Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
I slept like shit. Partly because my hair hurt, and partly because I’d been put away wet. Again.
But I also couldn’t stop thinking about Kingston’s message and the dances.
So, after our giant sleepover, watched over by the guys in shifts, the last thing I’d needed the next morning was to find Vivian’s name in a group with mine.
But there it was for trial number two, which would be less murder mystery and more of an escape room.
When we entered the cabin, Max handed off the instructions and stood with his back against the front door. With a wall blocking off the living room, we crowded into the entryway, needing to figure out our first clue to go into the next area. Doing that quickly seemed like the best plan.
I stayed by Izzy as I listened to Morgan read the instructions.
“Treasure Hunters, beware. Eyeing a prize, or seeking wealth beyond your wildest dreams, often comes at a steep price. Making one wrong choice might be the difference between moving forward…or losing everything. All seekers must proceed with caution or be lost with the treasure for good. Time is precious, so use yours wisely.”
She flipped the paper over and then reread the instructions to herself. “That’s all there is. What now?”
Angela glanced at Max, who refused to make eye contact with us, and turned back to the group. “Let’s search in here?”
Everything in the entryway looked normal. And, unfortunately, very bare.
As the other girls started feeling around the walls, I took the letter from Morgan, reading it over.
Izzy called out, “I found a keyhole, but there’s no key.”
Vivian worked silently, which was a nice surprise after Elaine’s spoiled brat routine. She felt behind the mirror on the wall and searched every inch of the table sitting left of the door. I watched the girls for a second, as they fanned out away from Max, and then scrutinized him.
He stood stoically, unable to give a hint or clue, just like Landon in the first room.
Presumably, the next step led farther into the cabin, but still, something about him nagged at me.
I let it go and joined the other girls to search, tucking the instructions in my back pocket.
But ten minutes into searching, we’d found nothing.
“Ladies, you have fifty minutes remaining on the clock.”
“What?” Vivian snapped at Max. “Why are you just telling us that now?”
He shrugged, ignoring our shared glances of unease as the time crunch set in.
I pulled out the letter again, all of us surrounding it to see what we’d missed.
Vivian tugged her book of ciphers out of her back pocket.
“Ooh, good thinking, V.” Angela grabbed hers, too. “Maybe there’s something hidden in the letter.”
I read it again, trying to spot a pattern. My eyes snagged on the first letters of each sentence, remembering that was a common way to hide clues, but they didn’t spell anything out.
Then, I noticed the capitalized letters. “The mat!”
“Ugh.” Vivian covered her ear, shrinking away from me. “Can you not?”
Ignoring her, I pointed out the capital letters throughout the message before marching straight to Max. “Move it, big guy. You’re in my way.”
A hint of a smirk appeared, and he sidestepped to the right. I opened the front door and lifted the welcome mat. Finding a key and another clue.
Handing the key to Izzy, I unfolded the letter.
“Wait!” I called out when Izzy went straight to the keyhole. “The first letter said one wrong choice could be the difference between going forward or losing. Let’s not rush and see what this says first.”
Vivian groaned and crossed her arms over her chest, and though I couldn’t see it, the tapping of her foot didn’t surprise me. Izzy nodded at me and waited.
“Patience is a virtue. Haste is a trap. The lights need to be off, if you want to find the map.”
Even though the entryway was already dark, a light under the mirror Vivian had searched illuminated the small space. “Vivian, was there a way to turn that off?”
“A switch on the side.” Then realizing she’d responded without malice or disdain, she added, “Duh.”
She walked over and turned off the light, and we plunged into total darkness. But a second later, another light, either automatic or controlled by Max, turned on.
A black light.
“Holy shit,” I breathed, taking in the symbols appearing on the walls.
A dashed line traversed the entire space. It started at the floor by the doorway where I’d found the key, and ended on the opposite wall. A large X marked the keyhole, and it wasn’t where Izzy stood.
I eyed the distance to it. “It’s too high up to reach.”
“Let’s use the table,” Morgan suggested.
She and Angela tried to lift the entryway table and move it to the opposite wall, but it wouldn’t budge. “It must be welded down or something. What the heck?”
“Shit,” I cursed. “So, how do we open it?”
Vivian flipped the light back on, pulling our attention to her. Her eyes were on Izzy. “Give me a lift?”
Izzy’s eyes lit up, and she nodded. “You got it.”
Taking her place underneath the correct keyhole, Izzy widened her stance and bent her knees slightly. Low enough to link her fingers and hang them between her legs like a basket. The key rested on her joined palms.
My brow furrowed, but none of the other girls appeared confused or concerned, so I just watched.
Vivian threw her hair up into a high ponytail, grabbed the key from Izzy’s palms, and gripped her shoulders.
I side-eyed Max as they bounced together and counted to three, wondering if this was some weird Camelot Academy thing before I smacked my forehead and realized what they were doing. My natural suspicion when it came to Vivian had jammed my brain.
On three, Vivian jumped and Izzy hoisted her up.
“Cheerleaders.” I groaned. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?”
Vivian tensed but ignored me and inserted the key in the lock. Almost instantly, a panel in the wall opened, granting us access to the next room.
Izzy smiled as she came to my side. “Was it the blonde hair that gave me away?”
“That or you got paired with the guy who looks like the captain of the football team,” I teased back.
A moony, lovestruck look appeared in her eyes. “He really does, doesn’t he?”
Laughing, I nudged her through the opening, and we joined the other girls. “Were you King and Queen of the prom, too?”
Izzy’s smile faltered, and she grimaced.
Right before shocking the shit out of me.
“Uh, no…That was Vivian.” She shot me an apologetic look. “And Max.”
“No fucking way.” I gaped at her before whipping toward Max, who had missed her big reveal. “Ohhh, that is…completely unexpected news.”
“Yeah, he was thrilled, as I’m sure you can imagine.”
That, I pictured easily. But he and Vivian standing side by side as prom King and Queen?
Dancing together.
Doing whatever else together.
“Yeah, I’d actually prefer not imagining anything about that. I’d prefer to bleach my brain.”
Catching sight of my wrinkled nose, Max arched a brow. I mouthed later before turning back to the girls. They’d gathered around the coffee table, where a large map had been laid across the surface.
A wooden slab, three feet wide and one foot deep, lay across the map. Five carvings indented into the surface waited like slots for an item to be placed on top.
The shapes were nondescript and unique, each one different from the last, but with nothing to identify what belonged there. Blobs, a bunch of circles, and jagged lines—I couldn’t make sense of them.
“What are these?” Morgan asked as she felt each one. “None of them match or look like anything I recognize.”
I stared at the map. It looked like an actual treasure map, but it had to be of use in the cabin. My vision blurred as I stared at the landmarks on it.
They matched the floor plan of the room.
“It’s the cabin!”
I pointed out the landmarks on the map to Morgan. “What if these bigger symbols are where the items that go on the slab have been hidden?”
Angela and Izzy tilted their heads to stare at the map before glancing around the room.
“Thirty-five minutes, Ladies.”
I shot Max a look, my pulse quickening at the stress lining his forehead.
Angela clapped her hands excitedly. “Ooh, I think you’re right!” She popped up from beside the table to search, dragging Izzy with her.
“Why are there six symbols, though?” Vivian asked.
“Look!” Angela shouted from the fireplace. She grabbed the poker, yanking it. “Oh no!”
The metal snapped in two.
Angela held up the pieces, meeting each of our horrified gazes. “I’m so sorry!”
She brought the broken pieces to the slab, trying to fit them into one of the slots. I bounced on the balls of my feet, aware of the time and the need to find the other items, but unable to tear my gaze away.
If we couldn’t make this piece fit…
But we couldn’t give up. “Hey! Everyone, keep searching. We can still get points for the other items if this doesn’t fit.”
Murmurs of agreement rang out as the girls dispersed.
I took the pieces from Angela, examining the break in the rusted metal. Slotting the pieces together, I glanced around the room for something I could use to hold them together. “We need a clip or something.”
“I have one!” Izzy called out, pulling the claw clip out of her hair and bringing it over.
“Perfect!”
I maneuvered the clip until it caught both pieces in its teeth, then turned my attention back to the slots.
Angela, who’d been scrutinizing the board, pointed to one of the carvings. Tilting my head, I twisted the piece in my grip. “Maybe like this?”
When I handed it over, Angela turned it so the ornate design faced down. It didn’t fit in the first slot, so she tried each one in turn. When she got to the fourth one, the design locked in. A loud click confirmed we were on the right path.
“Okay, this is actually really cool,” she said excitedly.
I couldn’t help but agree, even if things had gotten tense. Everything about this challenge reminded me of my dad, and felt like something out of his favorite movie, Indiana Jones .
“It really is!” Izzy called from the bar as she grabbed a varnished candlestick holder. The wax drippings melted on top fit right into slot number five.
One by one, we searched the cabin and found the remaining items. A gold emblem on a kitchen mug. The coiled wire hidden behind a photo on the wall.
And a string of pearls attached to the sponge in the sink.
Morgan smiled excitedly at me as the click locked the final piece in place. With all five pieces in place, a piece of wood paneling in the floor popped up.
Izzy shrieked, and we all laughed before Vivian reached her hand inside, holding up an item I immediately recognized.
“What is this?”
It was in pieces, but I’d seen one put together so many times, I held out my hand for it. “It’s an embosser.”
She handed it over without comment or even hesitation, all of us enjoying this escape room trial more than we’d expected.
Once I’d put it together, I pulled the instructions out of my pocket and used the embosser to press the design on the scrap of paper.
“It’s a code!”
“Yeah, but a code to what?” I scanned the room again, hunting for a safe or keypad that would let us input the code.
“And what about this symbol?” Vivian grumbled as Angela hopped to her feet.
She walked over to the stove, using the buttons to pull up the option to set the timer. “Keypad, anyone? Man, this is really neat. I wonder who designed all of this.”
I had a feeling I knew, and my eyes gravitated to Max before I could stop them. He didn’t look at me, but the scowl on his face and quick nod of his head confirmed it.
Kingston.
He’d come up with everything inside this room, and it didn’t surprise me. That was why I enjoyed it so much. Certainty ran through me that he’d made sure I would.
Unfortunately, that thought distracted me.
And I didn’t piece together what Vivian had said until it was too late.
“Wait!” I cried, right as Vivian snapped, “Angela, don’t!”
But she’d already put in the final number and pressed start.
An alarm blared, and gas filled the room.
Angela screamed as it poured out of the vents beneath the microwave, covering her face and running back over to us. Everyone else threw their hands over their ears, and we gaped in horror as reality sank in.
I looked to Max, and his defeated frown confirmed what I already knew.
We’d failed.