Chapter 45 Beck
Beck
Though his teammates hadn’t been quite as enthusiastic as he was about making a detective-style murder board, they still chipped in to assemble the information.
Carter and Adi headed to the hotel’s business center to print the most relevant photos and the Real Game Master’s posts, while Sierra made separate cards for every suspect.
Beck did his best to compile a workable timeline.
He desperately wanted to run to the craft store, as they were missing some key components, like a corkboard, thumbtacks, and colored string. But sometimes one had to make do.
By the time they finished laying everything out on top of the bedspread, it almost fulfilled one of Beck’s secret dreams. He’d made a real-life murder board. Cool.
They stood back to absorb the information.
There was Alicia’s letter, in which she confessed her affair with Louis.
Do not trust the Russells.
Multiple (oft dubious) alibis for Alicia’s time of death.
Other finalists in bed asleep
Sierra on the streets alone
Ranielle and Louis at home together (lied for each other?) Fitzy livestreaming from home
Vera posting on social media—at home (??)
The photo Adi had taken of Louis’s suicide note.
I killed A licia. Can’t live with the guilt anymore. P lease apologise to my fans and everyone I’ve hurt. Tell Rani I love her.
Details of the two deaths, written out in separate lists.
Alicia: suffocated by hand; death location unknown; time of death between 1–2 a.m.; transported to soundstage via cart; body found wet; missing phone and comforter; no security footage (rolling blackout); strange car at villas close to dawn?
LAR: cyanide poisoning ; death location: hotel; time of death around 8 p.m.; two wineglasses (one empty—for Carter?); blond woman on security footage? (Likely Ranielle)
Across the pillows, they’d included details of the various ways in which someone had been trying to sabotage them, or the show. The freezer. Carter’s drugged drink at the party. The wrecked painting. The cow heart. And—a sore spot—the recording of Adi taking the cheats.
One full corner of the bed was dedicated to the clues that had been planted in the rooms. The anagram of Alicia’s name. Tenth-Third-F-U (10/3=birthday). The alien room video—they’d done their best to remember as many details as they could. The deciphered ribbon code and mirror letter.
“The police think they have their guy,” said Adi, pointing at the suicide note. “Ranielle might be charged for lying about his whereabouts and impeding the investigation, but what does it matter? Case closed.”
“Besides,” said Carter, “we know she can lie through her teeth. She might be able to spin it in a way that makes her seem innocent. Like—she was asleep the whole time, so how could she have known her husband disappeared in the middle of the night?”
Beck frowned. “How wasn’t there more DNA left behind?”
“Alicia was a nail-biter,” said Sierra. “Even if she fought back, her nails were too short, so there was nothing to find. And the killer was wearing gloves to keep their DNA from getting in her mouth.”
“What’s this?” said Adi, picking up a photo of a short, handwritten message. “At first I thought we had two different photos of the suicide note.”
“Oh, sorry,” said Carter. “It’s a picture I took in the dressing room before the snag round. That was written on the bottom of a photo. I thought we could use it to compare the handwriting on the suicide note.”
“Good idea,” said Beck. “Either Ranielle forced Louis to write the note under duress or she forged it. It would be great if we had a way to prove that to the police.”
They gathered around the two photos.
This is just the beginning . —L ouis
I killed A licia. Can’t live with the guilt anymore. P lease apologise to my fans and everyone I’ve hurt. Tell Rani I love her.
“Does anyone else think something feels off about the suicide note?” asked Adi.
“Like the fact that he didn’t commit suicide?” said Sierra. “Or that he confessed to a murder we’re pretty sure he didn’t commit?”
“I mean, yeah. But there’s something . . .” Adi listed his head to the side.
“How about the ‘Tell Rani I love her’ part?” said Beck. “That feels a bit tongue-in-cheek.”
“Yeah, maybe that’s it,” said Adi, sounding unconvinced.
“His handwriting was very distinct,” Beck added, wondering if uniqueness made handwriting easier or more difficult to replicate. “I like how he does his ys and gs.” He pointed to the g in “guilt,” with its flourishing swirl of a tail.
“Yeah,” said Carter. “He replied to one of my fan letters once. I thought his handwriting was so classy I actually tried to make mine more like his—but I was never very good at cursive.” A shadow fell over her face. “It was only a postcard, but it meant a lot to me at the time.”
Sierra put an arm around Carter, giving her a squeeze.
“Part of me wishes I’d never found out about the affair,” Carter said. “That I could still think of him as the Game Master.” Her brow furrowed as she stared at the suicide note. “Hold on,” she whispered. “Hold on.”
Sierra’s arm fell from her shoulders as Carter picked up the two photos—the bottom of the picture in the dressing room and the suicide note.
“The gs,” she whispered. “Beck. You’re right!”
He blinked. “I am?”
“Give me a second.” Grabbing her phone, Carter made a call as she stepped out of the room. “Yeah, Dad? I need you to do me a huge favor. In my bedroom, there’s a postcard—”
Barely a minute had passed before Carter burst back into the hotel room. “The gs!” she shouted, slamming the phone down on the bed. They were looking at a photo of the back of a postcard, and what was becoming familiar script.
Carter Kelly— Thanks for the fun puzzle. Keep solving! —Louis
Adi made a face. “That’s it? That’s all he wrote?”
Carter shoved him on the shoulder. “Shut up. He’s a . . . was a busy guy. But look. Look at the gs!”
The difference was immediately obvious. The gs on the postcard curled in a completely different way from the photograph signature.
“Okay?” said Adi, eyeing her warily. “People change their handwriting sometimes, especially people who pride themselves on—”
“Exactly!” interrupted Carter. She pointed to the photograph and then the postcard.
“Sometime between season one, when he wrote this, and season three, when he sent me a postcard, he changed his writing style. But the suicide note is using the old gs.” A grin split her face.
“Proof that it was forged. And if it was forged . . .”
“Then the confession is meaningless,” said Beck.
“And now,” said Adi, “the police know Ranielle was lying about the alibi, which means Louis was lying, too, which would make her the prime suspect in both cases.”
“And we’ve got two motives to boot,” said Sierra. “Proof that Alicia and Louis were sleeping together, and that she was blackmailing Ranielle about it.”
“We are so good at this!” said Carter. “I knew I took that photo for a reason!”
“What now?” asked Beck. “We go to the police, right?”
“No,” said Sierra. “We go to Ranielle.”
The ebullient mood of the room fizzled.
“You can’t be serious,” said Adi. “The last time we went charging off after a potential murderer, we found Louis’s body.”
“You think the cops are going to listen to a bunch of resentful teenagers? Or me? They’re sure they’ve solved a murder case. They’re not going to reopen it based on some dodgy handwriting. No. I can’t risk letting her get away with it. Not again.”
“What do you want to do?” Beck said, eyes wide.
Sierra’s expression was grimly determined. “We’re going to get a confession.”