The Hunting Party

Julien follows Miranda and tells her that he’s been stressed by a business deal with Mark that went wrong. Miranda realizes that the “dirty secret” Mark tried to tell her about Julien was Julien’s affair with Katie. Julien tells Miranda that it was all Katie’s fault, that she seduced him. Miranda threatens to send an email to her powerful friends who can expose Julien’s insider trading. She realizes that she doesn’t know Julien at all or what he’s capable of.

The narrative flashes forward to January 2, 2019. Heather receives a phone call from the investigator, who tells her that another investigator will handle the case. Heather does an internet search of the Highland ripper and finds out that he’s been arrested, which confirms that the murderer is someone in her vicinity.

The narrative flashes back to January 1, 2019. Julien returns to Katie in the sauna. Katie wonders if she acted not only on her desire for Julien but also “the tiniest hint of schadenfreude? About, for once, having one up on her [Miranda]?” (251). Earlier that morning, when he found Katie alone in the hot tub, Julien suggested that they tell Miranda about their affair and said that he felt deeper emotions for Katie than for Miranda.

Doug wakes up in a drunken stupor to a knock at the door. He opens it to find Miranda, who has a bottle of champagne. He tells her that she can’t come in, and she kisses him. He stops her, and Miranda accuses him of being a coward, which floods Doug with anger.

The narrative flashes forward to January 2, 2019. Heather tells Doug that the Highland ripper has been caught, and Doug tells her that the scream she heard the other night was his own. Doug tells Heather that on New Year’s Eve he was drinking alone but that a whole space of time that night and early the next morning is a blur.

The narrative flashes back to January 1, 2019. Katie goes to Miranda’s cabin to talk to her, but Miranda doesn’t answer the door. She returns to her own cabin, where Julien is on her sofa drinking Scotch. He tells her that Miranda is going to kill him. Katie realizes how much she dislikes Julien, even if she’s sexually attracted to him. Katie acknowledges that her attraction to Julien was due, in large part, to winning him away from Miranda.

The narratives flashes forward to January 2, 2019. Heather discovers that a rifle is missing from storage. She figures that a guest wouldn’t have been able to access the gun. Heather remembers that when she checked the CCTV tapes for any sign of the murderer, she didn’t see Iain leave the property even though he said he’d leave on New Year’s Eve. Heather takes a rifle with her to the shelter by the burned former lodge. Heather has never been inside it because Iain advised her that it was too unstable a building to enter safely. She breaks into the building and tries to explore packages that look like cocaine, but someone strikes the back of her head, knocking her out.

When she regains consciousness, she sees Iain standing over her. Heather realizes that Iain has been smuggling drugs as part of a business deal with the owner of the property. Iain confiscates Heather’s radio and ties her up. Suddenly, Heather hears a bang and Iain falls on top of her, bleeding profusely.

The narrative flashes back to January 1, 2019. Rejected by Doug and embarrassed, Miranda walks back in the direction of her cottage but senses that someone is watching her. Miranda knocks on Emma’s door instead. She asks Emma for some paper and writes a note to Julien.

The narrative flashes forward to January 2, 2019. Doug checks Heather for injuries while Iain moans and bleeds beside her. Heather asks Iain why he killed the guest. Iain denies killing her and tells them that he saw her die, worried that the police would swarm the estate, and moved his drugs to this shelter. Iain reveals that one of the other women killed a guest in the heat of an argument.

The narrative flashes back to January 1, 2019. Miranda tells Emma about Katie and Julien’s affair, but Mark already told Emma. Miranda sees an interesting box in Emma’s room and opens it. The contents of the box are all the things that Miranda’s stalker stole from her. Emma that claims the box belongs to Mark, but when Miranda checks Facebook pictures of her first year in university, she finds Emma in the background, years before Miranda met her.

As a younger girl, Emma was expelled from schools for stalking other girls. Emma steals personalities: she enjoys observing a vivacious girl and mimicking her behavior. When Emma first saw Miranda over a decade earlier, Emma became obsessed with her. Emma and Miranda went out together once, but Miranda quickly forgot about her when she met other friends. Emma tried hard to get Miranda to notice her, to no avail, so Emma started stealing from her and then escalated this behavior by sending the objects back to Miranda with notes. Emma changed her look to adapt more to Miranda’s style. She changed her name from Emmeline to Emma. Meeting Mark was a lucky accident, but Emma determined to make him her boyfriend so that she could get closer to Miranda.

The narrative flashes forward to January 2, 2019. Iain has difficulty explaining what the murderer looked like. He describes her as having somewhat light hair, which rules out Samira and Katie. Heather worries that the murderer has the stolen rifle.

The narrative flashes back to January 1, 2019. Miranda storms out of Emma’s cabin and goes for a walk to clear her mind. She sees a man in the distance but is being followed by Emma, who calls out that she only ever wanted to be friends with her.

Miranda tells Emma to stay off the bridge by the waterfall, that there isn’t room for them both. Miranda taunts Emma with her real thoughts about her: that she’d always been boring and is now at least interesting, even if she is a weirdo. Emma reacts viscerally to the word “weirdo” and remembers pushing a girl back in school into the sandpit. Emma grabs Miranda by the throat until Miranda falls limp and then shoves her off the bridge.

The narrative flashes forward to January 2, 2019. Doug wants to leave Iain behind while he and Heather go back to the lodge. Now that the snowstorm has stopped, Heather hopes that the police can send a helicopter. She calls the police with urgent news.

Emma hears the phone in the lodge ringing. She picks it up, and when she learns that the caller is the detective, she pretends to be Heather. The detective informs her that the police are on their way and not to spook the suspect. Emma doesn’t believe that she’ll be caught; no one saw her, she was wearing Mark’s coat, and any DNA evidence could be explained away by her proximity to Miranda. Emma thinks she deserves prison time and regrets losing her idol. Before anything happens, however, she decides that she must avenge Miranda.

Emma approaches Katie for a private word. Katie has noticed that Miranda’s death has hit Emma the hardest. As they walk to a secluded spot away from the lodge, Katie asks about the phone call she heard Emma pick up. Emma tells Heather that the police called to confirm that they had a suspect. Katie assumes that the murderer is Mark, which would explain Emma’s odd behavior over the last day. Emma pauses and brushes the snow below her feet. She picks up a rifle, points it at Katie, and accuses her of being responsible for Miranda’s death by upsetting her with the news of her affair with Julien. Katie hears a gunshot and falls back.

Doug and Heather approach the lodge when they see Emma and Katie. Doug rushes to them but is too late. He makes it to Katie just after the shot rings out.

These last two chapters make up the epilogue. Heather wakes up in the hospital. Doug has stayed by her side, and all her family and friends have come to visit. She finds out about the series of events after she was shot. Iain confessed readily to the police; his suppliers were the Icelandic couple. Heather has discovered her urgent desire to live, so she won’t return to her job at the Loch. Doug plans to visit her in her new home.

Katie was saved by Heather, who pushed her to the ground and took Emma’s bullet. Katie is now back at work, weeks away from delivering her baby. Emma’s trial was sensational, but Emma won over the jury. She recalls:

“[They] lapped it up. They simply could not convict her of murder. Not this well-spoken, quiet, meek person who looked just like the daughter of a friend, or a girl they remembered from school. People like her didn’t commit murder. Not proper murder. They simply had unfortunate accidents” (325).

Emma was sentenced to only four years in prison. Without Miranda, the group splintered. Nick and Bo moved to New York, Mark found a new girlfriend, Samira and Giles threw themselves into their life as parents, and Julien disappeared for a detox trip with a yoga instructor. Katie is excited to make new friends.