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 heshifted 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.
Chapter Eighteen
That scene in the movieFinding Nemo, where they’re swimming along and everything is going great…and then, everything goes dark and suddenly it’s,happy feeling is gone?
Yeah. That about summed up what happened once Elaine’s attempts to get Landon’s attention had all been rebuffed and she finally decided tojoin the group.
I’d say he ignored her, but he made it clear he heard each flirty remark and had nothing to say in return. She pouted, of course, but eventually gave up to butt her nose into something else that was going well.
Our group of four had deciphered the code on the letter.
The code, SHOES, made no sense to any of us, but we’d narrowed down our list of suspects to the creepy stage director, who’d had feelings for the rising star, and her costar.
The costar was a hard sell to the other girls because, technically, he had an alibi. After their rehearsal, he’d attended a movie premiere for another project. He’d been schmoozing on the red carpet, while our girl died backstage after being attacked.
I hadn’t found the evidence to back it up, but I still didn’t trust the guy. He’d been into her, but wary of her thrust into the spotlight. A transcript of his conversation with her understudy right before the attack had shot off alarm bells in my head.
The other girls continued to pull for pinning it on the stage director, but we had to agree before submitting our answer.
And, while the stage director was super creepy, he struck me as harmless. Since I leaned towardsuspectfirst and ask questions later, I trusted my gut. But I needed more evidence to tie her costar to the crime.
He had the motive, but not the opportunity, given his whereabouts at the other premiere.
“What about the clue, though?” I argued as the clock dwindled down. “We still haven’t used it. Why give it to us for no reason? Where’s the newspaper clipping with his alibi?”
Camille handed it over, rolling her eyes because she was officially over my shit. I scanned the newspaper article. Again. And this time, I inspected every inch of the page.
Finally, I zeroed in on his shoes. “Hey! This smudge here. Was that a note? No one mentioned it.”
