“That’s why Alicia said she’d give me her share of the prize money if she won,” Sierra whispered. “She was moving on to bigger and better things.”
“But wasn’t she blackmailing Ranielle about her affair with Louis?” Carter said.
Sierra shook her head. “I see what happened now. She planned to blackmail the Russells and knew it was dangerous, so she left that note for me in the painting. But when she confronted them, Ranielle told her she had something better than a one-off payment. She was going to give her a high-profile job in Hollywood. That’s why Alicia’s behavior changed from being scared to downright arrogant.”
Adi’s mind was working overtime. “And the killer didn’t want her to take the job. He’d have too much to lose if she did.” He looked down at the small white rock still in his hand.
Not a crystal. A shark tooth.
The relic—the evidence—left behind.
He curled his fingers around the pendant. “Did he know?”
“He wasn’t supposed to,” Vera said. “But I guess he found out. That’s what I believe the message on Alicia’s coffin was supposed to mean.We get what we deserve.It was aimed at Ranielle, because he thought he’d lost his job and wanted to take the show down with him. The guy’s unhinged.”
He’d killed Louis, assuming Louis had been planting the clues. He’d realized the “relic” from the poem was his missing shark tooth—Adi had even caught him searching the Game Master’s dressing room . . .
“Fitzy,” Carter said in alarm, the name little more than a disbelieving gasp.
“It was Fitzy,” Adi whispered, clenching his fist tighter around the shark tooth. He felt the urgent need to apologize—for what, he wasn’t sure.
But Carter was staring beyond him, at the set door. And as he turned, he already half knew what he was going to see.
James “Fitzy” Fitzgerald, the show’s beloved Australian nincompoop, was standing there.
And he was holding a gun.
48
Carter
A gun. He had agun. It couldn’t be real. Because what wouldFitzy, her Fitzy, be doing with a gun?
But the moment passed and her denial dissolved into a chill down her spine.
Fitzy had killed Alicia.
He wasn’t going to . . .
He couldn’t actually . . .
Cold sweat beaded on the back of her neck as Fitzy strolled toward them.
At least he didn’t look maniacal. Actually, he looked mildly irritated.
“Goddamn it,” he said. “What are you doing here?”
Carter didn’t realize she was retreating until her back collided with the wall, nearly knocking one of the skeletons off its hook. The clack of the bones drew Fitzy’s attention to her, and she shivered.
He narrowed his eyes. “You shouldn’t be here.” He turned his gun to Vera. “Clever influencer wannabe. I thought it was Louis, but you loved taunting me with how wrong that was, didn’t you? I had to bug Ranielle’s office to figure out what the hell was going on. Wasn’t until I heard the two of you discussing the puzzles for the finale that it clicked. TheRealGame Master. Shit, Vee, have you been behind this show the whole time?”
For a bizarre moment, Carter was put off by the fact that Fitzy, family-friendly game show host, was swearing.
“You bastard,” Vera snarled under her breath. “You’ve made my life a living hell.”
“Hey, at least I have some respect for you now. Isn’t that worth something?” Fitzy jerked his gun toward the back corner. “All of you, stand there.”
The others shuffled, silent, panicked, between the wooden door and a skeleton, but Carter couldn’t move. Her entire body was numb.
