Beck frowned. “How wasn’t there more DNA left behind?”
“Alicia was a nail-biter,” said Sierra. “Even if she fought back, her nails were too short, so there was nothing to find. And the killer was wearing gloves to keep their DNA from getting in her mouth.”
“What’s this?” said Adi, picking up a photo of a short, handwritten message. “At first I thought we had two different photos of the suicide note.”
“Oh, sorry,” said Carter. “It’s a picture I took in the dressing room before the snag round. That was written on the bottom of a photo. I thought we could use it to compare the handwriting on the suicide note.”
“Good idea,” said Beck. “Either Ranielle forced Louis to write the note under duress or she forged it. It would be great if we had a way to prove that to the police.”
They gathered around the two photos.
This is just the beginning . —L ouis
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.
“Does anyone else think something feels off about the suicide note?” asked Adi.
“Like the fact that he didn’t commit suicide?” said Sierra. “Or that he confessed to a murder we’re pretty sure he didn’t commit?”
“I mean, yeah. But there’s something . . .” Adi listed his head to the side.
“How about the ‘Tell Rani I love her’ part?” said Beck. “That feels a bit tongue-in-cheek.”
“Yeah, maybe that’s it,” said Adi, sounding unconvinced.
“His handwriting was very distinct,” Beck added, wondering if uniqueness made handwriting easier or more difficult to replicate. “I like how he does hisys andgs.” He pointed to thegin “guilt,” with its flourishing swirl of a tail.
“Yeah,” said Carter. “He replied to one of my fan letters once. I thought his handwriting was so classy I actually tried to make mine more like his—but I was never very good at cursive.” A shadow fell over her face. “It was only a postcard, but it meant a lot to me at the time.”
Sierra put an arm around Carter, giving her a squeeze.
“Part of me wishes I’d never found out about the affair,” Carter said. “That I could still think of him as the Game Master.” Her brow furrowed as she stared at the suicide note. “Hold on,” she whispered. “Holdon.”
Sierra’s arm fell from her shoulders as Carter picked up the two photos—the bottom of the picture in the dressing room and the suicide note.
“Thegs,” she whispered. “Beck. You’re right!”
He blinked. “I am?”
“Give me a second.” Grabbing her phone, Carter made a call as she stepped out of the room. “Yeah, Dad? I need you to do me a huge favor. In my bedroom, there’s a postcard—”
Barely a minute had passed before Carter burst back into the hotel room. “Thegs!” she shouted, slamming the phone down on the bed. They were looking at a photo of the back of a postcard, and what was becoming familiar script.
Carter Kelly— Thanks for the fun puzzle.Keep solving! —Louis
Adi made a face. “That’s it? That’s all he wrote?”
Carter shoved him on the shoulder. “Shut up. He’s a . . .wasa busy guy. But look. Look at thegs!”
The difference was immediately obvious. Thegs on the postcard curled in a completely different way from the photograph signature.
“Okay?” said Adi, eyeing her warily. “People change their handwriting sometimes, especially people who pride themselves on—”
“Exactly!” interrupted Carter. She pointed to the photograph and then the postcard. “Sometime between season one, when he wrote this, and season three, when he sent me a postcard, he changed his writing style. But the suicide note is using theoldgs.” A grin split her face. “Proof that it was forged. And if it was forged . . .”
“Then the confession is meaningless,” said Beck.
“And now,” said Adi, “the police know Ranielle was lying about the alibi, which means Louis was lying, too, which would make her the prime suspect in both cases.”
