Jerry pointed to the door next to him.
“Okay, let me think.” I moved to stand just inside Jerry’s room and then turned to study the main room.
The big gift in the center of the table was visible, of course, as were a few of the smaller gifts surrounding it. I could read only a few of the names in front of them, including Jerry’s. I couldn’t see the spilled hot cocoa, but I could see Lewis’s covered foot.
But what if he didn’t look down? If Jerry had opened the door, saw no one else had escaped, and then chose to remain inside, he might not have thought to look at the floor. The big gift would have drawn his eye. He might not have even glanced Lewis’s way.
“Carol was the next one out of her room?” I asked, to be sure. Her door was across the way, and one to the left of where I stood. That would put her door right in line with the body.
“She was,” Jerry said.
I played it over in my mind again. I heard the scream and was last out of my room. That meant everyone had escaped at near the same time, all within a few seconds of one another. There wouldn’t have been time for anyone to swap out the mugs, if that was indeed what had happened.
A thought hit. “Bob, when I tried to contact you using the mic in my room, it took you a while to respond.”
“So?”
“So, what were you doing?”
He glared at me. “What do you think? I was trying to find a way out and it took me a minute to find the mic.”
“You didn’t sneak out early?”
“How could I? I didn’t have the code.”
As far as I knew, none of us did. It was possible someone had found a way out of their room, but the more I thought about it, the more unlikely it seemed. It took three people to produce a code to escape our initial rooms. And while it was possible to guess the code, it wouldn’t be easy.
Another memory surfaced then: Carol coming from the escape room before the event had started.
Could she not only have discovered Lewis’s body, but have also been responsible for causing his death as well?
There was only one way to find out.
Chapter Five
“Carol?” I knocked on her door with the back of my hand. “You in there?”
The room behind me was silent. Everyone was watching. Rita stood next to me, hands on her hips, foot tapping. I was afraid that if Carol tried to hide in the room much longer, Rita might break the door down and drag her out of there, like an angry mother might a disobedient child.
A shuffle from inside told me that Carol hadn’t found another way to escape the room. That was a positive, I supposed.
“Carol,” I said as gently as I could. “We need to talk.”
“Leave me alone,” she said. It sounded like she was leaning against the door, not cowering across the room. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“No one said you did.” I shot a warning look at Rita, who’d opened her mouth to speak. “We’re trying to piece things together, and since you were in here before we started, you might have seen something that can help us do that.”
Another shuffle. “I’m not coming out.”
While I could ask my questions through the door, I didn’t want to. Lies could sometimes be seen on a person’s face. Their eyes might dart away, their cheeks, ears, and neck might redden. I needed to know I could trust Carol Kline, and I couldn’t do that with a slab of wood between us.
“Please,” I said. “No one is going to hurt you.”
Her laugh was sharp and was void of humor. “Tell that to Mr. Coates.”
I glanced at the gathering behind me. Only June and Troy stood close to one another. Everyone else was spread around the room, shooting distrustful looks at everyone else. If we didn’t get to the bottom of Lewis’s death soon, I was afraid we’d start having more outbreaks like the one between Jerry and Bob.
“We’re all out here now,” I said, turning my focus back to Carol and the door she hid behind. “Whoever killed Lewis isn’t going to try anything with all of us here. I promise you’ll be safe.”
“Unless she’s the one who killed him,” Yuri muttered. I scowled at him, which caused him to raise both hands in front of him in mock surrender.
“Carol,” I said when the door didn’t open. “Please. You can’t hide in there forever. We’re going to need to work together to get out of here. We need you for that.”
“Someone will come for us.”
“Who?” I asked. “It could be hours before anyone realizes something is amiss.” All my friends would assume Rita and I had stopped for something to eat after the escape room if I didn’t show soon. I was pretty sure it would be much the same for everyone else. “Come on out. We can talk and plan our next move together. I promise we’ll keep you safe.”
There was a long stretch of silence where I started to wonder if perhaps she’d moved away from the door and was quietly searching for another way out of the room, one that would prevent her from having to face the rest of us. Then there was a faint sound, a muted click. A moment later, the door opened and Carol Kline stepped out of her room.
Lewis’s death had affected her greatly. Already, her eyes were red and sunken in as if she’d spent hours crying. Her once-vibrant face looked hollow and drawn. She didn’t look like a woman mourning a stranger, but, rather, a close friend.
“I didn’t do anything,” she said, meeting my eye. “This is too much for me.” Her gaze flickered to Lewis before she squeezed her eyes shut.
I took her gently by the arm and led her away from the door, to an empty corner of the room where Lewis’s body wasn’t visible. The red and green Christmas lights did her no favors as she stood beneath them, next to a child’s rocking horse made up to look like a Clydesdale.
“I’m trying to figure out exactly what happened,” I told her. “So I’m going to ask you a few questions. I’m not accusing you of anything. I’m simply trying to get the facts and organize a timeline. Would that be okay?”
She nodded, but her expression didn’t change. “You might not be accusing me of anything, but they are.”
I glanced back toward where both Yuri and Bob had drawn near. I gave them each a warning look to keep back, before turning my focus back to Carol.
“Everyone’s scared,” I said. “Don’t worry about them and just tell the truth. If you do that, there’s nothing to be frightened of.”
Carol took a moment to simply breathe before she spoke again. “I don’t know what I can tell you. I didn’t see anything other than Mr. Coates. He was already dead by then.”
“You didn’t see anyone else in the room at the time?”
She shook her head. “As far as I am aware, I was the first to escape.” Her eyes drifted back toward her door. I could tell she longed to lock herself back inside.
“You didn’t see Jerry?” I asked, pointing him out in case she’d forgotten who he was.
“I didn’t,” she said. “When I opened my door, all I saw was Mr. Coates. It took me a few seconds to process what I was seeing, and I may have screamed.” Her face flushed at that. “I didn’t mean to. It was just so shocking.”
“I totally understand,” I said. “I might have done the same if it had been me.”
“I wasn’t sure what to do with myself.” Carol wrapped her arms around her midsection. “Then everyone started piling out of their rooms, causing a ruckus. I hoped that it was all part of the game, that Lewis would pop up and tell us everything was okay, but he didn’t.” Tears welled in her eyes as she repeated, “He didn’t.”
“Did you know Lewis well?” I asked.
Carol shook her head. “I’d never met him before today. I knew his name, of course, but this was the first time we had a chance to meet.”
I wondered if she was telling the truth, since she seemed pretty upset by his death. Then again, finding a dead body did things to a person, whether you knew the victim or not. Carol Kline seemed as if she might be empathic, so it’s entirely possible she’d have the same reaction to someon
e she’d never laid eyes upon before in her life.
“You came into the room before we got started, right?” I asked her, moving on to what I’d originally wanted to know.
“I did,” she said, lowering her eyes to look at her folded arms. “I didn’t realize how angry Mr. Coates would be if he caught me. I just wanted a peek. There was nothing malicious in it.”
“Did you come all the way into the room?” I asked her. “Or did you stop in the hall outside our individual rooms?”
“All the doors were open at the time,” she said. “So I came in. I knew I wasn’t supposed to, but figured there would be little harm in it. I suppose I was trying to cheat a little too, get a head start, if you know what I mean? I wanted us to escape and thought that if I saw the layout before we got started, I could work through it faster.”
“I doubt anyone would hold that against you,” I said, offering her a reassuring smile before going on. “Did you see anything when you came in?”
“See anything?” she asked. “Like what?”
“Was someone else in the room? A stranger perhaps?”
“A stranger? Do you mean like someone who snuck in?”
Honestly, I wasn’t sure what I’d meant, but I nodded anyway.
“No,” Carol said. “I was the only one inside. I suppose someone else might have been here, since I didn’t go through all the little side rooms, but if they were, I sure didn’t see them.”
“What about the main room itself?” I asked. “Was it the same as when you saw it the first time, after you escaped?”
She frowned, eyes going briefly distant. “I’m not sure. I mean, I think it was, but it wasn’t like I stuck around for long. I came in, took a quick walk around the big gift in the middle of the room, and then I headed out to join the rest of you. After I escaped my room, I didn’t see much else other than Mr. Coates.” She paled slightly, but seemed to be handling his death a little better now that she was talking it out.
“Take a quick look.” I took a step to the side so she could see the room better. “Is anything different? Anything at all?”
Carol scanned the room. Her gaze lingered on the others, as if weighing their thoughts before she truly started focusing on the objects set up around the room.
While she did that, Rita leaned in close and whispered, “Do you think she did it?”
“I don’t know,” I said, watching Carol carefully. If she killed Lewis, I was hoping she’d give something away while looking around the room. What? I had no idea. I wasn’t even sure I’d know it when I saw it.
Carol walked around the outside edge of the space, taking everything in bit by bit. I followed in her wake, giving her room to work without feeling stifled, but not straying too far away, just in case she made a run for it.
Then her breath caught and she took a hesitant step forward, brow furrowing. She glanced at me, then back toward where Lewis lay.
“What is it?” I asked her. I met Yuri’s eye. He was frowning hard at where Carol was looking.
“The mug,” she said. “It’s different.”
“We already figured that out,” Bob said.
“No, I mean, it was like all the others earlier,” she said. “It didn’t register until now.”
“Are you sure?” I asked. If what she was saying was true, that meant the killer was likely in the room with us now. A part of me had hoped the poisoned mug had been placed before the escape room had begun.
“I’m sure,” she said. “When I walked around the table, I read every name.” She glanced up and shrugged when she saw how some of the others were looking at her. “I was curious to see if I recognized any of you, had you in class.”
“Did you?” I asked.
Another shrug. “First names don’t really help,” she said. “As a former teacher, I’ve seen them all at least a dozen times over.” She took another step toward the table, but kept well away from Lewis’s body. “I had to lean in close to read the names, though. I see well enough normally, but I do need reading glasses.”
I looked to the table, at one of the undisturbed mugs. The tag hanging from the gift there hung down low, right next to the mug of the now-cool hot cocoa. If Carol had leaned in to read them, it would have put her face right next to the mugs themselves.
“There was nothing in the mugs at the time,” she went on. “I remember thinking it odd, but figured he’d eventually fill them with something.” The pained look she gave me was heartbreaking. “I guess he did that when he left us alone to get to know one another, didn’t he?”
I wanted to comfort her, to tell her everything would be fine, but I pressed her instead. “Are you sure all the mugs were the same earlier?”
“I’m positive they were.”
This time, I met Rita’s eye. She was thinking the same thing I was.
If the mugs were the same when we were led into our rooms, that meant that they were changed sometime after, while we were all supposedly trying to escape.
If no one else had snuck in while we were searching our individual rooms, then that meant that the killer was one of us.
And the original mug might still be with them.
I sorted through what I knew and tried to pinpoint when the mugs could have been swapped. If Carol was telling the truth, it would need to have happened after we were locked up in our rooms. Lewis came into the central room at some point before we escaped, picked up the odd mug, and then died from what I assumed was a pretty strong poison.
That gave the killer less than fifteen minutes to work with. It wasn’t a lot of time, but if the murder had been planned—and it would have had to have been, since poison was likely involved—then it was more than enough time to make a quick swap and then sneak away.
My gaze rose to meet Jerry’s. He was the first person to get his door open. While he claimed he didn’t leave his room until after Carol had escaped her own room, that didn’t necessarily make it true. Guilty people lied all the time.
“Thank you, Carol,” I said, patting her on the arm before crossing the room to where Jerry stood. He looked wildly around, as if seeking an escape as I approached. “Anything to say?” I asked him.
“Me? No.”
“J.?” Bob asked. “If you were trying to kill me . . .”
“I didn’t do anything!”
“Then you wouldn’t mind us checking your room,” I said. If the killer had indeed swapped mugs while we were working our way out of our rooms, they would likely have hidden it afterward. What better place than a room full of knickknacks?
“My room?” Jerry asked. His eyes kept getting bigger and bigger and they darted every which way, not settling on any one person or thing. “Why?”
“To look for the original mug.”
Bob sucked in a breath, and then before anyone, let alone Jerry, could object, he marched past us, into the room. The rest of us followed after and stood in a loose huddle around the entrance, while Bob tore the room apart.
After only a few minutes, he threw his hands up into the air. “Nothing.”
Jerry sagged against the door frame, as if he hadn’t been sure what his coworker might find.
“We should check everyone’s room,” Troy said. He stood to the back of the group, standing apart from June for the first time since they’d arrived. “If someone here changed out the mugs, they might have left it in their room.”
“I agree,” I said. “We should split up, choose a room of someone you don’t know. I’ll take Carol’s room.”
With only a little bit of grumbling, everyone chose a room, and within moments, we were all searching for a mug I wasn’t entirely convinced existed. If Carol was wrong, and the mug hadn’t been swapped, we were wasting our time.
But if she was right, we could be seconds away from discovering a murderer. That would create an entirely new set of problems for us to deal with, considering we were still locked in together. I, for one, wasn’t looking forward to dealing with a killer with no way to escape them if they de
cided to go on a rampage.
Walking into a Christmas-themed room, knowing evidence to a murder might be lying around, made my heart ache. This was supposed to be a happy time of the year, and now a man was dead. A part of me wished I’d stayed home and prepared for my dad’s visit, rather than letting Rita drag me all the way out here.
Yet, at the same time, I was glad I’d come. If I could put another killer behind bars, then all the heartache, all the hassle, would all be worth it.
“Here!” The shout came from a room a few doors down.
Everyone spilled out of the rooms they were checking, to follow the sound of the call. Yuri stood just outside the room he’d searched, pointing inside.
“The mug is in here,” he said.
“Whose room is it?” Bob asked. He held a pillow decorated with a large, grinning snowflake. He looked as if he was prepared to use it as a weapon if the need arose.
It took me a moment to reorient myself. All the doorways looked the same. And with no other visible entrance—though there must be one, since Lewis got inside—it was hard to figure out which room was which without going in and checking for familiar signs.
Someone spoke, just as I figured it out.
“Mine.” Rita’s voice was a shadow of itself as she stepped forward. “The room was mine.”
Chapter Six
“Wait!” I said. “Let’s think this through.” Everyone was staring at Rita, and both Yuri and Bob had started toward her as if to restrain her.
“There’s nothing to think about,” Yuri said. “The mug was in her room. She did it. She killed Lewis.”
“I did no such thing!” Rita was backing up, but before long, she’d have nowhere to go.
“She couldn’t have done it,” I said, mind racing to come up with a way to get Rita out of this. “She didn’t have a chance to swap the mugs.”
“Really?” This came from Bob. “And the rest of us did?”
Rita bumped up against the wall between two doors. Carol stood next to her. The older woman appeared undecided, as if she wasn’t sure if she should grab Rita to keep her from running, or if she should protect her from the angry men converging on them.
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