Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
A fter the Courage Introduction, I lasted for about thirty minutes on the back terrace, mingling with the other Ladies. Partly because I needed to see a guy about a thing in my ass. And partly because mingling wasn’t high up on my list of favorite things to do.
The only one I really knew, and maybe trusted, was Izzy. When I waved at her from across the way, she beckoned me over to join her and the girl she was talking to, whose name I learned was Angela. She had perfect hair and darker skin than most of the other girls on the patio, like me.
It wasn’t the first time I’d noticed that Camelot Court leaned toward…paler skin tones in terms of diversity, but regardless of their differences, Angela fit the bill of a Camelot Society Lady as well, if not better, than the other girls.
When I pointed out her perfect hair, she snorted.
“Yeah, well. My mom insists I stay up late to put it in curlers at night and wake up early each morning to make sure it falls exactly right, so. It better be fucking perfect.” She whispered the curse word, as if someone might smite her for daring to say it.
“Oh, wow. I’m sorry, that actually sounds...awful. But can’t you just tell her you did and not do it?”
“And risk her wrath if someone mentioned one of my curls was wound tighter than usual?” She gaped at me, as if flabbergasted by the question. “Girl, you are not from here. That’s not how it works.”
Izzy shot me a sympathetic look before appealing to Angela. “I told her about my mom and family drama, so Quinn knows that much, at least.”
My brow furrowed. “So, wait. All your moms are like that?”
“Oh, yeah.” Izzy nodded. “Honestly, the worst is Vivian’s mom. But it’s all varying degrees of the same thing from there.”
“Well, I guess that explains a lot.”
“You have no idea,” Izzy said, seriously. “But see, Angela, I told you. Quinn is good people. And Quinn, Angela is the only person here I trust with even a five-foot pole, so take that for what it’s worth to you.”
Angela looked me over. “I thought you seemed cool when you showed up at the Maiden Appeal and put that”—again, she dropped her voice—“ asshat , Merle, in his place. So, good. I’m glad I wasn’t wrong about you.”
“It still blows my mind that they care so much. Your parents. I mean, I guess I get its tradition in some ways, but your hair?” I arched a brow. “Is there a secret to solving escape room clues based on hairstyle that I don’t know about, or what?”
Angela pursed her lips. “You know it’s not about that. Or, looking like you do, you should know.” She eyed me up and down, lingering on the tan over my exposed arms and legs.
“My father is a prominent, successful, and filthy rich man, Quinn Everly. But he’s half Black.
Just light enough that my mother was allowed to marry him.
And he’s worked twice as hard for twice as long to get where most of these other guys’ families got by luck.
” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “Or nepotism.”
“Damn. You all fit in so well together. At least, it seemed that way at the Maiden Luncheon.”
She snorted. “Appearances can be deceiving. You’ve seen that much by now, I’m sure.”
My mind jumped to Elaine, and then Max. Everything I’d thought about them when I first arrived and the way they turned out to be totally different. “Yeah, I have.”
“Right. And so, even though my father earned his place here, the Camelot Society doesn’t like different .
My mother, while she claims to love him, spends more time making sure I fit in than showing love to either of us.
So, you do the math on why she wants my hair to look just as good, if not better, than these other girls’. ”
“I didn’t know it was like that for any of you,” I admitted. “I’m sorry. I—Honestly, I misjudged a lot when I first got here.”
“Yeah, well. It’s not totally your fault.” She brushed her nails on her sweater and flicked her gaze away like none of it really mattered, enough though it clearly did. “I’m a perfectionist and so type A I want to be put together every day. Good thing, right?”
“Yeah…Just like I don’t really care about making friends or wanting to fit in here. Good thing, too, I guess. Huh?”
She smirked. “So, you do get it.”
“I get that it’s exhausting fighting for approval we’ll never get, acceptance we can never really earn even while they dangle it in front of us.
I mean, I could win The Quest, but it’s not like everyone is going to rush to welcome me into your club with open arms. That’s why I stopped caring, right? ”
Her expression shifted into a genuine smile. “See. I knew I liked you. And maybe, one day, when we really don’t give a shit, we’ll come back here and toast to it.”
“Deal.”
The next morning, when Landon escorted my group to the first trial, more of a “murder mystery box than an escape room,” according to him, I remembered an important life lesson.
There were two types of people in a group project: the ones who didn’t do anything but claimed credit for the work, and the ones who carried the group and did everything without extra recognition. And I got to see which of the two categories the other Ladies fell into.
Unsurprisingly, Elaine fell into the first.
One of the cabins had been converted into an FBI-style interrogation room. The kitchen and bedroom had been blocked off, the couch and oversized chair removed, and the coffee table swapped out for a larger forensics table.
I huddled around it with the three other Ladies in the group while Elaine leaned against a wall off to the side.
Her posture mirrored Landon’s, who stood by the door and smiled each time I huffed in Elaine’s direction.
“You’re supposed to use the cipher to figure out the secret message in the letter, Elaine,” I ground out through clenched teeth. “You’re not supposed to stare at it and hope the answer magically appears.”
We’d been given a box of items and a letter to start the trial. The letter requested help solving a murder that had occurred during a stage production of a famous play. The actress—well, former actress, as Elaine pointed out several times—had been found in a costume box after she’d been attacked.
Everything we needed to solve the case was in the envelopes Landon had been handing us as we went.
We’d gotten all of them by the time I lost my cool with Elaine and snapped.
From newspaper clippings and time-stamped journal entries to play scripts with secret notes.
We had crime scene photos and a list of evidence from the police.
Each envelope led to one detail that earned us the next set of clues. We finally got the autopsy report and pinpointed her time of death, but we were still missing something.
After dispersing all the evidence to sort through it, I’d hoped someone would stumble on what I was missing.
We needed another clue to narrow down the killer.
But our weakest link was as useless as the red-carpet photos we’d stared at for the last twenty minutes.
Taking a deep breath, I tried to recenter, but the clock was ticking. “Have you found anything in the letter yet?”
Elaine shrugged and creased the paper, so I marched over and snatched it out of her hand, hissing under my breath. “Or maybe, you’re just waiting for Mommy and Daddy to show up and solve the problem for you.”
“Jealous, much?” Elaine tittered, brushing off her sleeve as if I’d gotten dirt on her sweater.
Who wore a freaking cashmere sweater in June? Honestly.
“No, sweetie. I got the guy, remember?”
I smirked and whirled away from her, catching Landon’s eye in the process. His arched brow and barely suppressed grin communicated what I already knew. Letting Elaine get under my skin and snapping at her made me feel better in the short term, but…
That was it.
End of argument.
It made me feel better in the short term, and I couldn’t see past that when she was in my face, trying to put me in my so-called place. Dusting off her clothes had to be a dig at her future status as Kingston’s betrothed, and mine as their future help.
Was it because my mom had been half Hispanic?
It couldn’t be since I refused to think about my mom, her background, or how I’d been raised without a hint of her culture that so clearly separated me here from all of them.
And since no one even knew that, Elaine was just a bitch.
I growled when Landon gently tapped the clock and turned back to the other girls. They were still trying to sort out the meaning behind the ticket stubs I’d given them.
One girl, a tall, leggy redhead with gorgeous brows, cocked one of her perfect arches at me. “Quinn, right? I’m Morgan. Look, I’ve got the dates and times lined up with the autopsy report, but none of us can figure out what it means.”
“I’m guessing we need the clue in this letter. I gave Elaine the cipher, but…”
“You got nowhere?” Morgan snorted. “I’m shocked. You know how group projects always have two types of people?”
I held out the letter and cipher, handing them over to her with a smile. “Why, yes, Morgan, I absolutely do.”
She smirked and took the clues from me, while I grabbed the newspaper clippings and script we’d found in envelope two.
“Okay, once you have that clue from the letter, I think we pair it with the newspaper clippings and the stage log they gave us to see who was accounted for during her time of death.”
“Ooh. Good call.”
“Hey!” Morgan called out to the two other Ladies, who’d actually been making themselves useful.
Camille, a wisp of a girl with perfectly straight brown hair and dark blue eyes, and Lynette, whose near-black curls had been corralled into a ponytail on top of her head, a few ringlets escaping the hold and falling into her gray eyes.
“Come and write down everyone’s whereabouts from these newspaper clippings. We’ll need them in a minute.”
They got up from where they’d been reading their guides to different ciphers, little booklets we’d each been given for the Courage Challenge, and they came over to help.
Lynette held up her booklet. “These things are pretty cool. Have you two looked through them?”
Morgan smirked. “Yeah, of course. I studied mine as soon as they handed it over.”
Camille rolled her eyes, teasingly. “Of course, you did. Nerd.” Then, she looked at me.
“I did the same.”
As soon as I saw its similarity to the guides my dad and I used in escape rooms, I’d tucked it in my pocket for safekeeping.
Lynette snickered. “Well, shit. We lucked out getting paired with you two.”
“You bet your ass you did. But carry your weight, Ladies.” Morgan pointed at the clippings she gave them. “Besides, you would’ve had Izzy and V in your group if you weren’t with us. You would’ve been fine with those nerds, too, I bet.”
Lynette laughed. “Vivian isn’t a nerd. She’s just a type A super robot who can’t stand to lose. And Izzy is like…I don’t know. That genius in that one movie. The one with the poor person who cleans schools and likes math or whatever.”
I prayed for mercy. “ Good Will Hunting ?”
“Yeah, the one with the guy who likes apples!”
Shaking my head, I laughed. “Yep. Total nerd. So, Morgan’s right. You would’ve been fine, either way. But we still need those times to figure out who had an opportunity to kill the actress.”
I pointed at the clues we’d gathered so far, walking them through what I was thinking with Morgan making sounds of approval as she decoded the letter beside us.
At one point, I lifted my head and caught Landon’s stare.
My serious White Knight stood in the corner, arms crossed over his chest and eyes straight ahead, except for when he shifted his gaze to mine. A proud smile tugged at his lips as he watched us all work together.
And I returned it, that feeling in my chest like the one from our first walk by the lake resurfacing. When, for just a moment, I felt like I belonged here. The way I did whenever I was with my three guys.
But…maybe also with some of the girls here, too.
As long as they didn’t hate me when I won The Quest instead of them, of course.