Chapter Twenty-One Hell Is a Real-Life Whodunit
Chapter Twenty-One
Hell Is a Real-Life Whodunit
When we arrive at the villa, Leah takes us straight to the war room to meet with Peter Dixon and Dawn Taylor. Security shows up to meet Leah, but it turns out that security just means a really burly PA who opens the door when Leah waves at him.
I follow as Leah pushes Seth and Daniel into the room. This time around, it feels less like going to the principal’s office and more like preparing for a day in court. Dawn Taylor is sitting at the head of the table, with Peter Dixon to her right. They certainly look like they could be in reality TV court. She’s making a sleek black jumpsuit look like this season’s hottest fashion trend, and his charcoal blazer is impeccably pressed.
On the other side of the table, I know that we must look like a wreck. Seth and Daniel look like they’ve wrestled with a tree and lost, and I can feel the dust in my hair that was kicked up when the labyrinth self-imploded. None of us opt to sit down.
“What’s going on here?” Dawn Taylor demands.
“Sorry to bother you guys, but Seth and Daniel got into it at the labyrinth site,” Leah says. “Dawn, I told you Seth’s had it in for my contestants. This is crossing the line.”
Peter Dixon cuts in. “Boys, you know that fighting on the set is prohibited and could be considered a breach of contract—”
“The hell with the rules. What the fuck were you thinking, Seth?” Dawn Taylor says, rising out of her chair. “You punched Daniel? Are you trying to ruin the show?”
“He came after me!” Seth protests.
“And why would he do that, Seth?”
“Because…” Seth trails off. In front of Dawn Taylor, Seth no longer seems menacing. He looks deflated, like a corporate lackey getting a bad performance review. His shoulders are slumped, and he’s looking down at his square-toed boat shoes, which are weathered from overuse. Seeing him like this, I almost feel sorry for Seth.
Dawn Taylor turns to Daniel. “What, did he fuck Alice or something?”
Daniel’s eyes turn steely. “Don’t talk about Alice like that,” he says, his voice cold.
“I wasn’t the contestant Seth was sleeping with,” I say. “That would be Mikayla.”
“You’re hooking up with Mikayla?” Leah asks, incredulous.
“No! No, that’s bullshit,” Seth says, sputtering. “Yeah, I’m with Mikayla all the time, but I’m her producer—”
I slide over the photo we found in the labyrinth, and Seth trails off. Dawn Taylor snatches it up, eyebrows shooting up as she pores over it.
Dawn Taylor snaps a finger at Leah. “Go get Mikayla. Now.”
“On it,” Leah says, heading to the door.
“Wait, Dawn, we don’t need to get her involved—” Seth protests.
“Seth, for once in your pathetic life, please shut up,” Dawn Taylor says. She turns back to me. “So, is that why Seth and Daniel were fighting?”
“Not exactly, no.” I look at Daniel, a silent question in my eyes. When he nods, I continue, “I set him off. I accused him of murder. I don’t believe Anton’s death was an accident.”
Peter Dixon whistles. “Wow. You really do belong on reality TV, Alice. Any particular reason for this accusation?”
“I overheard him admitting that he poisoned the contestants during the Gluttony Challenge,” I say. Peter Dixon shoots a startled look at Seth. “And as you see in the photo, we know that he’s been sleeping with Mikayla. I think he punched Anton to keep him quiet about his relationship with Mikayla.”
“But I didn’t kill anyone—” Seth insists.
“All I’m saying is that you punched him. Anton had a black eye, and you have an injured hand. I think we can do the math. And it’s clear that you had cause to be angry with him. The question is, were you angry enough to kill him?”
Just then, the door slams open. Trevor bursts in, trailed by Leah and Mikayla.
“What’s going on? Is Mikayla in trouble?” Trevor demands.
“We’re asking Seth a few questions. Alice here thinks he killed Anton,” Dawn Taylor summarizes.
“Okay, I didn’t say that I was a hundred percent on that,” I interject. “It’s just a theory.”
Mikayla’s hands fly to her mouth. “Seth? No, he wouldn’t do that.”
Trevor casts a scornful look at Seth. “You know, I had a feeling that there was something off about him.”
Mikayla’s eyes land on the paper Dawn Taylor is holding, and I can see the moment she recognizes what it is. Her expression shutters as she drops her hands from her face. Taking a deep breath, she steps away from Trevor and says, “Seth didn’t kill Anton, I’m sure of it. He told me that he only punched him, and I believe him. He did it for me.”
“Sweetie pie,” Trevor says. He reaches out a hand, but Mikayla brushes him off. “What are you talking about?”
“You should probably see this,” Dawn Taylor says, showing the photo to Trevor. She looks a little bit too happy to be breaking the bad news. Trevor’s eyes widen, and he stumbles back like he’s just taken a blow to the chest.
“You—” Trevor shakes his head. “You were cheating on me?”
“Trevie. Trevor. I’m sorry,” Mikayla chokes out. “I didn’t mean to. It’s just, after we got in that argument on the first night, I didn’t know who else to talk to.”
Trevor jabs a finger at the photo. “That’s a lot more than talking, Mikayla!”
“Let’s get back to the part where Seth decided to punch everyone on my set,” Dawn Taylor cuts in. “Care to explain yourself?”
“Anton caught me with Mikayla the other night. He said he’d tell Trevor, hell, the whole cast. Then he started blackmailing us,” Seth says. “At first, Anton just asked me for dumb stuff. Like making me do his grunt work for him, so he could kick back. That kind of thing.”
I think back to Seth bringing us the smoothies that Anton was supposed to get for us. “And that ‘dumb stuff’ was enough for you to punch him?”
Seth rubs his eyes. When he answers, he sounds utterly defeated. “A couple nights ago, he told me that he wanted us to pay up. But I’m not rolling in it, and Mikayla shares a bank account with Trevor. So I tracked him down during the Wrath Challenge for a chat.”
“Some chat,” Daniel mutters to me.
“I wasn’t planning on hitting him,” Seth says. “Believe me. But you know Anton. He can really get on your nerves. And yeah, I lost it. I hauled off and punched him. After that, he said he’d lay off, that he had bigger fish to fry anyway. Then we heard someone coming, so I got out of there. But Anton was alive and working on the set when I left him, I swear. You can ask any of the crew where I was after that.”
“God, you’re such a loser,” Leah says, shaking her head. To Dawn Taylor, she says, “I think he’s telling the truth. I saw him and Anton later at different points during the Wrath Challenge. I did notice he had a shiner, but I assumed he’d gotten high on set and walked into something.”
“I’m telling you, I didn’t kill him,” Seth says, his voice pleading. “I know I shouldn’t have hit him, but the things he said, the way he was ready to ruin Mikayla’s life—I couldn’t let him do that to her.”
“ You couldn’t let him do that to Mikayla?” Trevor cuts in, his voice shaking with rage.
Trevor moves faster than I’ve seen him move in any of the challenges. In an instant, he’s grabbing the collar of Seth’s garish Hawaiian shirt.
“Trevor, no!” Mikayla shouts, and flings herself at Trevor. “Please, don’t do this. Let’s just talk, okay? I’m sorry, baby, I’m so sorry.”
Trevor takes one look at Mikayla’s face and shoves Seth hard against the wall. Then he backs off, chest heaving.
Dawn Taylor stands up, surveying the scene with disdain. “Seth, I’m taking you off your assignments. Leah, can you take care of Trevor and Mikayla?” She says this with a pointed look that I take to mean “make sure you get their messy and inevitable fallout on camera.”
Leah nods and leads Trevor and Mikayla out, talking to them in low, soothing tones.
Peter Dixon clears his throat, getting everyone’s attention again. “Obviously, we’re facing a serious issue here. Seth, we’ll need you to talk to the authorities. Once they can make it to the island, that is.” He runs his hands through his hair, looking conflicted. “I don’t know, DT. Maybe this is all too much. Maybe we should stop filming.”
Dawn Taylor folds her arms. “No, absolutely not. We’ve got way too much momentum to stop now. And there isn’t a problem here. One little affair isn’t going to derail my show.”
“Wait, what’s this about the authorities?” Seth says, sounding panicked. “I didn’t kill Anton. You believe that, right?”
“Of course,” Peter Dixon says. “But he’s dead, and we know that you punched him—you admitted as much yourself. Until we can clear you, you’ll have to sit tight.”
Moments later, a couple more burly crew members arrive. “Seth will need to be confined for the duration of our stay here,” Peter says to them. They nod without questioning this bizarre order, which makes me wonder how bizarre the orders around here can get before anyone blinks. “It’s just for now, Seth.”
Silence falls over the room once Seth is gone. Finally, Dawn Taylor crumples up the photo and chucks it into a nearby trash can.
“Well, that was more drama than I was expecting for one evening,” Dawn Taylor says. She moves to sit back down, favoring the leg that didn’t get burned during the fireworks. “Alice, thank you for bringing this to our attention. We all want the show to be the best it can be, and what Seth was getting up to with Mikayla—that was unacceptable. I’m glad we sorted that all out.”
It sure doesn’t feel like everything’s been sorted out.
“But what about Anton?” I ask.
“What about him?” Dawn Taylor says. “He’s dead. It’s unfortunate, but it is what it is.”
I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Dawn Taylor is just brushing off the fact that someone on her set was murdered. For her, all that matters is that filming continues.
And it’s clear that even if Daniel and I uncovered one mystery on set, we haven’t solved the case. I remember the shoeprints in the labyrinth, how they were pointed. In addition to what Leah said about seeing Anton and Seth throughout the Wrath Challenge, Seth’s shoes weren’t pointed. Someone else dragged Anton’s body through the sand, and I’m a hundred percent sure it wasn’t Seth. So who was it?
“Someone killed Anton,” I say, looking Dawn Taylor and Peter Dixon in the eye. I need them to acknowledge this.
“You really think so?” Peter Dixon says, looking concerned. “DT, I know you said no, but we should really consider pausing the shoot. If there’s any chance that Anton’s death wasn’t an accident, we can’t keep on like this. We have to think about our cast.”
“I am thinking about our cast,” Dawn Taylor says heatedly. “And the best thing we can do is to continue filming. Our contestants didn’t come all this way just to be mired in some controversy. The press will have a field day over this.”
“I don’t know, DT,” Peter Dixon says. “I think we should take this seriously—”
Dawn Taylor throws up her hands. “Pete, what do you want from me? I can’t believe you’re even saying this.”
It’s like we’re not even in the room right now. I look at Daniel, and he nods at the door. We start to sidle out as Peter Dixon and Dawn Taylor continue to argue.
We’re all the way down the hallway when I hear Dawn Taylor yell, “This is my show, Pete, and you better fucking remember it!”
r/Dawn Tay’s Inferno
“Memorial” [Bonus Web-Only Content 003]
Okay, we have to talk about the memorial clip going around. You might have noticed that Episode 6 was “Dedicated to the Memory of Anton.” If you go to the bonus content tab on their network page, there’s a fifteen-minute clip with the cast and crew talking about how this guy died on set…and filming is STILL going?
AD: Redd hot dipping sauce—now in lime green! Get sauced with Redds!
TOP COMMENTS:
u/lonelyoens
Someone died? I smell a lawsuit.
Reply: u/capybaraMoon2334
Clip was edited weirdly too. Production is covering something up
Reply: u/SlutForMothman
probably covering up a huge osha violation. capitalism strikes again!! u/capybaraMoon2334, what’s the tea re: editing
Reply: u/capybaraMoon2334
The memorial clip doesn’t include Dawn Taylor in it anywhere. Usually the show would have her speaking first to set up whatever’s happening. Instead they have Selena doing a voiceover, for some reason. Could be that they didn’t like the take Dawn Taylor did and couldn’t reshoot. Or, and this is my theory, Dawn Taylor’s trying to distance herself from this…because it wasn’t a “tragic accident.”
Reply: u/glammygirl123
If they stop filming I’m going to literally die.
Reply: u/SlutForMothman
literally die is what Anton did :(