#NoEscape (Volume 3) (#MurderTrending)

by Gretchen McNeil

  “Neela,” Persey said, “this isn’t your fault.”

  “I’m the one who solved the puzzle.”

  “But you didn’t know what you were doing.”

  Neela swallowed. “Does it matter? People died because of what I did. Because I wanted to show off that I could solve the puzzle when no one else could. Because…” She paused, brow pinched. “Because I wanted to impress Arlo. She was cute and smart and so fajita-ing cool, and I thought maybe if I did solve her puzzle she might, like, want to meet me or something. See? I was totally selfish about the whole thing. I wasn’t solving a puzzle to, like, end world hunger. It was ego. I deserve to die here.”

  “There!” Mackenzie pointed at Neela. “She’s accepting blame. You want to punish someone? Punish the nerd.”

  Persey wanted to smack Mackenzie across her cowardly face, but that wouldn’t solve their problem. She took Neela’s hand and squeezed it. “You’re not going to die here,” she said under her breath, then stepped toward the camera. “What do you want, L. Browne? That’s who you are, right? The child of Derrick and Melinda Browne? The sole inheritor of Escape-Capades?”

  “What are you doing?” Kevin hissed. For the first time that day, he looked afraid.

  She didn’t stop to answer him. “You want justice for your parents’ deaths? Wes, Arlo, Shaun, and Riot have already paid that price. Don’t you think that’s enough bloodshed for one day?”

  There was a pause during which time Persey’s heart thundered. Kevin’s words rang in her head. What are you doing?

  “I want the truth.”

  “The truth?” Did anyone even know what that was anymore?

  “We haven’t heard the whole story yet.”

  “We haven’t?”

  “One of you is holding back.”

  Persey groaned. How many more secrets in conjunction with the Brownes and the Prison Break disaster could there possibly be? “Who? Who isn’t telling the truth?”

  The voice on the loudspeaker paused; then instead of answering her question, he launched into what sounded like a prewritten speech.

  “The piece of machinery in the middle of the room is a wood chipper, an industrial model. It can reduce an entire tree to pulp in seconds.”

  “I do not like the sound of this,” Kevin said.

  “It can also render a body unrecognizable. There is one person in this room who is still lying about what happened last year, but I’m not going to tell you who. That’s the final puzzle—the one you need to solve in order to escape.”

  Persey stiffened. “Puzzle?”

  “On the table, there is a Glock 29 Gen-Four Subcompact. Like the one used in the Brownes’ deaths. Loaded and ready to fire. Identify the guilty party, dole out justice, and get rid of the evidence. If you get it right, I’ll let the rest of you go.”

  “And if we get it wrong?” Kevin asked.

  Again, a pause. This time Persey was pretty sure it was for dramatic effect. “Then we keep trying.”

  Time seemed to slow down. While Persey and Neela were still processing the meaning of his words—that one of them might get shot and pulverized, but it could be the wrong person and they’d have to do it all again—Mackenzie and Kevin had jumped into action. They each lunged for the gun, knocking the table over in the process. The Glock slid across the floor like a puck on ice and slammed into the wall, ricocheting off at an angle.

  “You’re not going to make me the scapegoat!” Mackenzie raced after the gun, reaching down as the weapon’s momentum slowed, but Kevin was faster. He shoved Mackenzie from behind, sending her sprawling to the floor. As she struggled to get up, hands slipping on the slick, pristine tile, Kevin pounced on the gun.

  “It’s not me!” Mackenzie screamed. “I’ve told you everything. I admitted as much in the iron maiden, remember?”

  Mackenzie must have truly believed that Kevin was about to take her out, but as he scrambled to his feet, the Glock firmly gripped in his hand, it wasn’t Mackenzie he turned the weapon on.

  It was Persey.

  IT WAS THE YELLING THAT THREW PERSEY OFF. NOT THAT there hadn’t been plenty of yelling in Persey’s house—almost entirely from her dad, though occasionally her mom yelled back—but most of it was centered around or directed at Persey, so to come home from school and hear raised voices already in progress was new.

  The argument was coming from the kitchen. It filtered through the swinging double doors into the foyer, and Persey recognized the voices right away: her dad, her mom…and her brother.

  He must have come back from Vietnam, just like their dad wanted. But judging by the volume level, it wasn’t a joyous homecoming.

  He was trying to get Dad to reopen the money tap. That’s the only reason she could think of that would lure her brother back home. And since he was accustomed (conditioned) to using his considerable charm to get his own way, it made sense that he’d use what was left of his funds to fly home in an attempt to get more.

  The old Persey would have turned upstairs, retreated to her room, and let the conversation downstairs play itself out. The outcome was practically a foregone conclusion—why witness her brother’s manipulations firsthand? But the shouting. It was angry, stubborn. Things weren’t going according to her brother’s plan.

  And that was worth seeing.

  She crept to the kitchen door, careful to keep her body to one side of the gap between the two swinging sides so as not to give away her presence, and listened.

  “I don’t understand why you won’t get over this,” her brother said. “I’m never going back to Columbia.”

  “Of course you’re not,” her dad snapped. “They wouldn’t allow you to reenroll. But I have connections at other schools. State, for example. They’d be happy to have you.”

  “I’m not going to State. Or anywhere. I’m getting a real-world education.”

  “But, darling…” Her mom sounded slightly less intoxicated than usual. “What kind of career do you expect to have without a college degree?”

  Hadn’t she made the same argument in reverse to describe Persey’s future?

  “Mom, you’re adorable. I already know how to run this company. Why do I need a BA for that?”

  “Okay, Boss. Slow down.” Her dad again. Less angry, more surprised. “Your plan is to take over the family business? Just like that?” He snapped his fingers.

  “No, that’s your plan, Dad. The one you’ve been drilling into me for years. But what I’m saying is, why wait? Why wait until you’re both too old to enjoy your retirement? You could take Mom to Fiji for a month, one of those all-inclusives she’s been talking about literally since I was five.”

  “Yes,” her mom said, “but I don’t think we’re—”

  “And you could still be involved,” her brother continued, talking faster. “Like a pitch man on TV. You would stay here and hold down the fort while I build our brand overseas.”

  “Which I’m happy to let you do,” her dad said, “once you’ve finished your degree.”

  “FUCK THE DEGREE!” Her brother’s fury exploded, rage propelling the words so violently out of his body that Persey could hear the globules of spit that accompanied them. “I’m not waiting four years to start living my life. Genevieve and I—”

  “Don’t bring her into this,” her dad said. “This isn’t about her.”

  “There is no ‘her’ and ‘me’ anymore. Only ‘us.’”

  There was a pause, and then a strangled gasp from Persey’s mom. He must have showed them something. A wedding ring? Had he actually gotten married to his girlfriend?

  “God DAMN IT!” Her dad slammed his palm down on the kitchen counter, a move which heretofore had usually (exclusively) been reserved for addressing Persey’s grades. “You can’t just waltz in here and demand the company business, understand? You have to earn it. You have to go to college and get your degree and then you come and work for the company, learning the ropes before you can even begin to think about taking over.”

&nbs
p; “And what if I don’t want to?” Her brother’s voice had gone eerily (ominously) calm, and though Persey wasn’t even in the room, she felt a chill of dread creep down the back of her neck.

  “Then I’ll be forced to take drastic measures.”

  “Like you did with my sister? Cut me out of your will unless I do exactly what you want me to?”

  A pause. “If that’s what it takes, yes.”

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t let you do that.”

  Then a gunshot echoed through the house.

  PERSEY HELD HER HANDS UP BEFORE HER. AS IF THAT MIGHT actually stop Kevin. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m trying to save our lives,” Kevin said. “Those that are worth saving, at least.”

  Persey shook her head. “I don’t understand.” The bottom dropped out from her stomach, her eyes fixed on the hollow muzzle of the gun.

  “Wes might have killed B.J., Arlo, and Shaun,” Kevin said. “But he didn’t do it randomly. He had to be working with somebody. At somebody’s direction.”

  “Okay…”

  “Someone who turned on him.” Kevin’s eyes shifted to the camera for a split second. “I’ll kill her. Let the rest of us go or I’ll do it.”

  “I see where you’re going!” Mackenzie cooed happily. Thirty seconds ago she’d been willing to shoot Kevin in the head if she’d gotten her hand on that gun first, and now she had his back. Her instinct toward self-preservation was impressive. “She wanted Wes dead. And she was the one wearing the night-vision goggles in that room. Persey was the only one with the opportunity to kill him.”

  Was I?

  “I knew you didn’t solve that Hidden Library on your own,” Mackenzie continued, positively gleeful. “You were on the inside the whole time. What’s your real name, huh? Linda Browne? Lori Browne?”

  “No,” Persey said. “And just for the record, anyone who was working this from the inside would have to be completely batshit crazy to put themselves in the kind of danger we’ve experienced today. And I may be a lot of things, but I’m not crazy.”

  “Crazy might be an overstatement,” Kevin said.

  Mackenzie was quick to agree. As always. “Yeah. I mean, you’d have all the insider information. Know all the secrets. There’d be a thrill in it, too. Of course you were the one coming up with all those solutions today. Oh!” she said in a mocking falsetto. “A confession! That must be what we’re supposed to do!” She laughed. “You knew the secret already. No one would have figured that out on their own.”

  I did. “That actually makes a lot of sense, but it still doesn’t mean your insider is me.”

  “Well, it’s either you or Kevin. You’re the only two not connected to this Prison Break thing.”

  “So why not him?”

  Mackenzie shrugged. “He’s the one with the gun.”

  “Persey didn’t kill Wes,” Neela said. “She couldn’t have.”

  “We don’t know what happened in there,” Mackenzie said. Her voice had turned slimy. “Maybe she pushed him.”

  “You were there, too.” Persey arched an eyebrow. “Maybe you pushed him.”

  “I don’t get my hands dirty.”

  “You sure about that?” Kevin asked.

  The words weren’t spoken in a flirtatious way, but Mackenzie certainly took them that way. She slid up behind Kevin and brushed her hands down the sides of his body. “I’ll show you later just how dirty they can be.”

  “Make up your mind!” Kevin said, glancing to the camera once again. “Her or us.”

  And suddenly, Persey had an idea. She narrowed her eyes at Mackenzie. “I’m sure your hands are quite capable of making people do whatever you want. Like Wes?”

  Mackenzie laughed. “Wes was broke and desperate.”

  “But not smart enough to come up with that Prison Break plan on his own.”

  A tiny smile broke the corners of Mackenzie’s mouth. “Okay, I mean, when he told me about how he’d met B.J. while the two of them were getting drunk at his parents’ casino, I might have planted a suggestion.”

  “You masterminded that plan?” Kevin asked.

  “Yep.”

  “That’s pretty hot.”

  Mackenzie’s Achilles’ heel. “You think?”

  “Smart is sexy.”

  It took every ounce of self-control Persey had left to keep from rolling her eyes. “Just to be clear, it was you, Mackenzie, who came up with the plan to obtain confidential information on the Prison Break escape room?”

  She laughed. “Well, you didn’t really think it was Wes, did you?”

  Kevin’s eyes met Persey’s. “No. I didn’t.” Then in one fluid motion he spun around and fired.

  The bullet hit Mackenzie square in the chest, just an inch or two from her heart, and Persey could tell by the way her body hung frozen for a moment that she couldn’t quite process what had happened to her. Blood spread rapidly across her white shirt, mixing with the grime and the gore already there and creating a mosaic of texture and shade that reminded Persey of a piece she’d once seen in a modern art museum.

  But…Mackenzie mouthed rather than said; the words had no sound, just air. But you…

  Persey had no idea what she was going to say. With a groan, Mackenzie collapsed onto the floor.

  “Is…Is she…?” Neela swallowed. “Dead?”

  “I sincerely hope so,” Kevin said. He approached Mackenzie’s body, gun still gripped in his hand, and bent down, feeling for a pulse. With a sharp exhale, he leaned back on his heels, the gun dropping to the floor, forgotten. “She’s dead.”

  “I should feel something,” Neela said, her calm returning. “But I really don’t. She wasn’t a very nice person, and apparently, she’s the reason we’re here.”

  Kevin pushed himself to his feet. “I’m going to fire up the wood chipper, and then maybe we can all go home?”

  Persey cringed. “Is that really necessary?”

  “I don’t make the rules.” He pointed to the domed camera. “Don’t worry. You ladies just chill. I’ll take care of this.”

  He walked over to the wood chipper and began searching for an on button while Persey continued to stare at Mackenzie’s body. She half expected to see her move for the gun, and despite not wanting to go anywhere near the body, she inched toward it and snagged the gun away.

  A deafening roar erupted in the room, like metal grating against metal, and Persey and Neela both jerked away from the wood chipper, wedging their backs to the white wall. Persey tucked the gun into the waistband of her cargo pants before shoving her fingers into her ears, desperate to dampen the noise. She stood huddled against the wall until she felt Neela nudge her with an elbow, motioning toward the opposite side of the room. Right. They didn’t want to be anywhere near that chute when the body went in. The last thing she needed was to be body-painted in Mackenzie chum.

  They sidled down the wall to the opposite side of the room while Kevin returned to the body and gave them a thumbs-up before lifting Mackenzie and throwing her over his shoulder. Persey wanted to close her eyes, and yet somehow she couldn’t. It was like watching news footage of a multi-car pileup: you knew it was going to end badly, but you can’t look away.

  Kevin was debating the best way to insert the lifeless corpse into the wood chipper, when Persey felt something. A thud against her back.

  At first she thought it was Neela trying to get her attention, but a glance to her right proved that Neela was practically in the fetal position by her side, head tucked beneath her arm, refusing to watch.

  She felt it again, stronger this time. And more than one. It felt like something or someone was pounding on the wall from behind them.

  From the other side.

  From the exit.

  “Neela!” she screamed into the deafening roar. “Do you feel that?” She couldn’t even hear her own voice and was pretty sure that Neela couldn’t either. But her heart began to race as Kevin decided that headfirst was the way to go. Someone was outside this
room trying to get inside.

  Lifting with his legs, Kevin managed to flop Mackenzie’s body off his shoulder and onto the short conveyor belt. It took all of five seconds for the belt to drag the corpse into the machine and then the metal grinding that filled the room shifted to a heavier, wetter sound, and instantly, a splatter of chunky red gore shot out the other end, spackling the white wall like a giant paintball pellet.

  Kevin stared at the wall, nodding in appreciation of his handiwork while the wood chipper’s deafening roar continued to fill the room. Persey dashed over to the control panel and switched it off, letting out a slow breath as the gears wound down. Maybe now she’d be able to tell where that pounding was coming from.

  “Tango Yankee,” Kevin said with a salute.

  “Huh?” Persey asked.

  “It’s the NATO phonetic alphabet,” Neela explained. “Tango for T. Yankee for Y. Meaning, thank you. For turning off the chipper.”

  “What’s the word for the letter L?”

  “Lima.”

  Persey didn’t even pause to offer an explanation. The word was hardly out of Neela’s mouth when Persey yanked the gun from the back of her pants and pointed it straight at Kevin. “You.”

  Kevin stood preternaturally still. “What about me?”

  “Mackenzie was right. There was someone working the inside, making sure that Wes did most of the dirty work before getting rid of him too.”

  “You think I work for Escape-Capades?”

  Persey shook her head. “No, I think you are Escape-Capades.”

  Neela stepped behind her. “Persey, are you sure?”

  “I’ve been a complete idiot,” Persey said, holding the gun steady. “He told me his last name at the Hidden Library and at the time I thought it was kind of odd, but I couldn’t put my finger on why. Kevin Lima. The international symbol for the letter L. Like in L. Browne.” She took a step away from him, shepherding Neela behind her. “What does it stand for? Lucas? Larry?”

  If Kevin had been considering a protest, he quickly decided against it. The carefree Kevin vanished, and the guy who remained was cool and calculating, an imposing figure of vengeance. “Lincoln.”