03
Adi
“Why did you audition forThe Escape Game, Mr. Parvesh?”
Adi spun around in the desk chair—the one his mother had reupholstered in ostrich leather—stopping to face the woman on the video call. She looked fresh out of grad school, her self-importance bolstered by her shiny new psychology degree.
“I didn’t,” he said.
“You didn’t?”
“Nope.” He said the word slowly, popping thep. His fingers trailed along a lampshade made of hundreds of Swarovski crystals. “The audition was my mother’s doing. She made some deal with the executive producer, and . . . here we are.” Adi wasn’t privy to the details of this deal, but knowing his mother, there was something in it for her. Typical Symphony. Clamber over everyone on her way to the top, giving them a swift kick in the face as she went.
“So you don’t want to be on the show?” the therapist asked.
“I didn’t say that.”
The therapist waited.
Adi considered his words carefully. “Let’s just say . . . puzzle-solving’s in my blood.”
“Care to elaborate?”
“No.”
She had to know about his dad. Someone would’ve sent her an email at least.
“All right,” she said, picking up a pen. “But you enjoy escape rooms?”
“Hell yeah. I’ve been obsessed ever since I went to one for a sixth-grade field trip. I’ve done every online room available.”
“Online?” the therapist said, scribbling diligently. “Not with friends?”
Adi grimaced.
The therapist’s pen paused. “Would you say you’re a team player, Aditya?”
A crystal snapped off in his fingers. With a wince, he tucked it into his jeans pocket. “Of course I’m a team player. I love people.”
“I see.” She resumed tapping. “No family members interested in joining you? Siblings? Cousins?”
No, in fact, he did not have a community to fall back on. When his mother ran away from her parents in her teens, she ensured his existence was wiped from the family tree, just like she ensured he grew up as American as her favorite television shows.
As if he were going down that rabbit hole with a one-off therapist. “Look, Doc, let’s not waste any more time. I’m already guaranteed a spot.” He didn’t admit it, but that had been the biggest shock—when Ranielle Russell had called and confirmed it to him directly. Up until that moment, he’d assumed this was one of Symphony’s delusions, like that time some review had praised her character’s death as an Oscar-worthy performance and his mother thought she’dactuallybeen nominated for an Oscar.
The shrink tapped her pen on her notepad. “Reality television attracts a wide range of applicants. I’m here to make sure—”
“There’s not a repeat of last season?”
She didn’t miss a beat. “How do you feel about the murder of Alicia Angelos?”
He remembered reading the announcement—Symphony had been in another hellish mood, and he’d thought that yeah, his life was bad, but it wasn’t found-murdered-on-a-reality-game-show bad. Perspective, etc.
He shrugged. “Sad that she died.”
“Alicia didn’t just die.”
“No. She was killed by her wacko sister.”
