“And he thought he’d claim that Escape-Capades prize,” Mackenzie said, “and not have to go back to school like his parents wanted.”
“Yeah, I needed the money, so what? I’m not the only one.” Wes narrowed his eyes at Mackenzie. “You weren’t exactly fucking me because you thought I was poor.”
“That’s incredibly sexist,” Neela said. “Not to mention in poor taste.”
Persey seriously doubted that “poor taste” was a label Wes worried about.
Wes rolled his eyes. “Please. She’s one of those townies who used to hang around Deerfield just looking for a trust fund to snag. Old Mack here was just pissed that she banged up the wrong tree. Why do you think she was so hot to join in when she found out about the Prison Break clue?”
“One Eighty West A,” Neela said. “Let me guess: Wes’s dorm room?”
“Yes.” Mackenzie, far from being offended, merely looked irritated by the accusations. “And I am not a townie. I’m from Springfield, for fuck’s sake.”
“Really?” Persey said. “That’s the part you want to dispute?”
Mackenzie raised her chin, defiant. “I’m not afraid of sex. Or having sex. Or using sex.”
Persey wasn’t about to let Mackenzie play the slut-shamed victim. “You’re also not afraid of benefiting from idea theft, apparently.”
“I wish I had some popcorn,” Kevin said, clapping his hands with glee. “This is amazing theater. Wes uses Mommy’s casino to coerce poor little career-gambler Brian into handing over trade secrets, which Mackenzie, always the opportunist, finds out about and insists on getting in on. Am I nailing this all so far?”
“So far,” Riot said.
“Then you overhear them in the library and steal what Wes already stole,” Kevin continued, the laugh gradually ebbing from his voice. “And you gave the code to Shaun-bot, who cracked it.”
Riot shrugged, utterly unapologetic. “I didn’t give it to Shaun exactly. We were both members of the American Cryptogram Association, and Shaun occasionally wrote for their e-magazine. He had a reputation as a badass with codes. But though I knew him by name, I’d never met him.”
Neela, still crouched on the floor, rested her chin against her knees. “So when you arrived here this morning, you didn’t recognize him?”
“I suspected after Leah’s introduction—but Shaun’s a pretty common name, no matter which way you spell it.”
“And you’d already escaped Office Drones by the time we found the code-breaking machine that was Shaun’s challenge.”
Riot laughed. “Yeah, that would have tipped me off, but honestly, I should have guessed it earlier. Oh well.” He placed his hands at either temple, fingers and thumbs pulled together, then fanned his digits, miming an explosion. “Mind blown.”
Next, Persey pointed at Mackenzie and Wes. “You two definitely recognized each other—”
Mackenzie rolled her eyes. “Duh.”
“—but you didn’t remember Riot until just now.”
“I’m not sure why that matters,” Wes said, unimpressed. “But yeah.”
“I knew who Arlo was,” Neela said. “But like I said, I’d only guessed that she ran DaringDebunker. I didn’t know for sure.”
Riot crouched down beside her. “Impressive job with figuring out the decoded schematics. I never thought that once it was cracked there’d be yet another layer of puzzle.”
Neela’s misery rushed back over her in an instant. “Thanks, I guess. As soon as Arlo posted it, I recognized the blueprints to a Baguenaudier, also known as the Impossible Staircase puzzle. It’s a mathematician’s dream, with an equation based on binary Gray codes to find the minimum number of moves necessary to solve. That was the one part everyone else missed, I guess. Except me.”
“What I want to know is how the plans got to DaringDebunker at all,” Riot said. “What was the connection between Arlo and Shaun? Best I could tell from today, they hated each other.”
“Notre Dame,” Persey said. “Don’t you remember from the introductions? Arlo’s brother went there. And when she mentioned Atticus’s name in the library, I was pretty sure that Shaun was caught by surprise.”
“They must have been friends. Shaun mentioned he had this puzzle he couldn’t solve, and Atticus thought of his sister.” Riot nodded in understanding. “Then Arlo, realizing what her brother had shared with her, put it up on her website, hoping someone would solve it.”
“I still say the Brownes did it for publicity,” Wes said. In case Persey wasn’t already completely convinced that he was a skeezeball.
“Really, genius?” Kevin said. “They’d literally bankrupt themselves and their company on purpose, then Melinda Browne would pump two bullets into the back of her husband’s head, and one into her own, letting their only son find the bodies…all for some CNN coverage? That’s the stupidest business move ever.”
“Maybe they faked their own deaths.” Wes had jumped the shark from tasteless to offensive. “I bet they could have absorbed that prize money hit.”
Only the trust-fund kid would think that two hundred and fifty million was absorbable.
Kevin pointed at him, thumb and forefinger posed like a pistol. “You’re an asshole.”
Wes pushed off the wall and strode into the center of the group. “Look, this is all a cute academic exercise, figuring out how we’re connected all Scooby-Doo–style and shit, but I don’t see how it matters. We’re stuck here, and we need to get out. End. Of. Story.”
You wish it was the end of the story.
“I agree with Wes,” Mackenzie said. Shocking. “And I don’t appreciate my past being dragged up like I’m a politician running for office.”
“Thirded,” Riot added. Persey glanced at Neela, wondering if she’d protest as well. She did not.
“It matters,” Persey said, not at all surprised that these people wouldn’t want their lying, cheating, and stealing in the spotlight, “because three people are dead.”
“Leah must be behind this,” Neela said. “Maybe she was close to the Brownes? Or…” She sucked in a sharp breath. “That article we found in Office Drones! It mentioned an L. Browne as next of kin. Could L stand for Leah?”
“It could,” Persey said. “But if Leah’s involved, she’s not doing it on her own, and if we don’t figure out who’s helping her pick us off, one of us is going to be next.”
Now it was Neela’s turn to protest Persey’s logic. “I don’t understand. Why can’t Leah be doing all this alone?”
“Because while Arlo’s death could have been controlled from the outside, there was no one else with us in Boyz Distrikt, or in the Cavethedral to drug Shaun.” Persey hoped she sounded decisive and strong, just like her brother always did, because this next theory was a doozy. “Which means one of us is a killer.”
THE FACETIME CALL RANG FOUR TIMES BEFORE PERSEY managed to silence it.
She’d forgotten to turn off her ringer, and so when the melodious bell sounded through the nearly empty theater, she panicked and ended the call without even looking to see who it was.
Not because she was worried about disturbing someone, but because she didn’t want anyone to know she was there.
The West Valley High School theater, which had long been her refuge from a tense and uncomfortable home, had recently become her actual refuge. Or at least, it would be eventually. With just weeks until the end of her junior year, Persey had begun looking for a place to crash once her dad made good on his promise to kick her out next spring. By dumb luck, Persey had stumbled upon the old dressing rooms while searching for a different stool to use in her spotlight loft. She’d been poking around backstage, searching through storage spaces, when she found the long-abandoned rooms. They were half hidden behind the recently remodeled proscenium stage. For whatever reason, the remodel had left the suite of three rooms intact. Unused, forgotten.
Which was perfect. A little digging around after hours and some creative arrangements of extension cords, and Persey had
created a half-decent crash pad, complete with a couple of desk lamps (props from the fall production of Deathtrap), a dusty but not uncomfortable chesterfield sofa (from a long-ago staging of Noises Off), and a mini fridge she’d found stashed away in the basement.
Tonight, for the first time, she was going to spend the night, just to see if anyone noticed. As long as she didn’t exit the building once the security system was turned on, she was fine. Bathrooms, vending machines, even showers in the newer dressing rooms. She could do worse.
It wasn’t a permanent solution, but it was better than the street.
But her carefully laid plans would come crashing down if anyone found out she was in the theater after hours. Like if they heard her phone ringing.
Silencing the call, Persey raced out of her hiding place, opening and closing the door to the suite of rooms as silently as she could. She paused, listening. Hoping no one had heard.
A voice in the dimly lit theater caused her stomach to fall out from beneath her. “Hello?”
It was Mr. Beck. The theater director.
Persey scanned the wings, work lights on, looking for something that could plausibly have kept her there long after the Grand Hotel rehearsals had ended. Footsteps in the back of the house indicated that Mr. Beck was coming to investigate from his office. She didn’t have much time.
Spotting a box of old lighting gels stashed in the corner, she dragged it toward the nearest work light, then plopped down in front of it. She just had time to shove in her earbuds and redial the missed FaceTime call before Mr. Beck rounded the curtain.
“Hey, little sis!” her brother said, answering her callback instantly. “I thought you were avoiding me. This is the fourth time I’ve called this week.”
Shit. She really should have looked before she dialed. “N-no,” she stammered. “I’ve been at rehearsal and—”
“Hey!” Mr. Beck said, eyes wide in surprise. They were bloodshot, and Persey could smell the spicy odor of his favorite whiskey wafting toward her. “I didn’t know you were still here.”
“Hang on,” Persey said to her brother, then pulled out one of her earbuds. “Sorry, Mr. Beck. There was a tear in one of the gels in the house right bank of lights. I forgot to tell Amanda before she left after rehearsal, so I thought I’d stay late and replace it myself.”
“You’re still at school?” her brother asked.
“Oh!” Mr. Beck stared at the box of old gels. “You didn’t hear me calling?”
She held up her one removed earbud. “Music.”
“Right. Well, that’s very kind of you. But I’m about to lock up.”
Shit. Persey forced a smile as she pushed herself to her feet. “Got it. I’ll head out through the side door.”
Mr. Beck nodded, though he looked confused. She wasn’t sure if he bought her story, but he clearly wasn’t going to argue with her at ten o’clock on a Tuesday night. “Okay. See you tomorrow.”
Persey started toward the side door, pushing it open as Mr. Beck retreated from the wings. When she heard his footsteps growing fainter, she let the door close, then dashed to the hidden suite and made it back to her crash pad as silently as was humanly possible.
“You want to tell me what’s going on?” her brother asked.
Persey pressed a finger to her lips, indicating silence, then waited until she heard the faint click of the main lights as Mr. Beck shut everything down. Then she let out a sigh.
Cover maintained. But she so didn’t want to explain this to her brother.
“Sorry about that,” she said, as if everything that had just occurred was perfectly natural and normal. “We have a tech dress tomorrow, so it’s crazy here.”
“Uh-huh.” He didn’t believe her.
Time to change the subject. “So…how are you?”
She focused on the face on the screen for the first time. Her brother sported a leathery tan, like he’d spent the better part of the last six months working outside under a hot sun, and his skin glistened with sweat. He flashed his usual impish smile, but Persey couldn’t shake the feeling that it was forced.
For once in his life, her brother’s confidence had been shaken.
“I like what you’re doing with your hair.”
“It’s in a ponytail.” Like basically every single day of my life.
“I like it.”
Persey didn’t know how she was supposed to respond. She hadn’t spoken to him in months—since that day she found him stealing from their parents—and after all that time, he wanted to compliment her hair? “Where are you?”
“Vietnam!” His face lit up. “You really need to come here one day. The people are amazing. Friendly, open. The food…” He brought his fingers to his lips and kissed them.
He was acting like he was on vacation, not fleeing a missing-person investigation back home.
“Oh, and I’ve met someone,” he continued.
“Someone?”
“Yeah.” His smile deepened, and his eyes shifted away from the camera. She’s in the room with him. “Genevieve Cooper.” He pronounced her name as if it he was in a rhapsodic trance, his eyes soft and dreamy, a hint of color in his cheeks. Whatever Persey thought of her sociopathic brother and his inability to feel emotion for anyone but himself, it was clear that this Genevieve had bewitched him.
“She’s absolutely amazing. Beautiful, smart, funny. She’s from California, but she’s been living in Vietnam with her parents and younger brother for a few years. Persey, her brother…” He leaned closer to the camera, eyes even brighter than before. “He’s…he’s like me!”
Oh shit.
“He also got into some trouble back home, and so Genevieve just gets me.”
Then she should be running in the other direction.
“But she’s not another one of those trust-fund kids. God, that’s all I met at Columbia. Entitled skanks.”
Persey bristled. How could his new girlfriend listen to him talk about other women like that and not have it set off alarm bells?
Her brother made a kissy face to the person off-screen, then shifted his focus back to the camera. “And I really hope you two get along like…sisters.”
Sisters? Persey winced. She couldn’t help herself. Her brother was thinking about getting married. Persey didn’t know if she was terrified of this Genevieve or for her.
“I know the last couple of years have been rough with me gone,” he continued, his monologue planned and rehearsed. “Sorry I’m not there to keep Dad off your back.”
“It’s okay.” Like you ever did before.
He smiled and softened his voice. “I, uh, heard about what happened. With the will.”
Mom. Persey was pretty sure their dad wouldn’t have bothered filling in his now sole heir on the fact that he’d written his not-yet-eighteen-year-old daughter out of his will, but Mom might have hoped her son could talk him out of it.
“And I just want you to know that even though I’m supposed to get everything when they die, I’m going to make sure you’re taken care of.”
“Uh, thanks.” It was such a weird statement, a bizarre thought. Their parents were neither old nor infirm. Aside from her mom’s excessive drinking, they were both perfectly fit, and there was absolutely no reason to believe they both wouldn’t live for another thirty years or more. The idea that Persey would be worried about her well-being thirty years from now was laughable. The day after she graduated from high school, she’d be completely on her own.
“I’m sure you think it’s unfair,” he continued, still on script, “that Dad’s been so lenient on me. Especially since I’m not in school right now either.”
The thought had crossed her mind. “It’s not your fault.”
He laughed. “Oh, I know that.”
Man, his ego.
“Dad’s being irrational. But I want you to know that it’s not just with you.”
Persey sat up straighter. Not just with me? Could it be that their father, who had been hero-worshipping his BM
OC son since the day he was born, could possibly be at a breaking point with his antics?
“Yeah,” her brother laughed dryly. “I know. Hell freezes over, right? Dad’s cut me off until I go back to school.”
BOOM. The reason he’d called Persey in the first place.
“He says he has a lot tied up in the new business, but I think he just wants to make sure I get that college degree he’s always rambling about.”
It all made sense now. He’d only called because he needed something from her.
“I don’t know what you’ve got lying around in your account,” he continued shamelessly. “But if you could just Venmo me like a couple grand…”
“A couple grand?” Persey blurted out. Was he serious? Her allowance was supposed to be twenty bucks a week, but as “punishment” for mediocre grades and perceived laziness, her dad hadn’t paid her since she started at West Valley. Her spending money, such as it was, came from her mom, who remembered to slip twenty bucks into her sock drawer on Monday mornings while her dad was on his weekly conference call with the London office. Usually. There were some weeks when the money just wouldn’t appear. Some weeks when it was only a ten.
Thankfully, Persey didn’t have anything to spend it on. The housekeeper put her lunch together every day, so other than buying a bottle of water at the school vending machine, she didn’t need to worry about food. She had her brother’s hand-me-down MacBook, which, though a little slow, worked just fine, and her dad begrudgingly paid for her cell phone every month, if for no other reason than that she needed it to call the company car for a ride home. She had no friends, only saw movies when they made it to cable, and spent the bare minimum on clothes and personal items. Her spartan lifestyle had enabled her to save five hundred and twenty-five dollars over the last few years. Money she was, apparently, going to need to live on very soon.
But a couple thousand? She’d never had that much in her life. And it made her wonder about how much of an allowance her brother had been getting all these years.
The look of surprise on her face confused her brother. “What? What’s wrong?”
#NoEscape (Volume 3) (#MurderTrending) Page 21