Louis’s penmanship had been shaky when he wrote it, but Carter recognized the handwriting from countless thank-you notes and autographs posted to the Domain over the years, unmistakable with its elaborate capital letters and flourishing script.
I killed A licia. Can’t live with the guilt anymore. P lease apologise to my fans and everyone I’ve hurt. Tell Rani I love her.
Carter shuddered. Adi took a photo of the letter with his phone. The camera’s quietclickstartled her out of her shock. She scanned the room, needing to look at anything but the body, anything but that horrible confession.
There was a fancy charcuterie board on the coffee table along with two wineglasses—one empty and waiting to be filled, another with the last dregs of wine pooling at the bottom.
A confession. This was a suicide note and a confession and . . . Louis had killed Alicia. The murder was solved.
But she felt no sense of victory.
An entire lifetime passed before she finally heard sirens. The night shredded into disjointed images. Hotel guests peering from their rooms. An investigator placing a sticky note next to the wineglasses. A white sheet draped over the body.
Carter and the others were separated. She sat in some back room behind the hotel’s check-in desk, trying her best to answer questions. What had she been doing in Mr. Russell’s room? What was the state of the body when she found it? Had she noticed anything unusual about the room when she entered? Had the door been locked when she arrived?
Finally, a detective told her they would reach out tomorrow morning with follow-up questions. But she couldn’t leave yet, because one of the investigators was still talking to Sierra. They interviewed her a lot longer than the others.
Carter could now see why Sierra hadn’t wanted to take Alicia’s note to the police. It was clear that they were deeply mistrustful of her, especially since this was the second suspicious death she’d been connected to.
Finding Louis had been hard, but what had it been like to discover her sister in that coffin? Carter hadn’t really comprehended the horror before, not on this level.
It was well past midnight by the time Sierra emerged, and Carter was relieved to see that she hadn’t been put into handcuffs.
No one spoke on the ride back to the complex. Louis had confessed to killing Alicia, and now he was dead.
Carter wondered if she should contact Ranielle. She tried to imagine how she’d break it to the executive producer that her husband—and the single most important part of the show—was gone. Somehow, Carter had a feeling Ranielle would be more upset about losing the show than her spouse.
It wasn’t until they were back in the villa, after everyone had done their best to shower away the smell of death, after they’d made their way, zombielike, to the living room couches, that Beck finally broke the silence.
“Should we answer that post on the Domain? From the Real Game Master? Tell them we found the lie?”
Carter swallowed, wanting so badly to deny it, to go on believing the brilliant Game Master was still the same man she’d believed him to be.
I killed Alicia. Can’t live with the guilt anymore.
“No way,” said Sierra. “Why would we?”
Beck shrugged. “They suspected Louis from the start and wanted someone to prove it. They must be dying for an answer. Um. No pun intended.”
“They can find out with the rest of the population,” Sierra said with a growl.
“The police will be going after Ranielle.” Adi frowned. “Lying about Louis’s alibi might be a criminal offense.”
Carter sank deeper into the couch cushions, bone tired. She pinched the bridge of her nose, listening to the clock tick on the wall.
“Why do you think Louis did it?” Beck whispered. “Killed Alicia, I mean.”
“Lover’s spat?” suggested Adi. “Maybe she wanted to end it and he got angry. That would explain the words carved inside the coffin lid.”
“We get what we deserve,”Sierra murmured.
“It could’ve been revenge for her leaving,” Adi said.
Carter drew a steadying breath. “I’m going to have to call my parents. Oh god, they’re going to pull me from the show.”
Adi smiled bitterly. “What show?”
“What do you mean, what show?Theshow! We’re supposed to film the semifinal on Monday!”
