Chapter 29 Sierra
Sierra
Sierra let the villa’s back door close softly. She could hear Beck outside the gate, distracting Elijah.
It was a bold move, she’d give him that.
Alicia’s old villa was a mirror-image layout to the one Sierra’s team shared on the other side of the pool: a central living area with an open kitchen and two bedroom suites on opposite sides of a short hallway. This villa smelled better though, like someone burned a lot of scented candles.
She hurried past the bedrooms into the living area. There was a reproduction Van Gogh on the wall—not as famous as Starry Night but one of Sierra’s favorites, with its vibrant Parisian setting, the warm yellows and oranges beneath a star-dusted sky.
She’d always admired Van Gogh. Not just because he was a visionary in a world of critics, but because she found something appealing about a person being dedicated enough to cut off their own ear.
A MacBook was sitting open on the kitchen island, along with a mess of papers and a spiral-bound notebook. Sierra scanned the windows, making sure no one could see her as she slipped past.
But then she froze.
Tiptoed back.
The computer screen was open to the Domain, showing the forum started by the Real Game Master.
Scribbles filled the notebook. Elijah’s penmanship was normally neat, but the first page was a mess, most of the letters scratched out. Sierra realized he’d been trying to solve the ribbon clue—the one Adi had figured out.
Sierra shuffled some papers to the side, seeing lists of names, times, notes about Elijah’s memories from the night, interspersed with question marks and exclamation points.
A handwritten note in red ink caught Sierra’s eye. She bent closer.
4a.m.—door slamming. Car pulling out of driveway. Why no headlights?
Wait. Elijah hadn’t said anything about the mystery car having no headlights.
She puzzled through the timing. The argument around nine. Alicia’s phone turning off around ten thirty, a mile away from the complex. Alicia murdered after one in the morning. A mysterious car pulling out of the driveway hours later.
Growling in frustration, she turned the page and her breath left her.
She was staring at a photo of her sister.
It was a little grainy, like it had been taken from far away and blown up.
Alicia was caught mid-laugh, her eyes squinting in delight.
She was wearing a yellow swimsuit, a hint of the pool visible in the background.
Beneath the picture, Elijah had written a haiku in his same tidy, precise letters:
She walked out the gate
With a blanket and my heart.
Should I have followed?
“Yuck,” Sierra muttered. “Don’t quit your day job.”
But then . . . a blanket. The image of Alicia wearing that comforter over her shoulders was forever burned into Sierra’s memory.
She had always assumed that she was the last person, other than the killer, to see her sister alive. But evidently Elijah had watched her walk out the gate that night.
She flipped back through his notes, and yes, there—
Approx. 9:10—Sierra left through front gate.
Approx. 9:15—Alicia left w/ comforter. Followed Sierra?
She turned back to the poem, rereading its final line, her thoughts flipping it back and forth between two possible meanings.
“Should I have followed?” I didn’t follow.
“Should I have followed?” Following was a mistake.
He was obsessed with her sister. He could have been jealous. He could have gone after her. He could have killed her, returning at four in the morning to go for a swim. Washing off the blood? Did the pool have something to do with Alicia being wet?
And the car with no headlights . . . Had someone followed him back to the villas?
Sierra rubbed her brow. What was she missing?
Out on the patio, the grating of metal café chairs on the pavers pulled her back to the moment. Right—she was supposed to be leaving.
Turning away from Elijah’s notes, she ducked past the coffee table with a burnt candle and the same edition of the Hollywood Herald they had in their villa. Past the sofa table with the decorative glass bowl holding three random twine balls. Past the Van Gogh painting—
Sierra jerked to a stop. Pivoted in one swift movement.
She stared at the framed picture on the wall. A café at night. Patrons enjoying a quiet repose.
She knew this painting. Café Terrace at Night.
Sierra’s whole body shook with adrenaline as she glanced over her shoulder, wondering how much time she had.
She lifted the picture frame away from the wall and set it against the back of the sofa. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary on the wall, she felt around the edges of the picture’s frame. Then . . . she spotted it. The small incision cut into the brown paper that covered the back.
She used a black fingernail to pry, just a little . . .
A piece of paper fell into her hand. It was neatly folded into a small, tight square.
Alicia’s last note.
Sierra jumped to her feet as the gate’s hinges creaked outside. She pocketed the paper and grabbed the painting. By the time she’d hooked the wire hanger onto its screw, she could hear the back door opening. The scuff of Elijah’s sneakers.
She scurried to the entryway, shutting the front door as quietly as she could, then dashed around the bushes—and crashed right into Beck.
“Sierra!” he said, as breathless as she was. “What are you . . . I didn’t think you’d still be in there!”
“I found it.” She grabbed Beck’s arm and pulled him away from Elijah’s villa.
“Alicia’s letter.” They rounded the edge of the pool.
Elijah wasn’t following them. Nobody was paying them any attention.
“She didn’t mean the terrace as in the patio.
She was referring to Van Gogh’s Café Terrace at Night hanging in their living room.
Look.” She pulled the note from her pocket.
“Oh my god. You did it!”
The two shared a quick grin, then broke into a sprint.
Carter was waiting impatiently in their living room, chewing a fingernail. “Finally!” she said when they burst through the door. “What took you so long? Did he catch you?”
“No,” said Sierra, holding up the note. “And we found it.”
Carter eagerly snatched it from her hands. She was halfway through opening it when she froze and gave Sierra an apologetic look and slowly handed it back. “I guess you should have the honors.”
“You think?” said Sierra, but she wasn’t too upset. Carter had been acting more confident ever since the alien room. Between the Morse code, the sandbag, and figuring out the importance of Louis’s clue, it seemed her Solve Specialist instincts had finally kicked in. Sierra felt oddly proud of her.
“Should we wait for Adi?” Beck asked as Sierra started to unfold the note.
Sierra stilled. Her jaw tensed, her curiosity to know what her sister had wanted to tell her at war with her conscience, until Beck singsonged, “We are a team . . .”
Letting out a long groan, Sierra set the unopened note on the counter and picked up her phone. “I’m giving him five minutes. If he’s not back by then, we’re reading it without him.”
Adi was back in one minute and forty-nine seconds.
“Thank you,” he said earnestly as he burst into their villa.
“I’ve never been so grateful to escape a conversation.
Word of advice: do not ask Lisa what kind of movies she likes unless you want an indepth analysis of every plot hole in the Back to the Future franchise.
” He shook his arms, as if trying to clear the conversation from the air. Then— “Where is it? What does it say?”
Carter pointed at the note in Sierra’s hand. “We haven’t opened it yet.”
“We thought we’d wait for you,” said Beck.
Adi looked momentarily surprised. “Oh. Thanks. I’m here now. Let’s see it.”
Sierra was already unfolding it, revealing a typed message in huge font, spanning the width of a piece of printer paper.
Well.. shit. This letter=a last dangerous plot, a last futil hope.
Maybe I’me now dead and buried. Or maybe just_missing?
R u ready? Ive been w/ Louis. (Louis Augustus R!)
Was only flirting first, that turnd into **more**
I abso!!lutely don’twant the cops to know the _rest
It’s complex, baby sis. i’d really love if u avenged me - good luck Remember a the inane clue in the ...
2nd episode?If u first cn find a the light from the #4 villa it should guide u.Will reveal every thing. My secret, my error.
If I’ve already lost, I hav 1 big request:Lay waste to Rani+Louis.
Do not trust the Russells.
-Alicia
“Holy . . .” Carter muttered, which was about as far as Sierra’s mind was able to process, too. “Does this mean . . . Is she saying what I think she’s saying?”
“Do you think she’s saying that she was sleeping with Louis?” said Beck. “Because yes. And yuck.”
Sierra read through the note again. And again.
Her sister. And the Game Master?
Adi snatched the note away to examine it closer. “Maybe, maybe not. This is clearly a code.”
“But what if she was?” Beck said quietly. “How old was she? Was that . . . I mean, was it . . . illegal?”
“She was eighteen,” said Sierra, and with those words, her dismay hardened into something else. Revulsion. As if Alicia hadn’t already been through enough for one lifetime.
Sierra turned away, pacing back and forth across the rug.
“What a predator. It may not have been statutory rape, but it was still fucked. For one, he’s married.
Two, he’s almost twenty years older than her.
And three—that is such a disgusting power imbalance!
She had no money. She was desperate to win the show and score the final prize.
He was . . . How could he? To my sister!
” She was practically shouting now, and when she picked up a throw pillow and whacked it repeatedly against the back of the sofa, no one tried to stop her. “Gross! Disgusting! Manipulative! Men!”
She paused to catch her breath, some of the anger fading as she looked over at Beck and Adi. “Not you. But . . . ugh.”
“We get it,” said Adi.
“Yeah,” agreed Beck. “Totally fair.”
Sierra hurled herself onto the couch and screamed into the pillow.
“So . . .” Carter started. “Does this mean . . . What do we think this means, exactly?” She sounded distressed. Sierra lifted her face to look at her. She knew enough about Kick It Carter, who idolized the Game Master, to know this was a huge blow for her, too.
“It’s usually the boyfriend or the husband,” said Beck. “At least, according to every true crime show ever. So . . .” He trailed off, like he couldn’t quite find the words to say what they were thinking.
But Sierra could.
Her sister had been afraid that something would happen to her, and then . . . and then . . .
Sierra shut her eyes, seeing what she always saw now. Alicia in the coffin, her body pale, stiff, wet. In a way, the drenching of her corpse was a violation all on its own.
She sat up, squeezing the life from the throw pillow. “It was the Game Master,” she said. “That bastard killed my sister.”