“She was eighteen,” said Sierra, and with those words, her dismay hardened into something else. Revulsion. As if Alicia hadn’t already been through enough for one lifetime.
Sierra turned away, pacing back and forth across the rug. “What a predator. It may not have been statutory rape, but it was still fucked. For one, he’s married. Two, he’s almost twenty years older than her. And three—that is such a disgusting power imbalance! She had no money. She was desperate to win the show and score the final prize. He was . . . Howcouldhe? To my sister!” She was practically shouting now, and when she picked up a throw pillow and whacked it repeatedly against the back of the sofa, no one tried to stop her. “Gross! Disgusting! Manipulative! Men!”
She paused to catch her breath, some of the anger fading as she looked over at Beck and Adi. “Not you. But . . .ugh.”
“We get it,” said Adi.
“Yeah,” agreed Beck. “Totally fair.”
Sierra hurled herself onto the couch and screamed into the pillow.
“So . . .” Carter started. “Does this mean . . . What do we think this means, exactly?” She sounded distressed. Sierra lifted her face to look at her. She knew enough about Kick It Carter, who idolized the Game Master, to know this was a huge blow for her, too.
“It’s usually the boyfriend or the husband,” said Beck. “At least, according to every true crime show ever. So . . .” He trailed off, like he couldn’t quite find the words to say what they were thinking.
But Sierra could.
Her sister had been afraid that something would happen to her, and then . . . and then . . .
Sierra shut her eyes, seeing what she always saw now. Alicia in the coffin, her body pale, stiff,wet. In a way, the drenching of her corpse was a violation all on its own.
She sat up, squeezing the life from the throw pillow. “It was the Game Master,” she said. “That bastard killed my sister.”
30
Adi
“We shouldn’t jump to conclusions,” said Adi. He was still studying the note, trying to figure out the patterns, but so far was at a loss. The stilted language, the odd punctuation, the typos . . . Clearly there was more to it, something Alicia had wanted only Sierra to figure out. “We need to decode the rest of this message.”
Carter peered over his shoulder. “What do you think all the strikethroughs mean?”
“Not sure. Give me a minute.”
“She wasn’tthatsmart,” Sierra said. “How did she write a code that’s too complicated for you?”
“I’ve had it for like twenty seconds!”
“Also, this,” said Beck, peering over Adi’s other shoulder and pointing to the bottom of the page. “ ‘Do not trust the Russells.’ Russells, plural.”
“Louis is smart enough to pull off a murder,” said Adi. “He had access to Aliciaandthe finale room where she was found . . .”
“And Ranielle was his alibi,” said Beck. “What if she was lying for him?”
Carter shook her head. “Why would Ranielle lie for her husband if he was having an affair? This letter only raises more questions.”
Adi narrowed his eyes. “You just don’t want to believe your precious Game Master could be a murderer.”
“Hey!” said Carter, looking truly appalled. “We just learned that mypreciousGame Master is a lying, cheating scumbag, and yeah, I’m not thrilled about it, but I’d say I’m handling the news pretty well.” She waved at the letter in his hand. “Just because Alicia had some personal drama with the Russells doesn’t mean Louis killed her.”
Beck’s eyes widened. “Maybe they killed hertogether!” He slapped his hands to his cheeks. “That’s where Alicia was disappearing to all the time! She was meeting with Louis!”
“No,” Sierra said. “Well . . . I mean, maybe sometimes. But there was also a time she vanished right before filming an elimination round. Louis and Fitzy were both on set. I remember it specifically because it ruled out Fitzy as my top suspect for who she was cheating with—in both senses of the word. But then I figured maybe that time she was just going somewhere else.”
“Like where?” Beck said.
Sierra shrugged.
“We need to step back and really think this through,” Carter said. “Would you read the letter out loud again?”
