by CeeCee James
“Well, nice chatting with you.” Harry pushed over a five dollar bill and lifted the cup as a way of saying goodbye.
“Have a good day.” Elise smiled, collecting the money.
A startled squeal and loud laughter came from the room upstairs. Elise could imagine the young teen girls grabbing on to their date’s arms as they navigated through the dark room. She could picture what they were seeing—the flashing neon signs, the puzzle leading to the key for the next room, the clock.
I wonder what puzzle they used to replace the cookie one?
Thinking about the cookie stressed her out. She couldn’t help replaying that day again, and her mouth went dry as the seconds ticked by. Glancing down, she realized she’d grabbed the towel and been wiping the spot with the weld glue over and over. Anxiously, she looked at the clock.
Dear Lord, this was about the time when the man screamed….
Her skin prickled at the memory.
Cleaning wasn’t working to calm her down like she’d hoped. She closed her eyes and took a couple breaths, trying to picture a beach. Ocean waves. Instead, more memories flashed from that day. She pulled a glass from the cupboard and filled it with water from the faucet. Gulping it down, she tried to steady herself.
It’s fine. I’m fine. With a deep breath, she rinsed the glass and opened the dishwasher. Her muscles slowly began to unclench. I’ve got this.
A scream ripped through the air.
Chapter 10
The glass slipped from Elise’s fingers and smashed unnoticed on the floor. Her gaze locked on the door to the upper room.
No! Not again!
She looked at the back stairwell and hesitated. If she went up those stairs again would it just be used against her?
“Help! Help!” A woman screams pierced the air.
Run.
Elise sprinted through the broom closet and up the back steps. She yanked on the door.
It was stuck. Someone pounded on the other side and clung to the doorknob, making it immovable.
“Let go so I can open it!” Elise screamed. The doorknob turned then and she wrenched it open. A girl tumbled into her arms and nearly knocked her back down the stairs.
“What’s the matter? What’s going on?” Elise pushed the trembling girl away by the shoulders and searched her eyes. “Is someone hurt?” Her heart pounded.
“Hurt?” The girl’s blue eyes were huge and tear-filled as she stared blankly up at her.
Elise looked back into the dark room. The picture had been torn off the wall and lay on the floor. “Who’s hurt? What happened?”
Laughter carried over from the other side of the room. “Jules? You scared?”
The young woman’s body still trembled but she managed a smile. “I’m not too good in dark places like these, I guess.”
Just then, Thomas came tearing up the stairs with a look of terror pasted to his face. “What happened?” he asked Elise. The young man’s head swiveled as he looked from teen to teen.
The group of kids filled him in on the girl’s fear of the dark. Thomas grabbed his chest and staggered back relieved. “You guys nearly killed me!”
Elise gave him a brittle smile and the two of them headed down the stairs, leaving the group of teens upstairs to continue to figure out the game. The young woman settled on the top step to wait for her friends.
Once out of sight, Elise turned with anger to Thomas. “You think you’re scared, now? I’m about to kill you, having had to go through this twice now. You absolutely have to find a better way to monitor this than through your computer at a restaurant.”
“Yeah, I know.” He looked glumly at the room. “This place is going to be the death of me.”
“I hope not literally.” Elise snapped back.
Thomas looked sick at her words.
“Bad choice of words, there,” he admitted. “Sorry about that. I promise we’ll figure out a better way. Maybe even hang out in this coffee area, here.” He glanced at her. “So, uh, by the way, how are things going?”
“Going?” Elise was still fuming as she walked back to the coffee counter and picked up the broken glass on the ground.
“Yeah,” Thomas cracked his knuckles, his hands appearing overly-large at the end of his gangly arms. He cleared his throat as if uncomfortable. “With, uh, the investigation.”
Elise shrugged. “I guess I’m still their only lead. I haven’t heard different. It’s pretty crazy.”
“I mean, how can they think that?” He shrugged and gave a nervous laugh. “They must be desperate to really think you did it.”
“I guess so.” Elise sighed and rolled her shoulders. She felt the tension in her muscles start to dissipate.
“Did they ever say why they think you did it?” He rubbed the back of his neck. “That sounds weird even to ask.”
Elise didn’t want to get into the extortion aspect of the photo and just kept it simple. “They think I swiped the book, Alice in Wonderland.”
Thomas stared at the wood floors with a frown.
Elise knew that feeling, the one where you didn’t know what to say or how to get out of a conversation, and gave him a way out. “So, how did you get here so fast?” With a glare, she added, “Although not fast enough.”
He flushed so she smiled to let him know this time she was kidding.
“We were watching from the restaurant,” Thomas said. “Just a lot closer this time. I’ve got that camera in there so we can monitor it.”
“That’s right!” Elise paused as her memory chimed. “Weren’t you saying something about that the other day?” She felt a zing of hope. “Wasn’t the camera operating on the day of the murder?”
He swallowed, clearly uncomfortable with the word murder in association to his room, and nodded.
“But, I think you said that it blacked out?” Elise pressed. “Did you ever watch the entire thing?” The excitement began to build, making her nearly jump up and down. She was half tempted to grab him by the arms and shake him. Chill. You are a grown up here.
Thomas said. “No, we didn’t bother after the picture cut out.”
“So, you never showed it to the police?”
“I didn’t think it would be helpful without a picture.”
“I know this is a long shot, but do you think we could just try and look at it one more time?”
“Yeah, why not. I owe you after today.” Thomas grabbed his phone and typed. “Ok, there. Sent a text to Jake to bring the laptop here.”
The buzzer sounded upstairs, making Elise jump. Thomas glanced at his cell again. “No worries. That’s just the timer’s saying the kids didn’t solve the room in an hour.”
Moments later, the group of teens pounded down the stairs and headed, laughing, out the door. On their way, they passed Jake who was walking in.
“What’s up?” Jake asked Thomas. He had the laptop firmly under his other arm.
“Elise was wondering if she could check out the footage from the room. From, you know, the other day.”
“D-day, the only day you could mean.” Jake set the laptop on the counter with a clatter. He opened it and began typing. “Let’s try it. Not sure how far back this is going to go, though.” Then, glancing up, he asked, “Did you tell her about the problem?”
“Yeah,” Thomas turned to Elise. “We figured out why the picture disappeared. The camera inside the room was vandalized.” He started to crack his knuckles again and ended up jamming his hands into his pockets.
Elise had a feeling she knew what it was. “Black paint?”
Thomas nodded.
“Just like what happened to Dave’s,” Elise concluded with a sigh.
Jake typed a few more commands until the screen came up, and then clicked an arrow to run back the recording. It was a slow process and Elise thought she would scream as anxiety built inside of her.
Finally, he grinned. “Okay, then. Here we go.” His face shone with youthful enthusiasm as he shoved the screen towards her.
She watched herself—face tight in fear—bang on the escape room’s door at the top of the stairs. Elise hadn’t realized there had been a camera mounted to the door frame. Seconds later, she disappeared from the screen as she ran back down the stairs. She reappeared on another screen at the back door. The other screen was dark.
“Can you rewind it a little further?” she asked.
He tried with one more swipe and then frowned. “It won’t go back anymore.”
She leaned over and rewound it again. Something had caught her attention from the first scene. What was that? A smudge moved in one of the corners of the screen.
“Can you zoom in right there?” She pointed.
Jake frowned and typed furiously on the screen. The screen enlarged but the resolution blurred. He rewound it again.
They all watched carefully. Elise found herself holding her breath.
“It’s a hat,” Thomas finally muttered.
Elise felt a thrill of excitement. True, the hat showed on the screen for just a moment, but it was proof she wasn’t the only one in the store that day. She swiped to rewind it again. Ahh. So frustrating. If only she could go back just a few more seconds, she’d be able to see who it was.
“We have to show this to the cops,” she said, feeling hope for the first time.
Thomas nodded and took a screen shot of it. “You weren’t alone that day, Elise. Someone was in here with you.”
She shivered, realizing she hadn’t had a clue.
Chapter 11
After work that evening, Elise took a moment of quiet out on her front stoop with her mug of coffee, soaking in the late afternoon sunshine as it hit her face. I swear life can be broken down to simple pleasures like this. You get enough of them beaded together as life’s experiences and you can die a rich man.
Or woman. She snorted and took another sip. Almost had a good analogy there.
Just before her shift had ended, Jake and Thomas had met with Detective Sloan. The detective hadn’t seemed pleased with the new evidence. He’d subtly insinuated that Jake had held on to the recording for some reason, leaving both Jake and Thomas shaken after the interview. Elise had felt slightly relieved at the thought that maybe the detective treated all of his interviews that way, and she wasn’t alone.
So, all in all, it was good news for Elise. The video proved that she hadn’t been alone that day when the bankers had entered the Escape Room. There was now another suspect.
A loud bang came from the new neighbor’s house, grabbing her attention. A man had climbed out of a truck and slammed the driver’s door. Across the side of the white truck was a cartoon hammer and handsaw, hemmed in by the words, “Doorknob Home Repairs.”
The coverall-covered man hurried up to the front door and knocked boldly. It was the young wife who answered. Elise sipped from her mug and watched as the wife reached out and touched the door frame—or was it the worker’s sleeve?—before she stepped back to let him in the house.
Interesting. Elise studied the truck again. The bed was filled with boards along with a metal rack structure that held different sizes of pipe.
A plumber? Electrician? What exactly does ‘Home Repairs’ entail?
This reminded Elise of the state of disrepair her own front porch had fallen into. She picked at a piece of peeling paint on the step next to her, frowning as the paint peeled back into a long strip. How do I even fix this? Sand it? Her gaze traveled up the front of the house, spotting more peeling spots on the walls. A depressed groan eased out of her. Sand the whole house?
Not going to think about that right now. She stood and set the mug on the railing. Then she stepped down the stairs and examined the front flower beds.
The flowers appeared as if they felt a bit reproachful towards her, surrounded as they were by weeds. They lifted choked-out leaves to the sun.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” Elise muttered, dropping to her knees. She dug into the dirt and twisted the weed stems, yanking the weeds out with a hard pull.
After a little bit, the bed already seemed better, with a pile of wilting weeds drying in the driveway. Elise heard another slam and looked up just in time to see the home repair truck speed away. A twenty minute home repair? Her brow furrowed as she went back to pulling weeds. She carefully shook the dirt out of the last clump roots before tossing the plant.
Another vehicle pulled up across the street. What is this, musical cars? She couldn’t help looking again, keenly aware she was only one small step from becoming that nosy neighbor from the movie That Darn Cat.
It was Seth. He shut the car door and glanced around. Catching her eye, he lifted his hand in greeting.
What’s this? Oh great, he’s coming over. Elise felt her cheeks heat at being caught snooping on him. She cleared her throat and pushed her hair off her face as she stood up to greet him.
“Hi, Seth,” she said quietly.
“Hey! How are you?” His dimples creased with his easy smile. He reminded her of the bankers earlier, dressed as he was in a dark blue business suit with the jacket hanging open. As he reached her, he stuck a finger in his tie and loosened it. “Ahh, that’s better. Nothing like a banker’s noose to remind me how much I like t-shirts.”
Odd choice of words, given what I was just thinking. Elise gave a small chuckle. “I can imagine.”
“Yeah, that’s the way it goes, though. Somebody’s got to bring home the bacon. Wife’s kinda demanding that way.” He surveyed her flower garden. “Looks great! You weeding?”
Biting back a smart-alecky reply, Elise nodded. “I figure I’d better get at it before someone complained.”
“Oh,” His eyebrows knotted in concern. “People complain around here?”
Elise shook her head. That darn dry humor of hers. Nobody got it. “No, I’m just kidding. But they probably should have. It was looking so shabby.”
“Nah. It just looked like you’ve been busy is all. I just wanted to make sure so that no one got back to our landlords that we weren’t taking care of the place or something.” Again that boyish grin. “So, I’ve been meaning to ask, do you have any plans for this weekend?”
“Plans?”
“Yeah, uh, with that cop fellow?” His brow wrinkled.
“Oh, Brad? He’s working.”
“Aww. That’s too bad. Well, we wanted to invite the two of you over. You’re welcome to come alone.” He dipped his head in the direction of his house where Elise eyed nervously, waiting for Linda to come out. “We’re playing the Settlers of Catan. Beer, nachos that sort of thing.” His brown eyes studied her for a second. One dimple formed. “I hope you can come.”
The pause between them grew as Elise struggled with the correct response. “Uh, I’d love to but I need to stay home with Lucy.”
“Lucy?”
“My niece.” Elise didn’t want to explain the relationship. In fact, she was about done with the conversation. “Which reminds me, I need to get dinner started.”
He nodded before reaching out toward her face. She automatically flinched and pulled away.
“Shh. Don’t move.” He grabbed her shoulder to steady her and wiped at her cheek. “You had a little bit of dirt there,” he said as an explanation as he released her.
Elise fought the urge to wipe her cheek. “Okay, thanks. Next time just let me know.”
He laughed. “I’m sorry. It just was so cute I couldn’t resist.”
Okay then.
“Thank you for inviting me. Maybe next time we can make it.” Elise hoped her voice sounded firm and made the point that she wouldn’t come alone.
“No problem. Anyway, I guess I should get back. See what the wife’s been up to all day. Probably nothing.” He made a face.
Do not say anything. This isn’t your circus. Just smile and go into the house.
Elise wrestled with that inner voice for a moment, wanting to tell him off for sounding so insulting. But, in reality, it was their lives and their marriage.
And, really, she didn’t
know what Linda did all day. Especially since the home repair guy seemed awfully friendly.
She felt proud of herself when she managed a wave and a quick return to her porch, having escaped adding any more drama.
Chapter 12
Elise grabbed the mug from the railing and walked into the house. Whoa. She looked around. It was as if a clothing bomb had gone off in the living room. I’m not single anymore. She gathered sweaters, a hoody, and three more pairs of shoes by the door as she tried to straighten up.
Max, her orange tabby cat, followed at her feet and meowed as if to remind her it was time for a cat treat.
“You little scamp. No more treats for you. I told you that Dr. Wendt would put you on a diet the next time you saw him, and see what happened? You’re on diet cat food.” She pointed to the new bag of food sitting on the kitchen counter. The bag featured a healthy cat that even seemed to smile behind perfectly groomed whiskers.
Quite unlike Max, who hated his new food. He’d been on a cat food semi-strike, ever since she’d brought it home. It nearly broke Elise’s heart to see him come running with excitement when he heard the kibble hit the bowl, only to turn his nose up when he saw that it was the despised brand.
“Are you talking to yourself again?” Lucy called from her room. Elise’s cheeks heated. Having Lucy living there had put her self-talk under a microscope. She’d had no idea how much she carried on a conversation with herself until the teen continued to make comments about it.
“I’m talking to Max!” Elise called back. “Now, what do you want for dinner?”
She needed to get on it because Brad would be there soon.
Probably as hungry as Max.
Elise quickly washed her hands. Then, she opened her pantry and stared inside, as if waiting for something to jump out and inspire her. Long seconds passed as her eyes scanned the shelves. Soup, half a box of cereal, peanut butter, potatoes, and mac and cheese. She was just about to shut the door—sucking in air for an exasperated sigh—when she spied a box of Bisquick.