icewillbemine
“Okay teams look alive. . .” Carter read, as Adi rewrote the message at the bottom of the page, adding breaks and punctuation, revealing the clue that, even solved, struck Carter as unnecessarily cryptic.
Okay, teams, look alive.
Search the clues, spot the lie.
By the coffin, I did find
A relic that was left behind.
An arrest could not be justified,
But the killer won’t escape this time.
At the finale, justice will be mine.
Carter looked at Sierra, trying to judge her reaction, but Sierra was expressionless.
After a long silence, Sierra said, “Put the solution on the Domain.”
Carter blinked. “What?”
“Whoever posted that wanted it to be solved, and we solved it. So put it up now before someone else figures it out.”
“But . . . why?”
Sierra shot her a disgruntled look. “Are you effing Kick It Carter, or not?”
Carter grabbed her phone. “Yeah. Okay. Fine.” She transcribed the message into a comment below the picture of the ribbon code. W hen she was finished, she took an uncertain breath, hoping this wasn’t something Ranielle Russell would be mad about, and hit post.
“But what does it mean?” asked Beck. “What clues? What relic?”
“By the coffin I did find. . .” read Adi. “Maybe the killer dropped something that night?”
“Okay,” said Carter, “but then why didn’t this so-called Real Game Master tell the police?”
“It sounds like they did,” said Beck. “Or at least, they tried to, but either the police didn’t believe them, or it wasn’t enough to make an arrest. It would be easy for the killer to say they’d dropped something the day before.”
“Maybe the Real Game Master is one of their suspects,” Sierra mused. “Maybe the police thought the story was fake, as a deflection. They never believed me, either.”
“Was Louis a suspect?” said Carter, setting down the phone.
“Everyone’s a suspect,” said Sierra. “But he may not be the one planting these clues.”
“Ithasto be him. Who else has control of the rooms?”
Sierra shrugged. “It would be easy enough to slip a ribbon into the room.”
“What about the Alicia anagram?” Adi said. “That was linked to the padlock code. A puzzle within a puzzle. It has the Game Master written all over it.”
“Possibly a publicity stunt,” said Sierra offhandedly. “The producers trying to drum up ratings.”
Beck frowned. “You are the most cynical person I’ve ever met.”
“Thank you,” said Sierra.
Carter’s phone dinged with a new notification. “They responded! The Real Game Master, whoever that is.”
