11. Logan

11LOGAN

I curse, throwing Cole’s bag aside. “Where is it?”

“I’m telling you, babe, it’s not in there.” Elody’s lounging on one of the beds like she’s by the pool. “Can we just give up before we do something embarrassing like sweat?”

I chew on a hangnail, my head throbbing. We’ve already gone through all of Cole’s luggage, opened his drawers, and checked under the mattress, but the phone is nowhere, like it finally wised up to the heinous vibes of this place and peaced the fuck out. At least someone had the right idea.

The door swings open, and Corinne walks in. She looks a little out of breath, like she just jogged up the stairs. Or maybe it’s the same panic that’s been dripping into my veins like a steady IV since the second I saw Cole’s body on the terrace.

“Anything?” she asks.

I shake my head. “You?”

“Nothing downstairs.” She pulls at her watch strap. “If anyone happened to sneak their phone in, now would be a really great time to come clean.”

She’s looking right at me, because I would be the one to break the rule, but I shake my head. I probably would have tried, if I could have afforded a decoy phone to give the producers. Which I couldn’t. As if I need the reminder.

Aaron laughs sharply. “Classic. Suddenly we’re a bunch of off-the-grid rule followers.”

“They searched our bags like we were criminals,” McKayleigh says. “It’s not like it would have worked.”

I bite my hangnail again, making my skin sting. A bad habit. I should stop. I also should have never come here in the first place, but clearly none of the decisions I’ve made in the past year have been stellar, have they?

“Let’s look somewhere else,” Corinne says.

“Where else could he have put it?” I ask, exhausted. “We’ve looked everywhere, unless Cole was purposefully hiding it, which … actually sounds like something he would do.”

“Not to speak ill of the dead, but I don’t think Cole was smart enough to hide stuff anywhere but in plain sight,” Aaron says.

“Can you try to be less mean?” McKayleigh folds her arms. “He’s dead.”

Aaron laughs. “Yeah, and apparently you wished God would smite him.”

McKayleigh glares at me. “That was taken out of context.”

I want to snap right back at her, but Corinne’s face changes, like she has an idea.

“We should check everyone else’s bags,” she says. “That’s something Cole would do, right? Frame someone else as a prank or something?”

Even though we’ve basically progressed to the seventh circle of hell in the last three hours, I let out a genuine laugh. “Cole Bryan. The world’s shittiest prankster even from beyond the grave.”

“This isn’t funny,” McKayleigh says. “And no way. I’m not letting y’all go through my stuff like the freakin’ TSA.”

“Why?” Aaron asks. “You have something to hide?”

Her face goes red. “No, Aaron, I don’t. But I value my privacy.”

“Okay, how about a vote?” I say. “Who here is down to get their bags searched because they’re not hiding anything and also they don’t want to be stranded on this island with a dead person forever?”

I throw up my hand, and everyone but McKayleigh follows suit. She stares at me, her nostrils flaring, but finally, she gives up.

“Fine. Whatever you want.”

We start with Max’s and Graham’s things, but that gets us nowhere. Even the bathroom is a bust. The only thing out of the ordinary is a giant box of Magnum condoms labeled with Cole’s name. I cringe, shoving it back under the sink. Maybe it’s awful of me, but I really wish he’d made it a little easier for us to be sad for him.

We go downstairs next, to Aaron and Zane’s room, but it’s more of the same. There’s nothing in the girls’ triple room, either. By the time we get to our room, I’m about ready to scream or cry or do a running leap out the nearest window.

“Go right ahead.” McKayleigh flops down onto her bed. “Tear through my stuff. But it’s not going to be in here.”

“We did everyone else’s,” Corinne says. “Let’s just finish what we started.”

She takes one of my beat-up duffels and tosses the other in McKayleigh’s direction, almost smacking her in the face. Actually, judging from Corinne’s small smirk, I think that might have been the goal, and I immediately like her more than I already did.

Aaron turns to the door. “Sorry, I’m out. You guys go ahead, but this is pointless. I’m going to check downstairs again.”

He leaves, thumping his way down the stairs with surprising volume for someone so elf-like.

“Oh my god, fun,” Elody drones in a voice suggesting that it’s anything but. “Girl time.”

“Can we just get this over with?” McKayleigh huffs.

I ignore her evil stare and unzip her suitcase, finding a mountain of Bless by Kaylz designs: swimsuits, dresses, and I count at least three sun hats. Beneath those, I sort through self-help books written by rich white women and try not to get physically burned by the toxic positivity emitting from them.

And that’s when I see it: a white cord, coiled under a pair of jean shorts like a viper. An iPhone charger with a label on the cube: PROPERTY OF IRL.

I start digging through the rest of the suitcase like a starving animal.

“Logan!” McKayleigh runs over. “What are you—”

I whirl around, the charger gripped in my hand. “Where’s the phone, McKayleigh?”

Her eyes go wide. “I don’t know.”

“Tilly’s charger is in your bag. Call me a skeptic, but I feel like it didn’t grow legs and walk there itself.”

“Cole must have put it there!” she yelps. “I swear, I didn’t take it. I don’t know how it got there.”

“The phone’s not in there?” Corinne asks me.

I do another dig, unzipping all the outer pockets, but I already know it’s hopeless. I kick the bed frame.

Corinne leans against the wall like she’s too tired to stay fully vertical.

“Okay, disrespectfully,” she says, looking at McKayleigh, “what the hell?”

McKayleigh scoffs, dabbing at her eyes, even though she hasn’t shed a single tear. “I can’t believe y’all think I would steal the phone.” Seeing that none of us are giving in to her little pity party, she drops the act, scowling at me. “You’d better at least clean my stuff up, if you’re going to accuse me of theft.”

Staring at the mess of her things on the floor, I want to laugh and cry at the same time. It’s like the setup to a really bad joke. I can almost hear the long-haired, big-toothed vlogger on the cover of McKayleigh’s books laughing at me.

Because I was right. This is hell, and I know exactly what I did to get here.

“Guys?” The door creaks open, and Aaron’s standing there, face pale. “I found something.”

“The phone?” Corinne asks hopefully.

But Aaron shakes his head and holds out a neat black case.

He clicks it open, revealing the gun inside.