—she felt sure Agathi would refuse to participate. In the end, Lana was wrong about that—Agathi proved an all-too-willing participant in the evening’s festivities.
Lana told Leo about it on the second day, at the picnic on the beach. She suggested they have a walk together.
“Darling,” said Lana in a low voice as they strolled along the water’s edge, arm in arm. “There’s something you should know. There’s going to be a murder tonight.”
Leo listened, amazed, as his mother explained the practicalities of the plot. To his credit, Leo felt a flicker of uncertainty—an uneasy feeling that what Lana was suggesting was morally wrong; and that there would be some terrible price to pay. But he quickly banished the thought. As a budding actor, he knew he couldn’t turn her down. He’d never get offered a part like this again. The fact that Leo detested me helped him overcome his scruples. He figured I had it coming. Perhaps he was right.
Telling Jason, however, was rather trickier.
Lana attempted to talk to him that afternoon after the beach. She snuck off to find Jason at the ruin, where he was hunting. But Jason wasn’t alone. Kate was with him.
As Lana watched them kissing, she flew into a rage. It took a while to calm herself down. Then she confronted Kate—on the speedboat, on the way to Yialos.
“You said it was over,” said Lana in a low voice. “You and him.”
“What? It is over.”
“Why did you kiss him?”
“At the ruin? Elliot was watching us—I could see him there, hiding. I had to play along. I had no choice.”
“Well, you were very convincing. Congratulations.”
Kate accepted the rebuke with a shrug. “Fine, I deserve that.” She gave Lana a wary look. “When are you going to tell Jason? You need to warn him.”
Lana shook her head. “I’m not going to tell him.”
“What?” Kate stared at her, astonished. “If he doesn’t know, it won’t work. I’ll never be able to talk him into it.”
“Oh, you can be very persuasive when you want. Think of it as an acting challenge.”
“You can’t do this to Jason. You can’t put him through that.”
“That’s his punishment.”
“That’s so fucked-up.” Kate pulled a face. “And I have to watch it?”
“Yes.” Lana nodded. “That’s yours.”
* * *
A few hours later, Lana stood outside the summerhouse window. She watched Kate perform inside—all for an audience of one.
“Jason didn’t mean to shoot Lana,” I said. “He meant to shoot you.”
Kate shook her head. “You’re sick … you’re fucking sick.”
Kate ran through the gamut of emotions in this scene—paranoid, fearful, angry. It was a bravura performance—if a little over the top, in Lana’s opinion.
Kate’s overdoing it, she thought. But he seems convinced—how smug he is. How vain. If he had any self-awareness at all, he’d see through her. But he thinks he’s so clever, he thinks he’s some kind of god. But he’ll learn. He’ll be humbled.
Inside the summerhouse, I took out the gun, pressing it into Kate’s hands. Then I sent her out to meet Jason at the jetty.
Lana lurked in the darkness, waiting. She stepped onto the path in front of Kate. Their eyes met, and they exchanged guns.
“Break a leg,” Lana said.
Kate didn’t say anything. She stared at Lana for a second. Then she turned and walked away.
Lana followed me down to the beach. She positioned herself in the dark—a little way behind where I was standing. She sent Nikos over to accost me—to march me, at gunpoint, to the jetty; where I was humiliated, brutalized, and beaten.
Lana watched all this, her blue eyes glowing in the dark, like a vengeful goddess, cruel, pitiless. As I, her victim, was forced onto my knees; begging for mercy, screaming her name … until a gunshot silenced me.
And Lana’s revenge was complete.
5
I promised you a murder, didn’t I? Bet you never thought it would be mine.
Well, sorry to disappoint you—I wasn’t dead. I just thought I was. I really believed my last moment on earth had come. That gunshot made me pass out. Scared to death, you might say.