“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 ofthem 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 sinceno 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?”
