“I don’t know,” Eren said, hating how his voice sounded as it came out. He sounded...broken.
“But the police are supposed to know everything?”
“I don’t know. It all lined up. He was a sad man. He had problems. It looked like he killed himself.” Eren shut the lid of the chest. It felt more final than it should have. It felt like the whole world had been contained in that chest, and he was trapping it. His father’s guilt, all locked up.
Eren replaced the padlock, spinning the numbers around to some random combination. After that, he made his way downstairs like a zombie, not really understanding what he was doing.
Before he knew it, he was back in his room. He threw the flashlight down and sat, leaning against the bed. Burying his head in his knees, he cried. He cried and cried for his mother, for Mr. Jefferies, for his father and for himself.
When he finally looked up, the light in the room had dimmed. It was dark out and Morgan was sitting in his desk chair staring at him.
“He killed Mr. Jefferies,” Eren said, somewhere between a statement and a question.
Eren sat with his head in his hands. The revelation hung in the air—he could feel it. His own father—a murderer. He knew it was true, but willed it not to be. His father wrapping that belt around Mr. Jefferies’s neck, stringing him up on the pipe in the middle of the room, disappearing out the window. His own father.
“Imagine how famous we’re going to be,” Morgan said, softly.
Eren looked at him. “What?”
“I mean, your own dad. We’re going to be famous, Eren, the talk of the city. The Kid Detectives.”
“What the hell are you saying?” Eren said.
“We solved the murder. That’s what it was all about, right, finding out who killed Mr. Jefferies and getting famous?”
Eren found another emotion nestled amongst the despair, a white-hot rage. “What the hell are you saying?” he hissed.
“When we tell people, we’ll be famous.”
“What is wrong with you? I was doing this because it was the right thing to do.”
“Oh.” Morgan seemed genuinely surprised—like it had all been fun and games.
“I guess I knew that at the start, but after Christmas? I thought you were just doing it for the same reasons.” And Eren saw the real Morgan for the first time. A horrible, vapid creature, so immature and careless. The kind of creature who would see the tearing apart of his friend’s world as an opportunity. Morgan was not his friend.
“No one can know about this,” Eren said, through clenched teeth.
“What?”
“No one can ever know what my father did.”
“But, Eren...”
“No one. You understand? No one. My mother’s gone. I can’t lose my father too.”
“But, Eren...”
And there it was—a moment. A moment Eren would remember for the rest of his life. He remembered how lonely he felt, how small he was in relation to everything else in the world, how far anger governed everything. He remembered his hot tears splash against the navy of his jeans creating dark blue spots, he remembered Morgan’s childish face. But most of all he would come to remember the next five words out of the idiot’s mouth.
“...I want to be famous.”
Eren’s vision crackled blood red, as he launched himself at his former friend. Morgan jumped out of the desk chair sending it careening backwards into the wall. Eren connected with the desk, banging his head and shrieking in pain.
Morgan looked down at him, dumbfounded, as he propped himself up with his arms.
“Get out,” Eren said, in a voice that was not his own. Morgan looked down at him.
“Get out,” he shouted, launching himself once again. Morgan ran out of the room and Eren slammed the door. He heard the boy rushing down the stairs and the front door bang.
Eren fell to his knees and wailed, a strange and painful sound. He crawled into his bed and put the covers over himself—protecting him. He lay there, as still as he could, the tears pooling on his cream-colored sheets.
Mr. Jefferies was dead and his father had killed him.
The evidence was all there, in the attic. Why had he done it? Because he blamed Jefferies for Eren’s mother’s death? How could his father do it? How could anyone do it? Kill someone? These past few months felt like an endless stream of questions.
“I’m sorry, Eren. I’m so sorry,” his father had said that day. Now he knew what it really meant.
Over and over and over he had said it. At the time, he didn’t know why—not really. But now he did. And he wished he didn’t. He wished he had dropped the whole investigation thing. What was it all to achieve anyway? But he knew why. It was to prove that his teacher wouldn’t have killed himself, to prove that the world wasn’t a certain shade of dark. But now it was darker than ever.
As he lay there, he wondered how he was going to carry on. He wondered that if he tried really hard, if he willed it, he could just die, lying there in the warmth of his bed. If he wanted so much to die, could he will it so? Probably not, and anyway he knew that it was not to be. He had to carry on. He had to find some kind of strength, even if it felt like he couldn’t. No one could know what he had found, least of all his father. He would put the information away, in his brain—lock it up and throw away the key. He would force himself to forget. His father was still his father because he had to be. For Eren to survive, he had to be.
He lay there for longer than seemed possible, his breathing becoming more regular, his tears drying. He was staring at his hands, thinking of them wrapping a belt around Mr. Jefferies’s neck, tying it to the pipe in the ceiling. And after a while, he thought of his mother. He thought of how happy she looked with Jefferies, how kind she was. And with his mother’s face in his mind, he found enough peace to lapse into a gentle sleep.
And at about 1:00 a.m., he heard the front door open and shut as his father returned.
* * *
He had bad dreams, so bad that he thought the sirens were in his head. But when he opened his eyes, they were still there. He sat up, the covers falling away from him. It was light in the room, the sun shining in through the window and stinging his eyes. He jumped up and looked out the window, and his stomach immediately turned.
The scene was abhorrent. Two police cars parked on the curb—two officers standing by the cars, talking to each other. Over the road, Eren’s neighbors peered from their windows, watching. The old couple directly opposite had even come to the front door, not even disguising the fact they were being nosy.
Maybe it was something unrelated. Maybe this was just a coincidence. But as the police officers reached into their respective cars to turn their sirens and lights off, he knew it couldn’t be for anything else. They knew. And the police officers started walking down the drive to his house.
He panicked but couldn’t move. He didn’t know what was happening. The fog of sleep was still wrapped around him but he knew that his father was in trouble.
He watched out the window as the two police officers went to their door. Eren heard it open. His father’s voice.
And then shouting. And then they had him. They cuffed him. What were they doing? They cuffed him and he tried to struggle, but one of the officers pinned him down on the grass.
More neighbors were coming out of their houses to see what was going on. He wanted to scream at them to go away. He didn’t want them to see. But he was still frozen there. At the window.
The other police officer disappeared, and Eren heard him inside the house. What was happening? How—how was this happening? How did they know? How did they find out?
And as Eren heard the other police officer come up the stairs, taking each step one by one, the answer came to him, fully formed and crystal clear. Two words. One name.
Morgan Sheppard.
44
Sheppard took a breath—in and out. Curious—he shouldn’t be doing that. Because he was dead. Breathing stopped when you were dead—that was how it worked. And there was no way he was still alive. He’d been blown up.
Although, he had to admit, it hadn’t hurt a bit. Dying.
But it was meant to, right? It had to. But it hadn’t.
And now he thought about it, something about that explosion sound had been strange too. It had been almost tinny, like it wasn’t actually happening. Like it was being played through a speaker.
He opened his eyes. The room was still there. The same as it had always been. Mandy, Headphones, Ryan and Constance all still there—looking as confused as he felt.
Could they really be still alive? Was that possible? Or was death very similar to life? He held up a shaky hand and looked at his palm, just to check it was still there. It was—he was. He felt fine—better than fine. Alive.
He looked toward the bed. Toward the timer. It was flashing 00:00:00.
“What happened?” Ryan said, pale and small.
“It didn’t work,” Mandy said.
Nothing had happened. The explosion sound, the lights, they had both gone off at the exact moment the timer had hit zero. An illusion? The illusion of death?
Sheppard got to his feet, on legs that thought they were never going to stand again. Even the fact that he was still breathing air was joyous—a cause for celebration. But there would be time for that later. The explosion had failed—the horse mask man had finally shown his hand. They were alive. They were blissfully alive. And now, it was time to make a break for it.
They had been played—all of them.
“There was never going to be any explosion,” Sheppard said, fighting back his sheer glee. “Mandy was right all along.”
The others seemed to be two steps behind. Headphones’s eyes were still shut. Constance was abnormally still. Ryan was staring at him with wide eyes. Mandy cleared her throat of sadness. “That this was all for television?”
“Yes,” Sheppard said, “or no. Maybe not TV, maybe the internet or something like that. I’m betting this was all staged. I’m betting the horse man has been filming this entire thing. And now he’s got what he wanted, we can leave.”
“But what did he want?”
Sheppard looked into the corners of the room, seeing if he could see anything that looked like a camera. He knew the horse man was watching. It didn’t take a leap in logic to think he was recording it. “He wanted to watch me squirm. He wanted to show the world I couldn’t solve a murder. Well—” he threw his arms up “—you got me. You’ve done it. I don’t care. I refuse to care. Whoever you are. Because now the bell’s rung. And it’s home-time.”
Mandy got up and Ryan wasn’t far behind. They both stepped around the bed as though wading through treacle.
“Has it stopped?” Mandy said.
“It’s over,” Ryan said.
Sheppard turned to them. “He got what he wanted. The ending he assumed. Reality 101, no one actually likes a happy ending. The horse man’s story ended with us dying.”
“But we didn’t,” Mandy said.
“It doesn’t matter. It never did. In the narrative of the thing, we die and we fail. That’s what the cameras got. Just a game.”
“This still doesn’t feel right,” Ryan said taking a step back and observing the room.
Mandy looked from Ryan to Sheppard as if wondering who to believe. She seemed to settle on Sheppard and smiled. “Then what are we waiting for?”
Headphones got out from under the desk and joined them. Even behind them, Ahearn seemed to be happy—she sang some kind of upbeat hymn. Sheppard almost joined her.
Sheppard went to the door, followed by the others. It was all over. Finally. And how stupid of them all to go along with it anyway. A murder in a hotel room—a body in the bathtub. Blowing up the building. A setup—all an elaborate way of stringing them along. Sheppard fell for it—feared for his life and everyone else’s. Exploding in a bout of fire. But what kind of work would that have been to orchestrate? Committing mass murder just to get back at one man? That would have been too much, no matter who the horse man was.
But Winter? Winter was dead. There was no doubt about that. Winter had died for what? A sham. A joke. Some things still didn’t add up—but it was hard to think about them when there was an overwhelming feeling of relief. Once Sheppard got out of here, he would not rest until he found Winter’s killer, but he had to get out first. Sheppard reached for the door handle. The light was green now. Just as he knew it would be. Go down the corridor, down to the lobby. Call the police. They had to know what was going on. And then get some fresh air, go outside and live. “Who’s ready to go home?” he said, with more hope than he had ever felt.
There was a positive response behind him. Everyone. Sheppard depressed the handle.
He took a deep breath in and out. Still alive. And swung the door open.
To reveal a wall of concrete on the other side.
45
They were silent—not quiet, but completely and utterly silent, as though they had been frozen in place. On the other side of the hotel room was a wall of gray concrete. Nothing else. Directly on the other side. He didn’t understand—couldn’t wrap his head around it.
No.
“No,” he said, out loud this time—breaking the silence. He reached out to touch the concrete. It was cold and rough against his fingers. It was real—very, very real. He pushed on it, hoping it might give way to something—but it didn’t. It stayed strong and steadfast. “No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.” He hit the concrete with his fist and sharp pain erupted in his hand. “Ah...”
“What is this?” Mandy said—it seemed to be all she could manage. “How is this possible?”
“I told you,” Ryan said. “I told you something wasn’t right.”
Mandy shook her head. “How is this in a hotel? Why would a fake door be in a hotel? Sheppard, please, what does this mean?”
“We’re not in a hotel,” Sheppard said. “Everything was made to trick us. To...keep us busy.”
“But I saw the corridor. I saw the corridor in the peephole,” Mandy said, questioning reality—questioning what was right in front of her.
Sheppard swung the door back and looked through the peephole. Surprisingly, he could see a hotel corridor, distorted and odd in the way a fisheye lens was. He looked away and looked back a few times just to make sure he wasn’t seeing things. “It must be a small screen showing a corridor somewhere. The corridor is there—it just isn’t here.”
A small sound emanated from Headphones and she backed up.
“What is this?” Ryan said, angry this time. “You said the game was over.”
“I thought it was.” Sheppard touched the concrete again, searching for anything—any little bit of hope. But he didn’t find any. The wall seemed strong and steadfast—no way there was another side.
“How is this in a hotel?” Mandy said again, as if they were all stuck in a bewildered time loop.
“We’re not in a hotel,” he said again, softer this time, and turned to Mandy and the others. “We never were. It’s the phones.” Mandy looked confused. “That’s why he gave us them. He wanted to give us a clue. None of us got any signal even though we’re high up in the center of London. Or at least we’re supposed to be.
“And the vents. The vents didn’t lead anywhere. Because there’s nowhere else to go. Maybe everything we know was wrong. We were led down the garden path. Maybe we’re not in London at all.”
Mandy and Ryan looked at him, their faces looking more desperate.
“The timer,” a voice behind them. Headphones. “The timer’s restarting.”
Sheppard’s mind raced. “The thing Headp—The thing Rhona saw in Winter’s office. The whole reason she’s here. The land deed.
We’re not in The Great Hotel. We’re where...”
“Sheppard,” Mandy said, touching his shoulder. He jumped, but gave her a sad smile. “Where are we?”
“We’re where we’ve always been,” he said. “Underground.”
46
Underground. Trapped in a box. With a killer. Maybe with two killers.
“Underground?” Mandy said. “How is that possible? How can we be underground? London’s out there.” She pointed to the window. Constance Ahearn followed her finger and laughed.
Sheppard looked to the window as well. And went over to it. He gazed out of the glass. Central London at the peak of day. Nothing out of place. He could almost feel it—the city all around him. The electricity of being part of something bigger than you could possibly imagine. But it couldn’t be real. And the closer Sheppard looked, the more he could see it. It was only very slight—you couldn’t see it if you weren’t looking for it—but the image looked grainy. Made up of pixels. The highest quality he had ever seen, but fake nonetheless. How had he done it? Sheppard looked down as much as he could. It really looked like he was looking down from a hotel room window. The perspective was perfect.
“I should have realized,” Sheppard said, putting a hand on the window. He reached up to the edge of the window and ran his finger along the seam where the glass met the frame. “There were enough clues. He didn’t even hide it sometimes. But I didn’t get it. Of course I didn’t. We never were in a hotel room.”
“But...” Mandy started and Ryan put a hand on her shoulder to stop her.
“He’s right. I didn’t understand it until now, but...the toilet’s locally plumbed in. It’s not hooked up to a bigger pipe system like it would be in the hotel. I didn’t think much of it at the time...but it all makes sense.”
“This is insane. You two are insane,” Mandy said.
“Insane, yes, but that doesn’t mean wrong,” Sheppard said, slapping the window when he couldn’t find a way through. It gave a soft clink. “If this isn’t a hotel window, I wonder if we can break it.”
Guess Who Page 22