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How can there be more?
Fake news! Where’s the proof? It’s incredibly irresponsible to repeat these baseless rumors
“No, please, no,” Shana begged out loud.
“Alright, I’ll tell you,” JoJo said, as if she weren’t nearly bursting with glee.
“He paid for his side chick with campaign funds,” JoJo said, widening her eyes and pressing her lips into a disappointed pout.
Oh, shit, Shana thought.
“Now a little tip. It’s really important that you don’t add the eggs to the sugar and flour too soon. If you do, you can get what we call sugar burn. Sounds dirty, doesn’t it?” JoJo asked with a sly grin.
Shana wanted to smash JoJo’s smug face.
“As for Senator Sugar Daddy, it looks like the feds have entered the building,” JoJo said. “And there’s going to be a thorough investigation of the senator and his...extracurricular activities.”
Throw his ass in prison!
Lies!
Typical politician
“Now, as far as I can tell,” JoJo said, “there has been no comment from the senator’s camp. But his poor wife and kids, right?”
There was a knock on the door. The sitter was here.
“Oh, and one last thing,” JoJo added as she poured the lemony mixture atop the cooled crust. “There’s a kid. An eight-year-old that is the spitting image of the good senator.”
Shana lowered her face into her hands.
TWENTY-FOUR
THE CONFIDANTE
Once again, Camille found herself lying in her bed, staring up at the ceiling. This time though she was sure the cherubs on the fresco above were staring down at her in judgment. It was after midnight and day three of the competition was looming.
The unfamiliar scents of strangers lingered in the air, and she could hear the night sounds of the other contestants. Rhythmic breathing, the rustle of bed linens, the soft murmurs of sleep. Camille couldn’t sleep. She was too keyed up to rest.
She couldn’t stop thinking about how the puzzle she put together in the challenge was a replica of the Alftan painting she had bought in France. Why? It made no sense. And then the senator had lashed out and given her a shove during the elimination. Yes, she had won the last challenge, but Maire had won the hedge maze and the senator hadn’t turned on her. Was it what Camille had said just before the race began? It’s not like any of us have an eight-year-old boy. But none of them had an eight-year-old boy, so what could that mean? It didn’t make any sense. Nor did any of the other statements she was supposed to say in the presence of the rest of the contestants. All of them seemed ridiculously benign.
She waited until she was certain that the others had fallen asleep before rising from her bed. Every muscle in her body screamed in protest. The obstacle course had pushed her beyond her limits, but somehow she had solved her puzzle and won the Super Clue, which meant nothing to her.
Painfully, she lowered herself to her knees and her hand disappeared into the black abyss beneath the bed. Camille tried to quiet the thoughts of rodents and gnawing insects. Despite the lavishness of the estate, it was old and most likely attracted creatures that felt most at home in dark crevasses. Her fingers snagged on her suitcase and she pulled it out, quietly trying to unzip the front pocket. She reached inside for the folded sheets of paper. She pushed the bag back beneath the bed and moved to the door, wincing when it opened with a rusty creak. She slipped quickly from the room and came face-to-face with the long, dark corridor. Goose bumps erupted on her skin.
The obstacle course had been brutal. The razor wire, the sniper, the scorpions. Her ribs still throbbed from being struck by the paint ball and her calf ached from the scorpion.
Everything about the game seemed to be engineered to keep them off-kilter, unbalanced. Granted, this made sense. The prize was ten million dollars after all, and the creators couldn’t make it easy. Still, there seemed to be something twisted, malevolent even, about the entire game, and it wasn’t exactly bringing out the best in them.
Case in point: Ned Bennett. Ned had no qualms about slicing through their rope on a climbing wall. It was a miracle that Maire hadn’t broken her arm, or worse. Though, Maire was giving as good as she got—she hadn’t hesitated to tase Samuel. Even the seemingly mild-mannered senator looked positively venomous when he learned he was the first to go.
She thought of the two pieces of paper she had hidden in her pocket. The Game Changer and a Super Clue. She wanted to pull them out and examine them again, but it was too dark in the corridor to see.
The Super Clue was a death certificate with all the important parts blackened out. There was no name, no state, no cause of death listed. The only information that she could glean from the document was that the decedent was male and thirty-two years old. It could be anyone from anywhere, at any time in history.
Camille had known a man who had died when he was thirty-two. Or was he thirty-three? She should have remembered this detail, but had destroyed every last bit of the paper trail connecting her to Travis Wingo.
Last December 18 was their final unofficial session, the one where Wingo told her he had run out of money and Camille had told him she couldn’t meet with him any longer. Wingo hadn’t taken it well. The following evening, he was back. Then again and again. Night after night after night until he died.
