How to avoid questions you don't want to answer

Hey, how's it going.

So, I'm currently in the following situation. The owner of a haunted house has made a deal with a devil. Through their investigations, the players have found evidence of said deal. They are about to meet with the owner once again, and they are bound to have some questions. However, even though she wants to help, the owner will do her best to avoid answering said questions, since she's afraid the devil will overhear their conversation and punish her for blabbing, not to mention that telling anyone about the deal would mean a breach of contract and would have dire consequences.

So what would be the best tactic for her to avoid answering questions about what they found, without it being too suspicious?

(Edit: Oh, and before someone says it, I don't want to her to remain silent, or simply ignore the question by, for example, bringing up another topic altogether, as that would fall under the "suspicious" category I'm trying to avoid. I'm looking for way to answer the question, that would satisfy the players, while also avoiding to say anything too revealing.)

Quote from Paefny >>

Hey, how's it going.

So, I'm currently in the following situation. The owner of a haunted house has made a deal with a devil. Through their investigations, the players have found evidence of said deal. They are about to meet with the owner once again, and they are bound to have some questions. However, even though she wants to help, the owner will do her best to avoid answering said questions, since she's afraid the devil will overhear their conversation and punish her for blabbing, not to mention that telling anyone about the deal would mean a breach of contract and would have dire consequences.

So what would be the best tactic for her to avoid answering questions about what they found, without it being too suspicious?

(Edit: Oh, and before someone says it, I don't want to her to remain silent, or simply ignore the question by, for example, bringing up another topic altogether, as that would fall under the "suspicious" category I'm trying to avoid. I'm looking for way to answer the question, that would satisfy the players, while also avoiding to say anything too revealing.)

 
I think you've missed a great way to deepen the character by ignoring bringing up another topic. Many folks, particularly the neurodiverse among us can frequently wander onto tangents during conversation. This is something that I know I do. Often it'll be to try and provide needed context ('cause you can't assume everyone knows what you know). This gets perceived by people as straying from the point, but is more accurately a neurotypical's inability to follow a logical thought construction. It's one of the factors that causes miscommunications between those who are autistic and those who are not. You could have the NPC simply be the type of person who frequently goes off on long rambling tangents. So, if the player characters ask her about something she might begin to answer but then segue into a side note that leads to another and another. 

'Oh, yes I heard a rumour about this house long ago. Many people think that it's haunted. You know, once I was in the church down the road and I swear that I saw a ghost. The had long white robes on, greyed hair, and they looked very pale. Turns out that it was this old lady who wanted to be baptised before she died. I can't imagine what it would be like knowing that you're going to die. How would you even carry on going about your day? That would terrifying me.'

All the while the NPC goes off on these tangents she's perhaps cleaning or attending to some task or other. The motion of the task makes her appear busy, her rambling nature makes her just appear like that type of person whose mind can't stay on one single track. The likelihood would be then that PCs are going to assume a character trait rather than the behaviour being inherently suspicious.

As a counter option, you could also try having her answer questions in a single word with no further context given. This is another frequent source of frustration seen in many neurotypicals when asking poorly phrased questions. So if the question is for example: What do you know about the deal? The answer would be 'nothing'. This isn't inherently evasive, and could be quite truthful. The NPC doesn't know which deal they're talking about. So, it's not a lie to say 'nothing'. Using the wiggle room in phrasing, being pedantic about phrasing (as one might be with a genie's wish) can really help in situations like this.

Ultimately though I'd suggest you've made a rod for your own back here though. If she wants to help but knows she can't, why would the NPC even agree to meet the PCs again? Why wouldn't she hide, avoid, or simply ignore the PCs. I'm not saying you're wrong for creating this series of events, but it seems like you're wanting something very specific from a set of limitations that you yourself have imposed. You're (presumably) the architect of this adventure and its beats, that means you've got the freedom to alter the details as needed. This kind of thing happens to me all the time, I'll set something up realising I've backed myself into a corner, or that the party have done something really clever. In that scenario I either have to let the party have their victory or I have to change the limitations. That really would be my advice. 

In this case, why don't you want to answer the questions? Is it because it will reveal a secret 'too early' for your liking? Well, if that's the case, it's denying the players the reward for smart choices. If it will reveal something too early that's not a flaw, that's going to make the players feel effective and competent. Let them have their moment.

Quote from martintheactor >>

Quote from Paefny >>

You're (presumably) the architect of this adventure and its beats, that means you've got the freedom to alter the details as needed. 

In this case, why don't you want to answer the questions? Is it because it will reveal a secret 'too early' for your liking? Well, if that's the case, it's denying the players the reward for smart choices. If it will reveal something too early that's not a flaw, that's going to make the players feel effective and competent. Let them have their moment.

 
I am, in fact, not the architect of this adventure, i'm merely running it. Sure, I could always change the script as I see fit, that's always an option, but not only could that have massive, cascading effects on things that are supposed to happen later, I'm also trying to follow the script as closely as possible, while still having it make sense somehow.

And as for why I don't want to answer these questions: as I said, doing so would both draw the devils attention and be a breach of contract. This would mean that not only does the owner get's punished severely for breaking contract, something she's desperately trying to avoid (this is also the reason she is willing to meet with the players, despite it not being in her best interest. she has to preform the duties she agreed to do, or risk breaking contract, so she has to go where the players are. sooner, rather than later) it would also spell the instant death of the players, as they'd suddenly find themselves in the cross hair of an opponent who definitely won't be happy about the players interfering with their plan, and whom they  have no chance of beating in their current state. They might eventually, if they can find the right mac guffin for the job, but they are not yet ready.

I've found changing the script very refreshing and make the story come more alive.

I'm not sure if this is directly applicable, but I'm making my party meet a devil in humanoid disguise, because they believe he has information about a villain they need to know. The devil quite blatantly tells them there's a devil involved, but contracts with a devil prevent certain things. He then mentions there is indeed a devil nearby and if that creature was taken care of, talking about things would be easier for certain people. He doesn't mention that the villain in fact has a contract with him and the other devil is just a rival he wants out of the way. Since he's in humanoid disguise I'm hoping the party won't realise he's a devil and accidentally help the bbeg.

You could do something similar that she is just implying things without actually telling them, but I also do like the idea of her going off rails constantly anyway, so the party doesn't realise she's occasionally doing that on purpose. 

Quote from Paefny >>

 
I am, in fact, not the architect of this adventure, i'm merely running it. Sure, I could always change the script as I see fit, that's always an option, but not only could that have massive, cascading effects on things that are supposed to happen later, I'm also trying to follow the script as closely as possible, while still having it make sense somehow.

And as for why I don't want to answer these questions: as I said, doing so would both draw the devils attention and be a breach of contract. This would mean that not only does the owner get's punished severely for breaking contract, something she's desperately trying to avoid (this is also the reason she is willing to meet with the players, despite it not being in her best interest. she has to preform the duties she agreed to do, or risk breaking contract, so she has to go where the players are. sooner, rather than later) it would also spell the instant death of the players, as they'd suddenly find themselves in the cross hair of an opponent who definitely won't be happy about the players interfering with their plan, and whom they  have no chance of beating in their current state. They might eventually, if they can find the right mac guffin for the job, but they are not yet ready.

 
So, this is a risk we run when running other people's adventures be they official WotC adventures, or the stuff you find out there on marketplaces like DriveThru. Changing the script, is responding to player actions and choices, that's a surefire way to make the adventure and the world in which it is set feel alive. Be aware there's a chance that much like Vecna Eve of Ruin it might just be a poorly designed adventure.

Coming back to the questions most of what you've said is why the character doesn't want to answer. A great starting point. The real indicator here is that you believe that this kind of interaction would be the death of the player characters. Well there's a few ways of dealing with this:

1. Even if the player characters find out all the ins and outs of the deal, there simply might not be anything about them that they can do. In which case that's entirely valid.
2. They come face to face with the devil. If they don't decide to flee (after the DM prompting them by asking if they'd like to flee) then the character death is a valid player choice. 
3. You as DM could decide that actually the devil can't be doing with this sort of thing and sends a lower level to face off against the party instead (i.e. if the adventure calls for a CR20 monster, but you've got a party at level 6, send a CR6 or CR8 monster instead). At the moment if the party are such low level, then the devil really won't realistically be interested in handling this themselves - that's what minions are for!

Honestly, it feels like either this is a poorly designed adventure if it pushes you into such situations or maybe its just that you haven't thought to deviate from the script. Something I'd hugely advise you to do. If it doesn't work for your party, change it up. The Devil sending minions to deal with such low level trifles honestly seems like it makes far, far, more sense. As for cascading effects, this is where I'd suggest that we're dealing with poor design. If one thing very early on could have such massive knock on complications that you as a DM have to fix that's poor design. In which case you decide what the effects are.

Remember, the player characters don't yet know what the evil plan is (I assume), at the very least they won't know the step-by-step of the plans. Which means you've got the latitude to change those up and the party won't know any different.

It’s tough to answer without specific examples, but I’ll take a crack at it. 
If she wants to help them but can’t, I’d think she would want to be suspicious to encourage the party to investigate further. Unless she doesn’t want out of the deal, in which case I’m finding it hard to understand how she’d want to help the party.

Part will depend on how she thinks, or knows, the devil is observing her. If it can only listen, she might use facial expressions and gestures to get across a point that is counter to the words coming out of her mouth. The party will know, without an insight check, that she is lying. Or maybe she knows sign language and is signing one thing while saying another. Or there’s the classic example of an American soldier forced to make a video where he read the script prepared by his captors while blinking something different in Morse code. Or she writes it down and then throws each paper into the fire to destroy the evidence. Or she might just get up and point to things, like the hidden lever for the secret door, all while saying she can’t help them at all.

She can’t tell them about the contract, but can she tell them there is one? “Sorry, I’m under an NDA.” Or, devil contracts are notorious sticklers for the letter of the deal. She can’t “tell” them there’s a contract, but if there’s a hard copy she can leave it sitting out somewhere for the party to find.

I'm not entirely sure what the motivations are of this NPC.

If she wants to recruit the players to help her escape her contract, then she could deliberately be suspicious without directly telling the party about it.

If she believes there is no way out of the contract but wants to help the party with something else, then she should deny any knowledge of any such contract and offer an alternate explanation for whatever they found and change the topic back to what she wants to help the party with.

If she is completely terrified of the devil, she should just shut up and tell the party to leave her alone as soon as they mention it.

Why can't she just lie to the PCs?