28. Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The Renegades traded their hockey sticks for puzzle-solving skills, but the winner remains to be seen!
They’re taking on a team-building challenge at an escape room down in Richland, and let me tell you, the tension is palpable!
Even the notoriously unsociable head coach made an appearance.
The Pendleton Princess sans the vet. So many faces, so many intrigues, so little time.
But not to worry! I’m on the case! ~Penni’s Puckleberry Tea
Shep
I circled the gathering, drifting in and out of the crowd as I caught sight of those wearing star badges.
So far, my team consisted of a county sheriff, a paramedic, and a twenty-year veteran from the fire department.
We added my teammate, Hampus Breining, but that left us still short one.
Probably someone from the organization. I skimmed my gaze over the crowd, lingering on familiar faces.
Merri stood at the end of a table loaded up with trays of food. She held a stemmed glass right smack dab in front of her badge. I narrowed my eyes and jetted across the room to her side.
“Wylie.”
“Landon.”
She brought her hand holding the glass a little closer to her name badge. But I towered a solid foot above her. Her silly glass blockade stood no chance.
“Find your team alright?” I dipped my chin as though inspecting her badge.
She huffed out an aggravated sound. “Stop looking at my boobs.”
I grinned. “But they’re so pretty. Wearing all those stars.”
She gave up the glass, setting it on the table and facing me with her hands fisted on her hips. “You better pay attention, Landon. That’s all I have to say. If I lose because you’re fooling around—”
“Not a chance.” I waved to the rest of the team. “Found her, guys!”
Maybe I sounded a little too happy. A little too eager.
But it was all I could do to fight down the urge to grab her, to haul her close, to feel those pretty breasts up close and personal.
I needed to tread carefully, be mindful of her boundaries, respectful of her decision.
At least, until I convinced her to change her mind.
Introductions were made and before long staff from the escape room called for attention. They stood before three red doors and explained that the doors led to three different escape challenges, each with multiple rooms and many puzzles to clear. The team with the best time would win.
No problem.
I lined up in front of the middle door. Zacha led a team to my left and Coach headed the team to my right. I spoke over my shoulder. “Heads up, guys. We’re competing against Coach and Zacha. We can’t lose to those schmucks.”
“I have a bag skate just for you, Landon,” Coach Trasier called out.
I laughed. “All’s fair in love and war, Coach.”
A staff member pointed to the digital countdown lit up over the doors. “The introductory video won’t start until everyone is inside the first room.”
The sheriff lined up at the back of our team. “Be ready to hustle, friends.”
I grinned, savoring the prospect of winning a challenge along with Merri for once.
The instant the clock hit zero, a loud click announced the unlocking of the doors. The sheriff motioned us inside from the rear. “Go, go, go!”
I yanked the door wide, barreled through and stepped to the side so I didn’t block the others.
Merri skipped in behind me, sliding into a spot right beside me as the rest of our team hurried through the entrance.
The door slammed shut behind the last one and another digital clock snapped on overhead even as the video launched on a monitor in the center of the wall.
The room was bigger than I expected, easily accommodating all six of us.
A cross between an abandoned control room and mad scientist laboratory.
Maps, digital screens, signs, lights. A desk centered the room, where a huge block of a control panel sat.
A stack of old-fashioned box lockers were pushed up against one side, numerical keypads on each.
A heavy thump echoed into the room. Someone pounding on the door we’d just come through?
The two doors on the opposite wall shook and rattled.
Merri jumped back and the sheriff lunged forward, his expression baffled.
He moved to protect, but the adversary remained a mystery.
More thuds followed by a low moan filtered through the door we’d entered through.
Impressive audio production that gave the feeling of being surrounded by hungry zombies.
“Holy shit,” said the firefighter with a wag of his head. “No expense spared, huh? Those moans sound real.”
Merri stepped away from me and toward the desk at the center of the room. “We need to figure out which door we should open to escape this room and how exactly to open it.”
“Take inventory. What all are we working with?” The sheriff tossed his shoulders back and his hands on his hips, the picture of authority.
“And we need to get out before the zombies get in.”
Breining looked at the paramedic who spoke, his expression dark. “You understand that there are no actual zombies, right?”
The paramedic shifted from one foot to the other. “Yeah, but that noise…”
Breining barked out a laugh rife with more sarcasm than humor before rounding the desk to try the far doors.
“They’re locked, asshole. That’s the whole point.”
Breining shot me a middle finger salute. I eyed the lockers, but opted to inspect the digital screens on the wall first. The lockers needed codes to enter; maybe the key to the codes lay with the monitors.
Merri fiddled with something on the desk. “How many digits to unlock the lockers?”
I leaned in to look at the digital display on the locker nearest me. “Four maybe? They’re numbered, if that helps. One to sixteen.”
Merri fiddled with something I couldn’t see. Curiosity had me abandoning the monitors and looking over her shoulder. She fussed with a laptop on the desk showing multiple columns of scrolling numbers.
“You think these are the codes for the lockers?” I’d never done an escape room. Give me a physical challenge every time. But watching Merri’s face as she studied the scrolling numbers, it hit me that her work as video coach involved numbers, player stats. Did she see a clue in the endless scroll?
“Maybe,” she murmured, her fingers dancing across the keyboard. “I think we need to open the lockers. Why else would they be here, right? But which ones and how?”
I scanned the control board, a complex block of knobs and buttons and switches.
“You think the lockers are connected to the control panel? We’ll need to figure out the combinations for all of the lockers just to figure out how they relate to the control board. That’s going to suck up a lot of time.”
“All we have is trial and error. If it doesn’t work, it sucks, but we won’t know unless we try.” She flipped her finger between the laptop screen and the control board. “There’s a sequence to the numbers. But I don’t see a connection to the control panel yet.”
“Let’s see if we can find another clue.” I tipped my cap off and scrubbed my hand through my hair. Adrenaline pumped into my veins.
“It says on the monitor that this section of the facility is the Wilhelm Lab.” The firefighter indicated the screen beside him. “That’s probably important, right?”
“Yeah, maybe,” said the paramedic. “But what’s the connection?”
“The Wilhelm Lab,” Merri repeated, her fingers tapping on the keyboard. “Anyone have their phone? Is the Wilhelm Lab something we should know?”
The sheriff spoke. “Wasn’t he the guy who invented the binary system?”
Merri looked up, her head tilted like a curious puppy.
“Was he? Then these binary numbers are definitely important. Let me see if I can figure out where it starts.” She started typing, her fingers dancing, her brow dipped in a cute little V.
Merri in concentration mode was as sexy as Merri celebrating a win.
Or Merri sitting behind her desk. Or when she took her break in the parking garage and the bright light lit up her copper-penny hair.
The way she zeroed in on the puzzle, eyes sharp, fingers skimming the edges of a clue like she could will it to make sense—hell, it did something to me.
That focus, that fire, it was the same way she tackled everything at work, breaking down problems, finding solutions—with a sense of eagerness and intelligence that set my heart to pounding.
I sounded like a fuckin’ stalker.
Or a kid lost in his first crush.
Somewhere between the two, maybe. Whatever this was, it had its hooks in me.
This whole love thing was new. It’d take some adjusting.
I dragged in a breath, pulled my cap lower, and refocused. We had a damn escape room to win.
Moments passed in the room, a heavy silence crowding between the eight of us. Merri looked up with a wiggle. “I found something. If I divided the lines up right, there are sixteen numbers here.”
“For real? As in, sixteen lockers?”
“Maybe?” She grinned at me, her eyes sparkling, the tension between us burned away in the heat of competition. “If we assume I found the right line of code as the first one and the first code goes to the first locker? I’m assuming a lot.”
“Assume away.” The paramedic motioned to the rest of the room. “We don’t have any other clues at the moment.”
We all crowded around the laptop. Merri pointed to a string of zeros and ones. “I think this is the code for locker one.”
“Let’s try it.” Breining moved to the top left locker. “What do I enter?”
A smile tilted her pretty lips as she met my eyes across the room. Holding my gaze, she spoke to Breining. “Zero, zero, zero, zero. Four zeroes.”
“Works.” A green light flashed over the keypad and a soft whirring filled the room before Breining swung the locker wide.
“Success!”
A small, silver box sat inside the locker. The room buzzed with excitement as Breining pulled the box out. As everyone gathered around again, he opened it and withdrew a small metal card with the image of what looked to be a planet etched into the front.