Dee noticed that Nyles, Griselda, and Ethan all carefully examined their packaging before leaving. They checked the plastic wrap and trays for puncture marks, and made sure that all safety seals were unbroken. Griselda went so far as to throw out a bottle of orange juice because she thought maybe the plastic notches that held the unopened cap in place had been severed and resealed.
It could never hurt to be extra diligent about food.
It was dark by the time they turned off Ninth Street and into the Barracks. Ethan and Griselda peeled off to their duplex, and Nyles paused in front of Dee’s building.
“I’m sorry, by the way,” he began, his eyes shifting back and forth as if desperately trying to avoid Dee’s face. “About all the snogging earlier.”
Dee fought to keep a blush from creeping up her chest to her face. “I know you were just doing it to shut me up.”
“Yes,” he said flatly. “I mean, no. I mean, it wasn’t entirely clinical.”
Clinical? “Um, okay.”
“That came out wrong.”
“Did it?”
Nyles sighed. “I just…I’m glad you’re here.”
Dee arched an eyebrow. “Glad I’ve been sentenced to death on Alcatraz two-point-oh?”
“Well, yes. Kind of.” Now it was Nyles’s turn to blush. “I should stop now. Good night.”
DEE WATCHED NYLES DISAPPEAR down the end of her walkway before she opened the door just wide enough to slip inside. It wasn’t that she was embarrassed by her plastic utensil warning system, but she wanted Nyles to think that she was tough, and booby-trapping your house with lip-gloss tubes and paper coffee cups wasn’t exactly badass.
What the hell was wrong with her? She shouldn’t care what Nyles thought, and she certainly shouldn’t be flirting with him. “You can’t trust these people,” she said out loud, as if to remind herself. Nyles, Griselda, and Ethan were a means to an end, a tool she could use to earn her freedom, but they were not and never would be her friends.
She needed to stay focused on her goal: prove her innocence and make sure Monica’s real killer got what was coming to him. Toward that, she needed to follow the rules and stay alive. Flirting with the cute British boy with the goofy smile was not a priority.
With a heavy sigh, Dee dragged herself into the kitchen, being careful not to let her eyes wander toward the ever-present TV screen, which was still showing Blair’s murder. She’d eat some dinner, maybe chug a cup of instant coffee to keep her awake.
Dee had just dropped her grocery bag onto the table when she froze. A half dozen plastic sporks were strewn across the floor by the sliding glass door, and the cardboard cup that had held them was hanging from the handle by its dental-floss tether.
Maybe it just fell by itself. A strong breeze might have rattled the door. Or the balance was off and a shifting spork toppled the whole thing.
Or someone’s in the house.
Shit.
Okay, options. She could leave. Run outside, just like Blair and Nyles had suggested. Sixtyish-percent chance of survival, right? She tiptoed backward toward the glass door. It was unlatched, though Dee was sure she’d locked it that morning, and as she slowly slid it open, she heard a noise coming from the utility closet. A slight creak, as if someone had shifted position.
She had a Painiac in her laundry cupboard. What if she could trap him there? That would mean one less killer on the loose. She eyed the dining room chairs. Solid metal. She could wedge one beneath the handle to the closet and prop the legs against the nearby kitchen counter. Whoever was inside would be trapped.
Dee didn’t give herself time to debate the idea. As fast as she could move, she lunged at the nearest chair and shoved it into place.
The Painiac inside instantly realized something was wrong. He or she tried to push the door open from the inside, but the chair held firm. Dee backed toward the sliding glass door, just in case the chair gave way.
Her eyes drifted toward the nearest camera in the corner of the kitchen, expecting to see the telltale red light, letting Dee know that her feed was live. Here was Cinderella Survivor facing off against another Painiac, after all.
But the camera was dark.
Dee spun around, seeking out each of the cameras within view. Not a single red light between them. “What the hell?”
“Dee?” The muffled voice came from inside the closet. “Dee, it’s me, Mara. F-from next door.”
She sounded as if she was choking down a sob, but Dee wasn’t totally convinced it wasn’t actually Hannah Ball or DIYnona trapped inside.
“Sure it is,” Dee said, trying to sound brave.
The intruder didn’t plead with her. Instead, Dee heard a wriggling noise from inside the closet; then a white object slid out from beneath the door.
It was an ID card, exactly like Dee’s, only the photo on the front was of a girl with long red hair.
“Why are you in my house?” Dee asked, still not totally convinced she wasn’t being conned by a Painiac.
Sobs erupted from the closet. “I…I…”
“Yeah?”
“I was hungry,” she wailed.
That didn’t make any sense. As long as everyone worked their stupid little jobs, they had money for food. “Why don’t you take your card down to the bodega and—”
“There’s no money on it.”
What had Blair said about Mara? No one had seen her around in a couple of weeks. “Why not?” Dee hadn’t meant to do it, but her voice had softened. Immediately, Mara’s sobs slowed, then stopped.
“I used to work at the bodega,” she said, sniffling. “But my boss, Maximilian, was killed three weeks after I got here. Then it was just me and Rodrigo, and he…He tried to…”
And then Dee understood exactly why Mara had been in her house. Dee quickly yanked the chair away from the door and threw it open.
Mara had crammed herself into the space between the washer-dryer unit and the wall. Her long hair partially obscured her face, but her green eyes were red and swollen, her cheeks damp with tears.
“Thank you,” Mara said, wiping her face with the sleeve of her cable-knit sweater as she slipped out of the closet. “I’m sorry I scared you.” Then she darted toward the backyard.
“How do you eat?” Dee asked quickly, before Mara could disappear back into her own house.
Mara paused on the concrete patio. “I had some money saved up. And some food. Maximilian said I could take home the expired stuff, so I had a stockpile.”
“Had?”
Mara cast her eyes down, and a flush raced up her chest to her translucent cheeks. “It’s been gone for a couple of days.”
“So you were looking for food in my kitchen,” Dee said. It wasn’t even a question. Not that she blamed Mara. Who knew what leftovers and semi-rancid food she’d been existing on since she last worked at the bodega? “And hid in the closet when you heard the front door open.”
Mara nodded, eyes still locked on the floor.
Without thinking, Dee reached into the grocery bag and pulled out one of the microwaveable lasagnas and the two-pack of frozen burritos. “Here,” she said, holding them out to Mara through the open door. “Take them.”
Mara’s eyes grew so wide Dee was afraid her eyeballs might pop out of her head. “No, I couldn’t. That’s your food.”
“I can get more.” She wasn’t entirely sure that was true, but she couldn’t eat her own meal knowing that the girl next door was literally starving.
Mara stared at the items in Dee’s hands, then tentatively reached out to take them as if expecting at any moment that Dee would snatch them away.
“Thank you.” Several heavy tears spilled down Mara’s cheeks. “I’ll pay you back. I promise.”
Then, without another word, Mara was gone.
The next morning, as Dee was slouched over the kitchen counter drinking her second cup of instant coffee after an inadequate three hours of sleep, Mara appeared at her back door. She waved and held up a paper bag.
Confused, Dee untied the dental-floss booby trap and opened the door.
“Hey,” Mara said, a tiny smile breaking the corners of her mouth.
“Hey.”
Mara shoved the crumpled paper bag into Dee’s hands. “I brought you something.”
It was heavy, much heavier than the lasagna and burritos that she’d given Mara the night before. Unsure of what to expect, Dee opened the bag slowly, hesitantly, and found a collection of metal screws, nuts, and bolts.
“I noticed your booby traps,” Mara said. She spoke quickly, as if afraid she might lose her nerve before she got all the words out. “They’re actually pretty similar to the ones I rigged up. But I use these instead of plastic sporks. They make more noise.”
“Where did you find them?”
“The bodega,” Mara said. “Maximilian had stripped down some old vending machines in the back. For parts. I took a bunch of these home my first week and did what you did—made myself an alarm system.”
Mara was right—the metal hardware would do a much better job of alerting her to an intruder. It was an incredibly thoughtful gift. “Thank you,” Dee said, smiling at Mara. “I mean it.”
Mara shrugged, and Dee thought she noticed a faint redness creeping into her cheeks as she turned to leave.
“Hey!” Dee said, stopping her. “Can I ask you something?”
Mara tensed up, immediately on guard. “What?”
“How did you get into my house last night?”
“Oh!” Mara instantly relaxed, as if this was an easier question to answer than whatever she’d thought Dee was going to ask. “Your sliding door was unlocked.”
Unlocked? Dee tried to think back to the morning when she’d gone outside and talked to Mara. Had she locked the door behind her? She thought she had, but it felt as if a month had passed since that morning. “Wow. That was stupid of me.”
“Not really,” Mara said. “It’s not like The Postman’s killers need a key to get inside.”
Good point. “I’m glad you weren’t Molly Mauler lurking in my closet.”
“Me too,” Mara said, deadly serious. “Since she’s a forty-three-year-old stay-at-home mom from Marquette, Michigan, who drives a Honda minivan and runs the carpool on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.”
Dee blinked. “Huh?”
“That’s her alter ego.” Then, before Dee could ask her to elaborate, Mara dashed around the hedge and disappeared into her own house.
AS DEE TREKKED ACROSS the island toward I Scream, she couldn’t stop obsessing over Mara’s theory about Molly Mauler’s true identity.
Dee knew that Painiac fan fiction was a huge thing on The Postman forum. Monica had described some of her favorites that had been written about Gucci.
1. He had been a designer for a major fashion label, and he snapped after he was fired.
2. He and his wife owned an exclusive boutique in Manhattan, and he used to run fashion boot camps for kids during the summer.
3. He was an entertainer in South Beach who had been a contestant on RuPaul’s Drag Race.
4. He was a long-haul trucker from Mississippi who had turned his rig into a mobile torture chamber.
None of these stories were actual theories about the true identity of Gucci Hangman, only elaborate stories from the minds of his most ardent fans. Mara’s “facts” about Molly Mauler could have been the same thing—fiction.
The real-world identities of the Painiacs were closely guarded secrets. The news media and tabloids alike had attempted to seek them out, but not a single shred of evidence had been found that unmasked any of them. Not even after the Caped Capuchin’s death, which had ignited a media feeding frenzy. Obituaries had been scoured, screen grabs of the Capuchin analyzed by experts alongside photos of recently deceased males from across the country. There had been dozens of theories, but in the end, nothing had been confirmed and the topic had been dropped.
So Mara’s carpool-driving, stay-at-home-mom version of Molly Mauler had to be one more wild speculation. Right? She couldn’t actually know a Painiac’s identity, could she?
It seemed unlikely, but if there was even a snowball’s chance in hell that Mara had some inside information about one of the Painiacs, Dee needed to know it. Anything to help her survive for the next twenty-eight hours.
Because, like he’d told her last night, in twenty-eight hours, Nyles would be meeting with his lawyers and asking them to contact Dee’s dad with a special message: Gucci Hangman killed Monica. Your daughter was framed.
While Dee wasn’t 100 percent sure that Gucci was Monica’s killer, the situation would take too long to explain. This version was simple, to the point, and hopefully her dad would act on it.
He will. I know he will.
I hope he will.
I Scream was a much-needed distraction. Hanging out with Griselda wouldn’t have been Dee’s first choice for how to spend her day, but the ice-cream shop was crazy busy, as if all twenty-seven inmates on the island wanted ice-cream sundaes to be their last meal, and the hours flew by.
Nyles arrived around noon, and having him there helped. He kept the conversation light, never referencing Alcatraz 2.0 or the Painiacs or his meeting at the guard station the next day. They talked about California, and British poetry, and who made a better Sherlock Holmes—Benedict Cumberbatch or Robert Downey Jr.—and before Dee knew it, Ethan had shown up for their trek back to the Barracks.
But just when Dee thought she’d make it through a day on Alcatraz 2.0 without a murder, a sound ripped through the shop that sent shivers down her spine.
Ding-dong! Ding-dong!
“Here we go again,” Griselda said, seemingly unaffected by the notification.
Did she never fear this place?
Meanwhile, Dee’s heart raced as she swung around to face the monitor.
The scene was another warehouse, suitably dismal. A brooding light permeated the near darkness, just enough to illuminate the abandoned detritus strewn about the interior: wooden crates stacked haphazardly against the wall, hulks of machinery, and thick chains hanging from the rafters like vines in an industrial jungle. The details were fuzzy and indistinguishable, which allowed Dee’s mind to fill in the ominous blanks. Images of torture and brutality were hard to shake.
A spotlight ripped through the warehouse. It panned to the left, glinting off the rusting metal chains, then settled on a giant disc in the middle of the room, painted like an archery target in festive shades of red, yellow, and blue. Tied, spread-eagled, in the middle was a woman.
“That’s odd,” Nyles said at Dee’s side. “I haven’t seen her before. I’m always informed when new inmates arrive.” He sounded peeved. “That’s my job.”
The woman wore a sparkly gold leotard, appropriate for a magician’s assistant, and her black hair had been curled in fat spirals, which covered her face as her head hung forward. But when the woman raised her face to the camera, Dee recognized it right away. Even though the woman’s mouth was obscured by a gag, Dee knew her face. It was one she’d never forget.
“Holy shit, it’s Dr. Farooq.”
Only the words hadn’t come from Dee. They’d come from Griselda.
“You know her?” Dee asked.
Griselda’s upper lip curled. “She’s that bitchface psychiatrist who testified against me at my trial.”
Dee’s hands began to tremble. “She’s the same bitchface psychiatrist who testified against me.”
“Me too,” Ethan said. “Bitch. Face.”
For the first time since Dee had met her, Griselda’s calm, cool exterior cracked. “That’s impossible,” she said, the tremor apparent in her voice. “My trial was in Chicago. Ethan’s was in New York. And yours was in LA. They wouldn’t have used the same doctor for all three.”
“But they did,” Dee said. If Dr. Farooq had testified against all three of the
m, maybe Griselda really was innocent after all?
“Dee’s trial ended just days ago,” Nyles said. “How did the doctor get here so fast? She’d need to be arrested, tried.”
Dee was thinking the exact same thing. How did Dr. Farooq end up on Alcatraz 2.0?
A voice crackled from the video screen. “Pray thee, mistress. Dost thou knowest who I am?”
Dr. Farooq nodded meekly. Anyone with half a brain could recognize one of Robin’s Hood’s setups.
“Dost thou knowest where thou ist?”
Again she nodded.
“And dost thou knowest why thou art here?”
This time, Dr. Farooq shook her head violently and tried to speak through the gag, her voice muffled and indistinct.
“Dr. Farooq,” Robin said, his voice louder as if he were a town crier about to read a proclamation. “You have been convicted of psychiatric malpractice during your time at the Western Sierra State Mental Hospital, resulting in the negligent death of a patient.”
Dee reeled. Western Sierra State Mental Hospital. Where Kimmi had been sent.
“Are you okay?” Nyles asked, his hand on Dee’s back. “You look as if you’re going to be sick.”
“I—I’m fine.” Dee pulled a chair away from the nearest table and sat down. The room spun around her. First the connection between Gucci and Monica’s death. Now Dr. Farooq, who’d been so instrumental in Dee’s conviction, was directly linked to the hospital where Dee’s kidnapper had been sent six years ago.
Did this conspiracy go deeper than Dee had realized?
Meanwhile, Dr. Farooq screamed through her gag, less from fear than from indignation. She looked furious as she desperately tried to spit the fabric band out of her mouth, but her cries were quickly drowned out by a creeptastical pipe-organ sound track as slowly the archery target began to spin.
“Let us now bear witness to your demise,” Robin said. “May God have mercy on thy eternal soul.”
Dr. Farooq’s head swiveled from side to side as the rotating target began to pick up speed. She was looking for an escape, just as Dee had done. Dr. Farooq’s anger faded and she started to panic. She twisted her body, wrenching her torso back and forth as she pulled frantically at her arms and legs, attempting to free herself from the bonds that restrained her. But the ropes held firm.
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