Abruptly, the music cut off altogether. The dancers stopped moving. The ballroom lights faded, leaving the scene in shadows.
Sebastian chortled. Taking that as a good sign, Owen stepped onto the fractured dance floor. Shards of mirror crunched beneath his boots but the underlying platform that supported the dance floor held.
“Let’s go,” he said.
He reached for Alice’s hand. She gave it to him without any hesitation and stepped up onto the dance floor. Sebastian raised no objections when they started weaving their way through the now-frozen dancers. Once again, Owen took that as a good sign.
They reached the far side without incident and stepped down.
“Can I breathe now?” Alice asked.
Owen grunted. “I was holding my breath, too.”
“Looks like Rose Ash’s clue was genuine. ‘Ignore the obvious. It will lead to your death.’ ”
“Congratulations on winning the first of the three games,”the disembodied Voice said.“You are now invited to the Museum of Perfect Crimes.”
The door markedThe Only Way Outslammed open.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Alice, with a ready-to-rumble Sebastianon her shoulder, followed Owen into another shadowy chamber. The door shut behind them. She heard the loud click of a lock and knew there would be no retreat into the ballroom.
The lights came up, illuminating a series of half-sized model rooms arranged in two facing rows. There were eight scenes in all. At the back of the room, six doors were installed in the wall. A sign on each read,Is This the Way Out?
“Only one of the doors will allow you to enter the third and final game,”the voice said.“Opening any of the others will result in the release of a poisonous vapor that will drive you mad and kill you within minutes. You have one chance to identify the winning door.”
“Why a display of perfect crimes?” Alice said.
“The Gamer was a perfectionist,” Owen explained. “He believed hewas invincible because his crimes were planned meticulously. But everyone makes mistakes, including him. He could not resist taking a trophy from each abduction scene, and in the end that was how they caught him. A brilliant para-psychologist—Dr. Anna Gordon—identified the type of souvenirs the killer was collecting and used that information to build a psi profile that proved to be extremely accurate. The task force picked him up in the middle of what was supposed to be his ninth perfect kidnapping and murder.”
“The intended victim must have been incredibly grateful as well as traumatized.”
“The final victim was supposed to be Dr. Gordon. The task force set a trap, using her as bait. But the plan went sideways. According to the transcript of the debriefing interview, when the agents crashed through the door of her office just as the Gamer was about to overpower her, Gordon’s first words were,‘What the fuck took you so long?’ ”
“Sounds like an interesting woman. Unfortunately, I don’t think anyone is going to break down any doors for us.”
“No, we’re on our own.”
Owen walked toward the first model room.
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
“According to Gordon’s psi profile, Yardley was obsessed with having his so-called art admired. He probably constructed these models so that he could enjoy reliving scenes of his own handiwork. He must have intended them as his legacy. I don’t think he would have sabotaged them.”
“You’re the expert here, butdon’t touch anything.”
“I won’t,” he promised.
She watched him stop at the first model and examine the scene. After a moment, Sebastian vaulted down to the floor and hustled across the space to join him. Together they studied the tableau.
“No souvenirs, Sebastian,” she said sternly.
“Hmm,” Owen said. “This is interesting.”
“No offense,” Alice said, “but this is not a great time to go into consultant mode.”
“I’m just gathering information. I studied the psi profile that Gordon did on Luxton Yardley, but it’s been a while. The authorities obviously never discovered these rooms. They never even knew about the hotel. There may be useful information here. The more we learn about the monster, the more likely we are to survive.”
