“So where did you get seven hundred and fifty degrees from?” I asked as Parker fiddled with the dials. I scanned around like I’d done every five minutes or so since the game had started to make sure I knew exactly where everyone was at all times. I wasn’t going to make the same mistake again and lose track of anyone.
“Look at the stove.” Gennifer pointed and, sure enough, the stove was set to seven-fifty. Which I like to think I would have noticed if I hadn’t been so busy interrogating Marlie and Amanda.
“That’s it,” Parker said, staring at the thermostat. “Nothing’s happening.”
“Try pushing ‘run program,’ ” Gennifer suggested.
He did. There was a popping noise as a tile in the ceiling above us swung open. A key on a long string dropped out of the hole. The key swung like a pendulum. “Well, what do you know?”
Raleigh reached up and snatched the key. I was glad he’d come along, because if it had just been me alone in that room, I would have had to climb up on a barstool to reach it. “Heads up.” He tossed the key to Izzy. She inserted it into the lock, opened the door, and a siren went off.
Everybody jumped backward as the Game Master stepped into the open doorway with a flourish. “Congratulations,” he said with the enthusiasm of someone who had just stepped in gum. “You have managed to escape. Now, if you’ll all follow me, we’ll take a group photo. Check our Facebook page tomorrow to download or share your picture.”
“Not for nothing, but the last time I did an escape room, we had to solve something like a dozen puzzles. This one had, what, four? Five? Hardly worth it, if you ask me,” Gennifer said as we filed down the hall.
I blinked at her. “We barely solved this one, and it took us two tries.”
“Yeah, but not everyone was contributing. Call me if you want to try a more challenging one with me later. We’ll have a blast. There are a few on Staten Island that are real bears, but they’re fun,” Gennifer offered. I wasn’t sure I wanted to take her up on that. This room had been plenty difficult enough for me.
We all picked through a box of silly hats. I selected an oversized tiara. Izzy grabbed a top hat and hung a sign around her neck that said “escaped prisoner.” Parker put on a long sleeping cap, like the kind that might be featured in a Dickens novel. Not to be outdone, Raleigh found a pair of glasses with an integrated Groucho Marx–esque mustache and put that on over his real glasses. Marlie tossed a pink feather boa over her shoulders, Amanda went straight for the flapper girl headband, and Gennifer nabbed a pair of Christmassy reindeer horns.
It took a minute of arranging and rearranging until we were settled, with Raleigh behind me and Parker next to me with our arms looped at the elbows. Izzy was on my other side, with everyone else crammed in around the edges. At the last minute, Parker held up an “I’m with stupid” arrow, pointing at his own head.
“Great,” Brandon intoned after snapping a few pictures. “That should be online by close of business tomorrow. Thank you for joining us, and we hope to see you at Verrazzano-Narrows Escape! again soon.”
As we put away our silly hats, I tried to corner Gennifer, but she brushed past me. “I’d love to stay and chat more, but I’m gonna bounce. I hate leaving Penny for long.”
“But . . .” I said, not even knowing how to finish that sentence. Izzy was a stellar judge of character. That should be good enough for me. Gennifer was uber competitive but also seemed super nice. I had no reason to mistrust her just because Vickie had bullied her when they were younger, but I had run out of suspects and I hadn’t even had the chance to question her again.
“Text me if you want to try one of those escape rooms in Staten Island I told you about, ’kay?” Then she was gone.
I made eye contact with Izzy, and she shrugged. I returned the gesture. “Well, that was a blast,” Raleigh said, coming up beside me. “Now how about we go grab a coffee somewhere? Or maybe a beer?”
“Or we can go try that Limoncello cake like you promised,” Parker said, on my other side.
“Gee, those both sound great, but I think I left something behind in there. I’ll see you guys later.” I hurried back to the front desk and caught Castillo’s attention.
I had to admit, it was a bit strange and flattering to have Parker and Raleigh vying for my attention, but in the end, it was just awkward. Raleigh was nice. And cute. And in a band. I wasn’t sure what he saw in me, except maybe a few conversations I hadn’t even taken part in. I had no idea what Izzy had told him about me, but I was at a definite disadvantage because I knew practically nothing about him at all.
I hadn’t even looked his band up on YouTube yet.
It wasn’t that Raleigh wasn’t attractive. He was. He was also tall, humble, and had a genuine sense of humor. Plus he was in a popular band but didn’t seem conceited.
Unfortunately, Raleigh wasn’t actually interested in me. He was interested in the woman he’d met online. He was interested in Izzy. Who wasn’t on the market, not that I was, either.
And then there was Parker.
Sweet, funny, talented Parker.
My dear friend Parker.
I’d known him for almost two months, and not once had either of us shown any kind of romantic interest in the other. Was he actually attracted to me, as more than just a friend? Or was he caught up in the idea of competing with another guy?
Not that it mattered. He had a girlfriend.
“See you tomorrow?” Parker asked, hesitating at the door.
“Of course,” I said, waving him on his way. I held up one finger to get Castillo’s attention. “I think you still have my ID.”
“Sure, come this way.”
“What did I tell you, man?” Brandon said. “Always check the copier when you’re done. If people have to come back to get their IDs or anything else they forgot, they give us nasty reviews on Yelp.”
“Ten-four,” Castillo replied without pausing. I followed him back to the copy room.
“So? Did you see anything suspicious?”
He shook his head. “Nothing out of the ordinary. You?”
“Nothing with a side of nothing. I didn’t get a chance to talk to Gennifer, but I’m pretty much convinced that none of those women hurt Vickie. Which is impossible. Someone killed her.”
“Which means we’re back to you or Izzy.”
“You know as well as I do . . .”
He interrupted me. “Yeah, yeah. You’re both innocent. But you’re also the only ones with fingerprints on the trophy.”
“Wait, the only fingerprints? How is that even possible? There had to be a dozen people that handled it before we won it.”
“There are several other partials from unidentified sources. We tested it against everyone in the escape room, and you and Izzy were the only matches. Ran the extras through the system, too, but nothing popped.”
I sighed.
“Odessa, don’t act so glum. I’ll solve this.”
“I know. I just feel like we’re running out of time. It’s fortunate that the room was released when it was, or Izzy never could have arranged this little reunion in the first place.”
Castillo laughed. “You know, for a smart person, you can be so thick sometimes. You really think the police just up and decided to release a crime scene right before Izzy called to book it? Or I just happened to show up and announce I was the new guy, reporting for training, ten minutes before your reservation?” He tapped me on the forehead. “This is why you need to leave the detecting to the professionals.”
Oh. Duh. I should have put that together sooner. It was encouraging that Castillo would go to so much trouble to not only allow us to set up the failed sting, but to actively help us. It gave me hope that he really did believe that Izzy was innocent and wasn’t going to let his department railroad him into arresting her.
24
Odessa Dean @Odes
saWaiting ∙ July 15
New York City isn’t a place you live. It’s a place you survive. Unless you’re stupid rich or super lucky. And I’m neither. #GoFundMe #please
The Game Master stopped me on my way out. “Did you get your ID?” he asked.
“Yep,” I told him. “Silly me, it was in my wallet all along, I’d just put it in the wrong pocket.”
“Cool. Hey, I heard you were looking for an apartment,” Brandon said.
How on earth did he know that? Izzy, probably. She never met anyone she couldn’t immediately befriend.
I nodded. “You got any leads?”
“All the nope. I’m the last person you would want to take rental advice from.”
“How so?” I asked. “I mean, you have to live somewhere, right? How’d you find your place?”
Brandon grimaced. “I paid Vickie Marsh a small fortune to get the apartment of my dreams. Apartment of my nightmares is more like it.”
“Small world,” I said. Not only did Vickie end up celebrating her big day in a building that she couldn’t sell, but then she happened to get stuck with a Game Master who was an unhappy client. Talk about adding insult to injury.
“Tell me about it.”
“What makes your apartment so horrible?” I asked. “Is it rats?” I shuddered. Louisiana had rats, but New York City had rats. I’m talking enormous crazed critters almost as big as the nutria back home, with absolutely no fear and big, beady eyes that belonged on a creature out of a bad horror movie. I’d rather face a swamp full of alligators and water moccasins than come face-to-face with a Brooklyn rat in my apartment.
“No rats, thankfully. But the building has a high-tech fire alarm and water sprinklers everywhere, which is great. Until the system malfunctions three, four times a month. I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve been jolted awake at two in the morning to wailing sirens and streams of cold water driving me, soaking wet and with ringing ears, into the street. Everything I own that isn’t already ruined is covered in roofing tarps because I don’t know the next time the sprinklers will randomly go off.”
“That sounds horrific!” After hearing everyone’s housing horror stories, I was actually starting to miss Piney Island. Louisiana might be a swamp, but I didn’t have to worry about cockroaches the size of my fist, apartments with broken appliances, or random fire alarms triggering a sprinkler flood. The more I heard, the more I wondered if New York City wasn’t the epicenter of some kind of biblical plague.
“Even my underwear drawer is growing mold. And that’s not even the worst,” he said, flexing his fingers as if he wanted to hit someone.
“How is that even possible?” I asked.
“I live on the top floor. Great view, right? Sure. Except there’s a malfunctioning air handler on the roof mounted right above my unit. Doesn’t even belong to the building, it belongs to the salmonella factory on the first floor, a cheap take-out joint that the city should have shut down ages ago. Randomly throughout the day this AC unit makes a noise like an air horn going off and shakes my whole apartment. Sometimes it’s quiet for hours at a time, then other times it blows every twenty minutes, usually in the dead of the night. I haven’t had a single night of uninterrupted sleep since I moved in.”
“Why don’t you move?”
“Wow, wish I would have thought about that,” he growled.
I held my hands up in mock surrender. “Sorry, I’m not from around here.”
He scowled and continued. “Problem is, every penny I had went into that ridiculous broker’s fee and I’m in an iron-clad sixteen-month lease. I’m reduced to popping sleeping pills each night and huddling under a shower curtain, hoping to get two, maybe three hours of sleep before the sprinkler goes haywire or the HVAC unit erupts.” He held his hand out. It twitched. “See this? The tremors started a few weeks after I moved in. Between too little sleep, the pills, and the gallons of caffeine I down every day just to function . . . well, let’s just say if I could afford health care, I’d probably be hooked up to a pacemaker by now.”
“Isn’t there something you can do?” I knew he was between a rock and a concrete bunker, but there had to be a better way.
“About the tremors? Probably not.”
“I mean about the apartment,” I clarified.
“I wish. I’ve lodged complaints with the city, with the housing board, with the super, with the building, and—of course—with my broker. And have gotten exactly zero for my troubles. Honestly, there were a few times I was ready to take a walk off the roof just to get it to all stop, you know?”
“That sounds horrific.” And here I thought Izzy’s and Parker’s experiences were bad, but this really took the cake. I made a promise to myself then and there that when I was ready to move back home, I would never complain about living with my parents ever again.
Their house wasn’t haunted with the victims of a murder spree’s ghosts. There wasn’t a bug infestation. I wasn’t hiding out illegally in a windowless basement or paying thousands of dollars a month to rent a shoebox studio apartment. I certainly didn’t have to worry about sprinkler floods and random cacophonies driving me up the wall.
Then something he said clicked. “Wait a second, didn’t you say that Vickie Marsh was the broker who found you the nightmare apartment?”
Brandon let out a snort. “The one and only. Out of all the escape rooms in all the cities in all the world, little Miss Broker of the Month had to walk into mine. It’s bad enough I have to see her face on the ‘For Sale’ sign outside every time I come to work, but now I have to deal with listening to her brag about her killer deals and huge commissions right in front of me, too?”
I took a step backward, suddenly aware that the participants—Marlie, Amanda, Gennifer, Izzy, and myself—hadn’t been the only people in the escape room. As the Game Master, Brandon would have had full access. If his apartment was half as bad as he claimed, he certainly had motive to hate Vickie Marsh. And if he hadn’t been getting any sleep, he might not be in the best frame of mind.
I was fairly certain I didn’t want to be in the same room as him anymore. “Sorry, that sucks,” I said, turning and heading toward the door.
“You in a hurry or something?” he asked. I turned to face him. “You sure do ask a lot of questions. I was watching you on the monitors, you know. You didn’t seem half as interested in solving the escape room as you were backing people into corners and interrogating them. I figure you only booked this room as an excuse to talk to me, so ask away. Don’t you want to know?”
“Know what?” I asked, but I had a sinking feeling I already knew the answer. Brandon blamed Vickie for his unlivable living situation. We had discovered one employees-only door into the kitchen, and there might be other ways for employees to access the rooms that we hadn’t found.
“You ever have one of those dreams that’s so real it’s hard to tell if you’re awake or not?” Brandon asked, instead of answering.
I nodded, slowly. In fact, I felt like I was trapped in a nightmare right now.
“That’s how I’ve felt ever since I moved into that dump. Like I’m never really awake but I’m never asleep, either. Then I saw Vickie Marsh all alone in the library, and I realized I finally had a chance to talk to her.”
“Only Vickie didn’t want to talk,” I guessed, unable to stop myself. My head spun as I realized that Brandon couldn’t have possibly seen that Vickie was in the library alone once the hidden passageway door opened and blocked the camera’s view. The only time he’d been alone with Vickie was for a few minutes after our timer ran down.
Gennifer, Amanda, Marlie, Izzy, and I were already in the kitchen when Brandon killed Vickie.
“She had the nerve to tell me to call her office on Monday and we’d work something out. I’ve been calling and emailing her for months! She never once returned a call. Now that I was in the same room as her�
�finally—I guess I lost it.”
It all made perfect sense when I thought about it. I was kicking myself for not figuring it out sooner, and now I was just buying time until I figured out a way to get far, far away from Brandon before I met the same fate as Vickie had. “I mean, I sorta understand that. You’re upset, and you’re not getting enough sleep, so you weren’t thinking straight. But why’d you have to hit her with my trophy?” I asked.
“I should be thanking you, really,” Brandon said. “Pretty much everything that isn’t nailed down in the escape room is a cheap prop. Plastic. Foam. Cardboard. I could have bashed little Miss Broker of the Month over the head with anything in the room, and it would have bounced right off. It was just sheer dumb luck that the first thing I grabbed was your trophy.”
I found myself wishing that Izzy and I had won a gift certificate instead of that heavy cornhole trophy.
Brandon muffled a yawn. I knew he hadn’t been getting much sleep lately, but there was something immeasurably creepy about someone who could yawn in the middle of a murder confession. “The whole thing was like I was sleepwalking,” he continued. “One minute she was standing there, lecturing me about how I should have read the contract better, and the next thing I knew, I was swinging the trophy.”
I flinched. I really did not want to know the details.
“She screamed, so I hit her again to get her to shut up.”
My mouth was suddenly dry as I realized that the scream we’d heard wasn’t Brandon discovering the dead body, as we’d originally assumed. It was Vickie. She’d still be alive if one of us had followed the Game Master back into the library.
“She fell down that time. I kept swinging that trophy until I heard you and your friend crawling back through the tunnel, and, well, you know the rest.”
I swallowed, hard.
Brandon’s eyes seemed to come back into focus. He backed away from the desk without breaking eye contact. If he’d had a full night’s sleep last night, he might never have spilled his guts like that but somehow, something had cut through his haze and the Game Master realized he’d made a mistake. A huge one.
No Memes of Escape Page 23