The traitors, p.11
The Traitors, page 11
“It’s possible…” Staci said, chewing her lip and staring down at the floor.
“Possible you were adopted after all?” I asked, joining the conversation.
“No. Not me. That’s the thing… Listen, I lied to all of you before. The letter I received in the mail wasn’t for me, not specifically. Maybe your long-lost daughter is my co-host, Jan… I think it was she who was meant to be here, not me.”
Bonnie gasped. “Where is this Jan person?”
Staci shrugged, sheepish. “I don’t really know. At home, I guess. In her apartment in Rock Hill. I should have told her the truth about the letter. And I should have told all of you… I am the impostor,” Staci said.
Chapter Twenty
~NINE O’CLOCK~
Staci
Fewer than forty-five minutes had passed since the confrontation upstairs, but I was still feeling shaken by it. All of it.
I’d been forced to confess—while my scrunchie recorder recorded it all—and tell them about my co-host, Jan. I couldn’t include this part on my channel—it made me look bad. It made me look like a liar, once again, to my viewers.
“It’s not certain that you’re the impostor,” Bonnie said, lifting her fingers in air quotes when she mentioned that term. “You said that the letter was addressed to your channel name, The Forgotten and the Lost, so technically that means you were probably both invited. So, not an impostor, but Jan is missing from our group…”
Bonnie was sitting right next to me on the sofa; I could smell lavender and mint in her hair, and something sweet on her breath. What I really wanted to do was run, get far away from these people … nothing about this experience so far was going as planned.
“Maybe you’re right,” I said, remembering something else. “I’m pretty sure they knew I was coming … I received the paperwork and sent it back to them with my name. If I weren’t meant to be here instead of Jan, wouldn’t someone have stopped me by now? But I’m still pretty sure Jan is who they wanted. She is the real face of the channel…”
“Jan,” Bonnie pressed, trying to get closer to me again. “Can you tell me anything about her?”
I shifted farther away, pressing my hip against the armrest to get away from her.
“Not really. I mean, she’s adopted. But I don’t know many details. Jan is kind. She’s smart … we used to be good friends,” I said, a feeling of guilt and sadness blooming in my chest. It was wrong of me not to share the details with Jan, no matter how pissed at me she was before leaving. After all, she had every reason to be angry with me after I made up that whole audio recording to gain more attention for the crime case.
“I would love to meet her after this. I could even give her my portion of the money. She deserves it after what I did to her,” Bonnie said. Her eyes were watching my every move, searing into my soul, and this time when she scooted closer to me, I had nowhere to go. She reached out and touched my arm.
“Thank you for telling me the truth,” Bonnie said, her hands cold as ice on my forearm.
“No problem,” I said, trying to pull away but Bonnie only gripped me harder.
“I hate to break up this lovely talk of family, but I’m famished, and I need to go get changed for our drinking hour soon,” Penelope said, rising from the wing-backed chair.
The sun outside had dipped below the horizon, darkness sneaking up on us without us realizing it. Bonnie released her grip on me and moved farther down the couch. I sighed audibly with relief.
“Penelope, wait,” I said, calling out to the snooty writer. She seemed cold and rude over dinner, and her response to Lolly and Bonnie’s personal letters had been lukewarm at best.
“You never told us what was in your letter,” I said, relieved to be talking to someone who wasn’t Bonnie. But even from the corner of my eye, I could see her—feel her—watching my every movement.
“Ah, yes,” Penelope said, freezing in the doorway by the hall. “It was impersonal, unlike the others. It just gave clues about who the impostor might be.”
“What clues?” Rad said, turning away from his post at the window, where he’d been watching and waiting for Lolly to return from her angry stroll to “get some air”.
“Wouldn’t you like to know that?” Penelope sniffed.
“I don’t care about the money. I just want to know who’s behind this. And if that means identifying the impostor, and they’re one and the same, then yes I would like to know. And I’m pretty certain that we all agree it’s not that Staci girl,” Rad said, stiffly.
“What about you, Rad?” I said, taking in his beefy, world-weary exterior for the first time. He’d mostly been quiet over dinner, holding back until Lolly forced him to admit who he was, but I remembered reading about him back in the day while doing my crime research. He’d been a drinker and a hothead. Fairly new to the force, he’d gone way too far in his pursuit of local drug dealer, Bobby Reeks. Now, he seemed like a shell of that young man. Instead, he seemed tired and decidedly level-headed.
“I didn’t get a personal note,” Rad said, with a small shrug.
“You didn’t get one? I wonder why…” Bonnie said, finally turning her attention from me to the former cop.
“I have no idea, but I hope to find out soon enough,” Rad said, softly, turning back to the window.
When I looked back down the hallway, Penelope was gone. Back up to her room to get changed, I presumed. Lolly still hadn’t returned, and Cornelius had slipped away right after the incident with Lolly’s letter upstairs, not joining us in the living room for our group discussion. Cornelius claimed that he wanted to explore the castle’s structure and rooms, but I wondered if that were really true. He and I were the only ones who hadn’t shared information with the group about our personal clues…
As though he were thinking the same thing, Rad said, “What did your note say, Staci?”
I shook my head, avoiding his eyes.
“Nothing very interesting. Like Penelope, it just had some vague clues and riddles on it. If you want, I can bring it down to show you later after I go back to my room…”
Rad nodded, looking satisfied. I wondered again if he really didn’t receive a letter, and if so: why not? Why would he lie to us if he did receive one?
Perhaps for the same reason I was lying now, I considered. There was no way I could show him my letter later, so I prayed he’d forget about my offer.
Was it possible that Rad’s letter, or even Penelope’s that she had dodged the answer to, said the same thing as mine?
I didn’t reveal the contents of my letter because it read: The Beechwood killer is here in the house.
Chapter Twenty-One
Lolly
The sun had settled beyond the horizon, final shimmers of twilight catching in the leaves of the treetops, sending mini-sparkles across the pitch-black surface of the pool.
I’d given myself some time to consider it, and now my mind was made up.
I’d come here searching for answers; in my mind, I thought that the killer was still out there, and he was the one taunting me with those letters.
But if there was a killer on the loose in Rock Hill again, or he’d been here all along and just stayed dormant, then I needed to know about it. I needed to finish him off for good, before he tried to kill any more young people again. Like my daughter, only a few years younger than I was at the time of the murders…
But the longer I thought about it, the more convinced I became … the killer probably would have struck again by now, after all these years.
The thought of him still being here was scary, but now there was something else to worry about—something equally unsettling. Someone here was trying to point the finger at me … someone who knew too much about it.
The thought of someone trying to pin the murders on me after all these years, and being carted away to prison, leaving my daughter and dad to fend for themselves … no, that was unacceptable.
I had to leave this place. No amount of money or truth was worth it. Coming here was a dangerous idea in the first place, and staying here after getting that bizarre letter was just plain dumb.
I considered going back inside to tell the others, but first, I wanted to alert the guards out front and Mary Beth that I was leaving the premises. If something went down tonight … I wasn’t going to stick around and get blamed for it. Or worse yet, chased again by another psycho.
I need to get out of here, the sooner the better.
Unsure if I would have to sign something before leaving, I got on my feet and headed for the narrow, twisty, dirt path that would lead me back to the front gates I came in.
As I walked, with the hush of trees whispering all around me and the eyes of critters watching in the dark, I thought about my daughter. Just to see her face and feel safe again back in our home … that alone was priceless. What possibly possessed me to come here in the first place?
It was pitch-dark when the trees parted before me, revealing the long metal fence of the Beechwood estate, and the gates we’d come in through only hours earlier. As I approached, an uneasy hush fell over me—the gates were locked tight, as expected. But there were no guards on duty in sight.
Someone had locked us in here. Probably someone who had no plans to let us out, I thought, fearfully, heading down the path for the guesthouse to find our hostess, Mary Beth Penner.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Cornelius
As soon as I heard Staci’s confession, I knew what I had to do. While the others kept talking and gathered in the sitting room by the old fireplace, I slipped away, excusing myself to go to the kitchen. But it wasn’t the kitchen I was looking for; it was the room in the hallway behind it. The library.
It wasn’t much of a library at all—a pitiful collection of twenty dog-eared paperbacks and several worn-out hardcovers collecting dust in a central alcove. I headed straight for the desk, trying to remember what I was supposed to do when I was ready to make my guess on the impostor.
When I saw the blank envelopes and slips of paper, it came back to me. I scribbled my name on the outside of the envelope, then wrote ‘STACI’ in all caps. Tucking my paper inside it, I licked the envelope and sealed it tight. There. All done.
It wasn’t much of a guess, considering that Staci had all but confessed to coming in her roommate’s place. What a bitch!
I waved the envelope in the air and did a full spin, eyeing the walls for cameras.
There didn’t appear to be any.
I hope Staci’s admission doesn’t nullify my guess, I thought, feeling flickers of doubt. But that wouldn’t be fair! Perhaps I could even sue the owner if they refused to pay my 500k, since there was nothing in the original letter at dinner that specified someone couldn’t confess if they were indeed the impostor.
What if she isn’t though, really? What if she made that up to get others to guess, just so she could make us guess early and give herself more chances at the money…? My heart pounded in my chest as I gripped the letter tightly, knuckles whitening.
I would feel like an absolute moron if that were the case, but then again … Staci didn’t look smart enough to pull that off. She seemed like a stupid, naïve girl, to me. And her confession sounded pretty genuine. I thought back to their strange conversation in the hallway upstairs. Who cares if that weird bitch Bonnie is Staci’s mom? It probably isn’t true anyway. Don’t these morons realize that our real host is just fucking with us, playing some sort of game and creating confusion, as well as distractions…?
“What am I supposed to do now?” I said, wandering around the room. But then the final step hit me. I needed to open the under-desk drawer and place my guess inside. Duh. How could I forget?
When I opened the drawer, I expected to find it empty. But there was an envelope inside it, and it was addressed to me. I took it out and slid my guess envelope in its place. The letter had short instructions:
Behind the books, you will find a tool. Take the tool to Staci’s room and use it to pry the false door open in the wall. Your prize awaits you beyond that door.
They’d already given me a hint about the turret, and I knew where the false wall was. It was almost insulting that they’d gone above and beyond to make sure I knew where to go. Nevertheless, I let the insult roll off my shoulders, trying to focus on the extra 500 g’s, in addition to my 166k for staying, that I was set to collect.
One by one, I pulled the books forward on the shelf, exposing the brick wall behind them. When I reached the sixth book, I saw a shiny flash of metal. Quickly, I shoved aside the other books around it. There was an ax on the wall, anchored with industrial hooks. I lifted it off the hooks and examined it, then frantically looked behind me to make sure no one else was coming.
Well, this is an interesting “tool”, I thought warily.
Carefully, I tucked the letter in my pocket and slid the ax in the back waistband of my pants. It felt sharp and dangerous pressed against my skin, but I tucked my shirt down over it and made for the stairs.
There were voices floating through the dining hall and entering the kitchen as I moved quietly toward the staircase to Staci’s room. I could hear her in there, still chatting with the others.
“It’s not certain that you’re the impostor,” Bonnie was saying to Staci. “You said that the letter was addressed to your channel name, The Forgotten and the Lost, so technically that means you were probably both invited. So, not an impostor…”
I froze, mid-step, in the doorway of the dining hall.
“Maybe you’re right,” Staci said, and I wanted to walk in that room and smack her right across the face. She’d better not be right, I thought, angrily. If so, you cost me 500k. Well, 600k actually, because that means my time here is over if I guessed incorrectly…
As I turned down the hallway and breached the steps, no one called out for me or seemed to notice I was there.
Upstairs, I went to the end of the hallway and slipped inside Staci’s room once again.
“Please be the impostor,” I muttered, staring at Staci’s belongings on the floor. Please.
As I stood in front of the false veneer stone section of the wall, I noticed, for the first time, a small gap between two fake stones.
I inserted the sharp blade of the ax in the crevice and grunted with exertion as I pried at the fake stones. It took several tries, my body filling with panic, fear, and excitement all at once, but finally, I was able to pull the edge of the wall open a couple of centimeters. I pried it open the rest of the way with the ax, and then my fingers, releasing the false door with a satisfying sucking sound. The door sounded like a small child, releasing a long-held breath.
I pulled the door the rest of the way open, stepping into the bitterly cold, round room that used to serve as a lookout for the estate. Impulsively, I pulled the door halfway closed behind me, then went straight over to the slitted windows to look out over the property.
“Jesus.” The view was tremendous—a flowing expanse of leafy, mature trees, and the small smudge of mountains and hills far in the distance of Rock Hill.
Up here, I felt on top of the world, like a true soldier protecting his land.
I was so distracted that I almost didn’t hear the shuffling sounds behind me.
“Hello?” I whipped around and saw the flash of eyes in the corner of the tower. Someone was there, crouching in the corner … waiting for me in the dark.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Penelope
Despite the shoddy rooming arrangements, I was relieved to be back in my own space, with my notes and my own thoughts. Flipping my handheld notebook open, I stared at the five names written on the paper.
Rad, the irresponsible and failed cop.
Cornelius, the arrogant architect with a penchant for jacking off in inappropriate places.
Bonnie, the psychic turned fraudster who abandoned her own child.
Staci, the imitation true crime detective who lied to her viewers and was left behind as a baby by her own mother despite her earlier claims.
Lolly, the sad single-mother with an arsenal of trauma bulging from her closet.
I felt sorry for a couple of them, but most of them I didn’t. And I knew a lot more about them than I’d written in my notes so far. But I wouldn’t let them know that … and I definitely couldn’t share what was in my personal letter. If they knew what my letter said, then they’d all be ready to kill me … or throw me out of here, at the very least.
I paused writing. There it was again. A small thud and then a sucking noise, coming from down the hallway. What the hell are my fellow houseguests up to now?
I crept to the door of my room and pressed my ear against the rough-cut wood. I waited a few moments, but the sound didn’t return.
“Ah!” A loud knock rang out by my ear, on the other side of the door, nearly sending me into cardiac arrest. I clutched my chest, remembering that I’d need to take my heart pill I brought with me later.
“Who is it?” I demanded, my voice shakier than I’d like it to be.
“It’s me,” came a voice on the other end. Bonnie, the psychic fraudster and piss-poor mother. Great.
“What do you want?”
“Uh … sorry if I disturbed you. It’s almost ten o’clock. Our hostess should be back soon, for snacks and drinks. Remember?” Bonnie said, her own voice shaky on the other side.
“Of course I remember. I’ll be down when I’m ready.”
“Fine,” Bonnie said. I listened to her footsteps as she walked down the hallway, glad to be rid of her. Like all the others, she definitely couldn’t be trusted.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Bonnie
Penelope Jewel was the worst, I thought, clenching my jaw in anger and moved toward the end of the hallway to Staci’s room. Like Penelope’s door, Staci’s was closed too. I knocked, waited. Then I knocked some more. Finally, I pressed my hand to the door with my eyes closed. I could feel someone there on the other side of it—or so I thought—but if Staci were in there, she didn’t want to talk to me.
