28. Maverick
Maverick
Possessive fury lit in me, filling me with combustible rage. April had to be stopped. Forever. It was one thing for her to hurt me. But not Carey. Not my sweet, brilliant, beautiful girl.
I sprinted back upstairs and knocked on Brooke, Jasmine, and Zach’s doors. “Come to the drawing room,” I told each of them in turn. “I’ve got an idea for something to pass the time.”
I couldn’t announce my discovery out loud. Not with all the mics listening in on every conversation. I’d briefly considered using my bathroom, but I had no way of knowing for sure that it was a safe place to talk. Knowing the level of surveillance in this place, I was willing to bet there were cameras and mics in every single nook and cranny. Even the fucking toilets.
I’d also considered writing everything down for the others to silently read, but then I realized that was out of the question too. I had no idea of the zooming capabilities of the surveillance cameras, and I couldn’t risk April seeing what I’d written.
I couldn’t even whisper to the others, because then April—and whoever was helping her—would see it happening, and then she might start wondering if we were onto her. I couldn’t let that happen. Instead, I had to pretend I knew nothing. Keep April thinking her identity as the Game Master was still shrouded in secrecy. That way she’d never see us coming when we finally figured out how to take her down.
Five minutes later, Brooke, Zach, and Jasmine were staring at me expectantly across the drawing room table. “So, uhh… this idea,” Zach finally said. “What is it?”
“I want to play a game.”
“Okay, Jigsaw.” Jasmine’s nose wrinkled. “You are joking, right?”
“Nope. Think about it. We need something to take our minds off everything, and all we’ve done for the last few days is play games that can kill us. So I think it might help if we play a game that we know for sure is totally safe. A game of our own.”
Brooke and Zach exchanged pointed glances. Jasmine kept staring at me like I was totally off my rocker. “I’m done with games at this point,” she said. “Aren’t we all?”
“No,” I insisted. “Come on. It’ll cheer us up, I swear. A game of Telephone, like we used to do when we were kids.”
Jasmine rolled her eyes. “Fine. If it’ll make you feel better.”
Brooke and Zach nodded reluctantly, and we all moved onto the carpet and sat in a row. I leaned close to Brooke and whispered in her ear. “Don’t react. Don’t look surprised,” I said. “I’m 99% sure that April faked her death, but we can’t let her know that we know just yet. I also think she’s keeping Carey alive to be the fall guy for this shit.”
Brooke nodded slowly as my words sank in. Her face was expressionless, but her eyes were flashing like crazy. She stayed silent for a moment, and then she swallowed audibly and leaned over to Zach. He listened carefully before whispering to Jasmine.
At first, I was worried that Jasmine would mess things up, given the look of pure shock on her face, but then she affected an innocent expression and slowly shook her head. “Um… a giant raccoon went to a pride parade with my cousin and wore an orange jumpsuit. Is that right?”
I let out a brittle laugh. “Not even close. Let’s try again.”
“Okay.” She lifted one shoulder in a casual shrug. “This is actually kind of fun.”
I whispered to Brooke again. “We can’t openly talk about it because of the mics everywhere. We can’t even write it down because April could be looking on the cameras.”
She passed it down the line. When it reached Jasmine, she invented some bullshit line about cows in a field. Then she cocked her head. “My turn now.”
Her words eventually got back to me through Brooke. “If you’re right, what are we going to do about it?” she wanted to know.
I passed another message down the line. “I don’t know yet. All I know is that we need to figure out a way to explore April’s room without making her suspicious. I’m pretty sure Carey was in there before she disappeared.”
Brooke’s hand shot up. “Can I have a turn?” she asked.
“Of course.”
The four of us went on like that for the next twenty minutes, awkwardly and tediously discussing the new development through the guise of multiple Telephone games.
Finally, Jasmine sat up straight and stretched her arms. “Okay, I’m getting bored with this game now,” she declared. “I have another idea for a group activity to keep us occupied.”
I stared at her, hoping to God that she actually had some sort of plan. “What is it?” I asked in a clipped tone.
“You guys will probably think this is totally lame, but…” She trailed off, biting her bottom lip. “Well, as much as I couldn’t stand most of the people in this place, I guess everything that happened here brought us closer together. Do you know what I mean?”
“Um… yeah, I guess so,” Zach muttered.
“So I was thinking, seeing as we’re down to the final four, maybe it would be nice to create some sort of memorial thing on the table,” Jasmine went on. “We could grab something from everyone’s bedrooms. Something that reminds us of them. Then we could put it all on the table and say a few words about each person.”
My brows rose as she spoke. It was actually a decent plan to get into April’s room and hunt around without her thinking we were up to anything shady. “That’s a nice idea,” I said, nodding slowly.
Jasmine swiped a finger under her right eye, like she was mopping up a tear. “Thanks. I honestly thought you guys would think it was stupid.”
“It’s not stupid. We’ve all lost people we care about here,” Zach said softly. “I know none of us had any personal items here, but the bedrooms are stacked with books. So we could look in each room for a book that reminds us of certain people, right?”
“Yeah, I really like that idea,” Brooke said, nodding fervently. “We could also look for some other things. Like with Kiara, for example. She had such beautiful hair. So for her, we could use the comb from her bathroom.”
“That sounds perfect,” Jasmine said, dabbing at her cheek with her sleeve. “Kiara would’ve loved that idea.”
I rose to my feet. “Brooke, you can take Carey and Evan’s rooms. I’ll take April and Tate’s rooms. Zach, you take Courteney and Rhys. And Jasmine, you can do Kiara. I think we can leave Hudson out of this, right?”
“For sure.” Jasmine gave me a tight smile. “Let’s go.”
I went to Tate’s room first and took my time looking around, pretending I deeply cared about finding an item that reminded me of him. I wound up selecting a copy of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas from the bookshelf. It seemed like something a guy like him might’ve enjoyed.
With the book in hand, I headed to April’s room and hunted around, looking for some sort of clue while pretending to ponder what she might’ve liked. At one point, I purposely dropped Tate’s book on the floor so I could peer under her bed in search of any concealed trapdoors, but there was nothing there.
Mind whirling, I went to the shelf and started picking through the books, trying to figure out my next move. There didn’t appear to be anything unusual in this room, but Carey certainly seemed to think there was something worth looking for last night. I just had to figure out what it was and find it.
Jasmine stepped into the room a moment later. “Hey. I got the comb from Kiara’s bathroom,” she said, voice thick with emotion. “Did you find anything for April yet?”
I shook my head. “None of these books really make me think of her.”
Jasmine sniffed and stepped closer. Then she burst into tears and threw her arms around me. “I miss Kiara so much,” she said, nestling into the crook between my neck and shoulder.
“I know,” I muttered.
She tilted her face ever-so-slightly until her lips were near my left ear. “Keep looking,” she whispered. “There has to be something in here. I can literally feel it in my bones. You’re right about everything.”
I broke away from the hug a moment later. “I’ll keep hunting around,” I said, scratching the side of my head. “Maybe there’ll be something in the bathroom that really screams ‘April’.”
“It’s okay. You have a lot of time to think about it. No more games today, remember?” Jasmine said. “Anyway, I’ll go and start setting up the memorial table.”
She gave me a watery smile and stepped outside. I swept my gaze around the room once more, wondering if this was all a giant waste of time.
Even if it was, I still had to find something in here for the memorial table, just so April wouldn’t get suspicious about our true motive for going through her room.
I frowned and twisted my lips, wondering what sort of stuff she might like. I honestly didn’t know her very well, even though we’d attended school together for twelve years. We ran in different crowds, so we never really spoke or interacted much beyond the occasional shared classes.
I knew she liked English class, because her dad taught the subject, and I knew she was good at math. I also remembered that she liked our art classes all the way back in elementary school. Maybe there was a book about writing on the shelf, or something about famous painters and sculptors.
Wait…
The word ‘art’ had shaken something loose inside my head.My eyes snapped to the large oil painting on the opposite wall, and a frisson of curiosity surged through me. When Carey and I explored everywhere the other night, we’d spent a lot of time checking behind paintings for any hidden doors or alcoves where the Game Master could be hiding something.
I couldn’t check now without making April realize I was onto her, if she happened to be watching me on the surveillance system, but something told me that giant painting was probably covering a lot more than old wallpaper. If it was some sort of entryway to the secret passage system I’d always suspected of existing behind these walls, then that would explain what Carey was searching for when she came in here. It would also explain how April managed to sneak around at night without any of us seeing or hearing her out in the hall.
The more I thought about it, the more certain I became that some sort of door lay behind the painting. I could practically feel the truth of it pumping through my veins.
I went back to the bookshelf and inspected it, heart pounding. Then I grabbed a random novel and strode back to the drawing room. “Here,” I said, tossing down the books on the table. “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas for Tate, and Catcher in the Rye for April.”
“Good choice.” Brooke smiled. “April won an award for an essay about that book in ninth grade.”
“Cool. Now that we’re all here, should we huddle up and say a few words about everyone?” I asked.
Zach, Brooke, and Jasmine nodded enthusiastically and joined me in a tight group hug. “Stay awake tonight,” I whispered to them. “Leave your bedrooms at three o’clock and meet me in April’s room. I think there’s a door behind the painting there.”
Now there were only two things left for me to do. Wait for the middle of the night… and hope to God I was right.