“Soon, of course, it will be time to return to your rooms to state your cases,” Giles said. “But, first, let us eat.”
After the challenge ended, the nine guests were rounded up and gathered in the dining room. An early dinner of roasted wild boar and various local side dishes awaited them.
The guests didn’t eat much at first. But eventually, one by one, the smell of the amazingly prepared food finally overtook their memories of the two gory murders that had taken place. There was very little conversation. Most of the guests, aside from Cathy and Todd, were feeling too nervous about their cases to do much else but eat and replay the evidence they’d found over and over inside their heads.
As dinner winded down, Giles entered and once again addressed the guests.
“Please return to your rooms and state your case to the mirrors. Look yourself in the eye and remember it may be the last time you ever get to see yourselves alive. The killer requests that each of you state your case no later than seven P.M. sharp, local time. We will reconvene in the game room at eight thirty P.M. for a cocktail party and the results of this murder investigation. Godspeed, my dear guests.”
The guests returned to their suites and stated their cases. Some did so confidently, looking themselves directly in the eye, feeling sure that they would survive. That they may even win this whole thing by the end, they thought as they finished. Others couldn’t even look up at their own terrified faces as they did their best to piece together what had happened to Aaron. And one guest sat and watched the others state their cases.
Both impressed and disgusted by their collective efforts.
At the cocktail party later that evening, Giles wasted no time announcing the winner.
“Cathy, congratulations,” he said with a smile, handing her a celebratory martini served up in a clear glass. “The killer was quite please with your efforts. He or she wishes for you to stand and tell us all how Aaron died. How the killer managed to murder the poor man in front of us all, while Aaron was doing the very thing he loved to do most.”
Cathy stood and took a drink of her martini as the rest of the guests were given drinks served inside a halved pineapple rind. She wasn’t nervous to present the case to them. She was nervous that her victory might come with resentment from some of the other guests. She’d already figured out that the key to this game was being trusted and well liked. Winning this game was not much unlike sales at all. Which, thankfully, was her specialty. But she couldn’t worry about that now. They were all anxious to discover their own fates, and she didn’t want to keep them waiting any longer than necessary.
“I’ll try to go fast for y’all,” she said. “Sometime before we all arrived, the killer had large sheets of glass installed just below the surface of the water in the diving pool, likely already knowing that one of the guests loved to dive. The victim also suffered from migraines and used an intravenous version of the drug sumatriptan for relief. That drug, however, can sometimes cause a rare blood disease called sulfhemoglobinemia that turns blood green, which is why his blood appeared to be green in the pool.
“Anyway, the killer, sometime after our arrival, switched out Aaron’s sumatriptan with a falsely labeled vial of an emergency blood thinner drug named heparin. So when he had a headache this morning, instead of finding relief, Aaron injected himself with his own certain death. After diving into the panes of glass in the pool, the blood thinner caused him to bleed out and die within minutes.”
She sat down and took a large drink of her martini.
“Very well done,” Giles said. “As for the rest of you, I encourage you all to finish your drinks. Your fates lie at the bottom of your beverages.”
“But I don’t drink alcohol,” Whitney whined.
“But, of course, we have made accommodations for you, my dear,” Giles said patiently. “Your beverage has been prepared with fizzy drink rather than alcohol.”
“Fizzy drink?” she said.
Giles sighed, forgetting about the odd ways in which Americans referenced certain things.
“Soda pop,” he said.
She nodded and started drinking.
Jessica was the first to finish her drink. At the bottom of the hollowed-out pineapple was a single word, charred into the rind of the fruit with some sort of branding tool: SCARED. She plopped down on the couch, holding her forehead. Two whole days drunk and in the sun was catching up with her.
“Please, do share,” Giles said.
“Scared,” she groaned.
Relief flashed across guests’ faces. That meant there was a greater chance of each of them being Spared this time around.
Todd was the next to finish his drink.
“Spared,” he said, not surprised. He had helped Cathy win the challenge after all.
“Spared,” Whitney said, mere seconds later.
The rest followed in short order, slurping down their surprisingly tasty cocktails, anxious to discover their fates.
Gary, Kyle, Cliff, and Charlene were all Spared. Everyone knew what was coming as they turned and watched Tiffany finish the last of her drink, barely able to get the fluids to stay down. She dropped the pineapple to the floor.
“Scared,” she said.
Kyle immediately rushed over to comfort her, suddenly feeling horrible about the way he’d been treating her. She fell into his arms, relieved to have him back on her side, but utterly terrified that she might not ever see the sunlight again.
“The night is now yours to do as you please,” Giles said. “But remember that we do not know when the killer will strike next, or which of our two Scared contestants will be deemed unworthy to continue. Nonetheless, do try to relax and enjoy yourselves while you can. We are still in paradise after all.”