Chapter Three #2
“June fifth,” answers Priscilla, to everyone’s surprise. She blinks. “It’s the same as mine,” she adds. “But I don’t know the year.”
“Sixty-three,” offers Malcolm, through the churning fog of grief. He remembers, because Arthur threw a party for his fiftieth, back in 2013. A rooftop affair, attended by the best and brightest of the thriller scene. Malcolm had tried—unsuccessfully—to snag an invite.
Jaxon claps his hands. “Okay, 060563.”
“What if we get it wrong?” asks Millie.
“Then we keep trying.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” says Cate, but Jaxon is already approaching the safe.
At the desk, Kenzo lets out another “Aha” as he drags out a clunky device, at odds with the elegance of the rest of the office. No wonder Arthur hid it. But when he plugs it in and lifts the receiver to his ear, his face falls. Malcolm can hear the absence of the dial tone.
“Well,” Kenzo says softly, setting the phone back on its cradle. “That’s not ideal.”
Just then, Jaxon finishes punching in the numbers on the keypad.
The safe lets out a negative beep, and then, before he can try again, the countdown disappears, replaced by a message:
0 ATTEMPTS REMAINING.
“Shit,” mutters Jaxon. Something grinds behind the metal door, as if the locks are somehow clamping tighter.
And then, the safe begins to speak.
A voice pours into the room, like smoke rolling over all of them. A voice Malcolm first heard more than thirty years ago. A voice they’ve all heard at some point, in TV interviews, in Edgar speeches, in online clips. A voice at once ominous and intimate, frayed by age but weighted with gravitas.
“Well, well, well,” says the disembodied voice of Arthur Fletch. “You’ve really gone and fucked it now.”
No one speaks. No one even breathes. The six living writers in the room stand still, held fast by the dead man’s voice.
“Are you really so pathetic?”
Kenzo comes unstuck, silently circling the desk.
“Are you really that afraid?”
Malcolm, who’d been bracing in the doorway, drifts toward the others gathered around the safe.
“I’m not angry. I’m just . . . disappointed.” A weary sigh, like static. “Has the idea of work become so daunting? You can’t face it for a few measly hours? Pathetic. This is why you don’t know the override, remember? It’s for your own good.”
Too late, Malcolm realizes that Arthur Fletch hasn’t recorded some prescient message from beyond the grave. He isn’t talking to them. He’s talking to himself.
“Get out of your head. It’s books, not bodies, Arthur. So go back to your desk, sit down, and do the goddamn work.”
The message ends, Fletch’s voice dropping like a call, replaced by heavy silence. Until Jaxon says “Fuck me,” one hand going to his chest. “That was eerie.”
“It was also good advice,” murmurs Priscilla, looking like she’s seen—well, heard—a ghost.
“It really is all writers, huh?” says Millie.
Malcolm stares at the safe, desperation rising like a tide inside his chest as his legs carry him forward.
The others shift aside to let him pass.
He brings his forehead to rest against the cool steel of the safe.
Even though Sienna’s body is on the stairs, all he can think is that she’s in there. What’s left of her. Her voice on his phone. A handful of voicemails he never bothered to delete. Her own cell, and her laptop, with her ideas. Their ideas. Their work.
Behind him, the others are back to bickering.
“Someone tried to open it,” says Kenzo.
“Uh, yeah,” says Jaxon. “We did. Just now.”
“Your powers of observation are staggering. It said zero attempts remaining, and there’s no way it only started with one. Which means someone has been trying to get in.”
Millie’s voice rises in pitch. “Why are you all looking at me?” she squeaks.
“Come on, Mill,” says Jaxon. “You practically hyperventilated when they took your phone.”
“You did turn in your ending,” adds Cate, sounding apologetic. “Maybe you were bored?”
“This is bullshit!”
“It doesn’t matter,” snaps Priscilla. “The fact is, we’re locked out. We have no boat. No internet. No phones. No way to get help.”
“So what do we do?” asks Cate.
“I mean,” says Jaxon, “the contest is still on.”
Malcolm pushes off the safe, and rounds on them. “My wife is dead!” he roars. “And you’re worried about whether or not you get a book deal?”
Jaxon holds up his hands in mock surrender. “I’m sorry, man. I really am. But I can’t be the only one thinking it.”
Malcolm glowers at them all. He wants to put his hand through the wall. To rage. To drink. He needs to see the same pain on their faces, or at least, indignation. But they don’t look ravaged by grief. The only thing painted over them is guilt.
Kenzo rubs the back of his neck. Cate stares at the floor. Millie shifts from foot to foot, and Priscilla takes a deep breath and looks up at the ceiling. Unbelievable, thinks Malcolm.
“I mean,” says Jaxon, “someone still has to win, right? And last time I checked, six of us are still he—”
Malcolm launches himself at Jaxon, tackling him around the waist, and even though it’s been three decades since he set foot on a rugby pitch, he makes contact, wrapping his arms around the bigger, stronger, younger man, savoring the Oof!
that escapes Jaxon as he staggers backward, into the office wall.
He shoves Malcolm off, and before Malcolm can get his balance and take him down, Kenzo steps between them.
“Hey, hey, this is not the time.”
Kenzo’s tall, but there’s not much meat on his bones, and Malcolm knows he could lay him out, if he wanted. But instead he turns, storming back toward the foyer. The others trail behind him.
“Jaxon’s not wrong,” says Priscilla. “Even if Rufus doesn’t come back, Eleanor will. The contest is still on.”
Malcolm shakes his head. “I can’t believe what I’m hearing,” he says, bracing himself against the round table. Jaxon mutters something, too low for him to catch, but Millie flinches, and Kenzo sighs.
“What did you say?” demands Malcolm, but the little prick has lost his nerve. He turns his glare on Millie. “What did he say?”
The blond girl looks from him to Jaxon and back again. “He . . . um . . . he said—”
Jaxon winces. “Mill, come on, don’t—”
“—that you’re mad because you know you won’t win. Not without—”
Malcolm lunges for Jaxon again but catches his toe on the rug and stumbles. He staggers to his feet, but Priscilla is already there.
“Enough,” she snaps at Jaxon, pointing to the hall. “Go.”
“Where?”
“I don’t care. Just. Go.”
Jaxon frowns. “I’m sorry, okay?” he says, holding up his hands. “I make jokes when I’m stressed. It’s, like, a defense mechanism. I’m sorry,” he says again, before trudging off toward the kitchen.
Millie begins quietly to cry again, as if she’s the one whose wife is dead.
Malcolm scowls as Cate rubs her back. He doesn’t want to let his mind drag him back to the stairs, to Sienna, but he can’t seem to help it.
His legs carry him around the antlered table.
His head tips, eyes trailing up to the landing.
The stained-glass portrait of Julia Petrarch looms over the body like a saint.
He isn’t alone. The others are there, most of them lingering a respectful distance. But Priscilla comes close enough to touch his arm.
“I think we should move her.”
“You shouldn’t disturb a crime scene,” warns Millie. “Right, Kenzo?”
“This wasn’t a crime,” says Priscilla through gritted teeth. “And we can’t just leave her there on the landing. She deserves to rest somewhere more . . .” She searches for the right word, but before she can find it, Kenzo says, “Temperature controlled?”
Millie and Cate share twin looks of horror.
“It’s a body,” he says gently. “It’s going to . . .”
He has the decency not to finish, but he doesn’t have to.
Malcolm’s stomach is already turning at the thought. His head begins to pound, a hangover knocking on the door. He’s not about to answer. He really, really, really needs another drink. He looks up at the landing, Sienna’s fingers trailing off the edge of the stair.
Then he swallows and says, “I have an idea.”