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my next move. I couldn’t stay here. I’d be trapped if the killer approached through the woods. Again, I wondered if it could have been Charlie. It was impossible to tell from the glimpse I’d got of him but, as unlikely a murderer as he made, it had to be a strong possibility. I wondered what he’d do if he had me here at his mercy. Could I possibly get through to him? We’d been good friends once. Of all the girls in our group, I’d probably got on with him the best. It was almost impossible to believe that someone I’d known so well would kill me in cold blood, but then if he’d thrust a knife into Louise’s heart while she sat facing him, he could probably just as easily do it to me.
    In the end, I knew I had to try to make my way back to the house. As I cautiously stood and took a couple of tentative steps into the woods, keeping in the shadows of the nearest tree, it began to rain.
    I moved slowly and quietly from tree to tree. A few yards a minute, never out in the open for longer than a couple of seconds, my ears straining against the wind that blew through the wood in a life-or-death effort to hear the slightest noise that might indicate an ambush. Because that’s what this was. Life or death. The fear that I might be dead within the next few minutes almost knocked me over with its sheer power and it took every inch of a willpower I didn’t even know I had to keep going.
    I was moving at what I hoped was a rough forty-five-degree angle through the wood in the direction of the house, avoiding the path for obvious reasons. One way or another, the house represented my best chance of safety now that I knew for certain that neither Crispin, Marla nor Luke was the killer, because I guessed all of them would be heading there too.
    The rain was getting harder now and I shivered against the cold, resting for a second in the shadow of one of the pines.
    That was when I saw him. Dressed all in black, a ski mask almost completely obscuring his face, creeping quietly between two lines of trees, holding the loaded crossbow in front of him as he scanned the woods for his prey. No more than ten yards away and getting closer.
    I pulled my head back sharply behind the tree and kept my gasp of shock inaudible. Had he seen me? I didn’t think so.
    But what if you’re wrong? said the nagging little voice that was always there. What if he’s coming towards you right now, finger tensing on the crossbow’s trigger, ready to fire a bolt through your brain and ending everything you’ve ever felt in an instant?
    Run.
    Stay put.
    Run.
    Stay put.
    I held my breath, not daring to move a muscle, feeling the pressure build in my lungs.
    I heard a twig break. Nearby.
    It was taking all my self-control not to bolt for it.
    Slowly, ever so slowly, I turned my head and saw him, almost touching distance away, creeping past the tree I was hiding behind, his face turned the other way as he prowled for victims.
    As he turned round in my direction, I jerked my head back, still holding my breath, and inched my way round the other side of the tree, praying he hadn’t seen or heard me because otherwise I was dead. I’d had barely a second to observe him – not long enough to confirm whether or not it was Charlie, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t. This man moved like a hunter. I’d never seen Charlie move like that.
    I counted to ten in my head, every second seeming to drag like an eternity of pure, ice-cold fear, before slowly exhaling and immediately sucking in a deep breath of air, and holding it in.
    I counted to ten again and finally risked a glance round the tree.
    He wasn’t there. My eyes scanned the woods but there was no sign of him.
    I didn’t like this. He’d been moving slowly. He wouldn’t have got more than twenty or thirty feet in the time I’d been counting in my head, but he’d disappeared completely.
    Was this some kind of trap? Was he