“Doesn’t surprise me.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that when we had class together last semester, you never questioned the professor. You just took his assignments and did them. People in cults do that too.”
I laugh out loud.
“That’s the whole point of going to college. To listen and learn. Sorry I wasn’t you and had a reason to object to our assignments every single day.”
“Hey, it’s thanks to me that we got out of a few quizzes, now, isn’t it?”
I nod. “Yes, but I also remember one essay that was extended by two thousand words thanks to you.”
“Once. It happened once.”
We both laugh as we make our way to check-in.
“Hi there, do you have a reservation?” the man asks.
“Yes, it’s under Quinn.”
“Quinn . . . got it. For Death in Room Five.”
“Death in Room Five,” Mark repeats rather loudly as his eyes widen.
“It’ll be fun. Relax.”
“Sounds relaxing.” His voice drips with sarcasm.
We follow the employee back to one of the doors where he goes into a monologue about how there were six patients in an insane asylum and the one in room five was murdered. We have to put the clues together to find out who did it. Was it one of the other four patients or the night nurse?
As soon as he locks us in the room, a timer on the wall starts a one-hour countdown.
“Huh.” Mark spins in a circle to take in the room. It looks like an operation room in a hospital, but one that is a mess, like a fight occurred before someone died.
“What?” I ask, beginning to pick up random items, looking for clues.
“The last thing I would have expected today was for you to pick something that locked us in a room together.”
Oh. I never thought of that. Until this moment, I almost forgot we haven’t spoken much lately.
“You get what you get,’’ I say, focusing on finding the first piece to the game. “I still can’t believe you called me yesterday. June and I barely talk on the phone. It feels so . . . junior high.”
“Yeah, it did, but Ms. Coraline insisted I had to call in person. She’s going to be thrilled to hear you picked something that could easily be interpreted as team building.”
“Who is Ms. Coraline?”
His back stiffens as he picks up a book and looks under it.
“Um, my neighbor.”
I cross my arms and smirk.
“You were with your neighbor at seven in the morning and decided to call me?”
“Yep.”
“Well, that’s not weird or anything. Do you two talk about me often?”
