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Arden stepped out onto the terrace by the pool, surprised to find only Paige seated and waiting for lunch.
“Where is everyone?”
“Foraging for food. We have been informed that lunch will be served as soon as the star of our little program has made an appearance and not a moment before.”
Arden hid a smile. “Does Savannah know that?”
“No, and Haskell won’t let us disturb her. He’s upstairs hovering around her room right now, guarding it. Last time I saw Reese, he was raiding the kitchen. I don’t know where Walter or Dennis are.” Paige pressed a hand to her stomach. “I hope we eat soon. I’m starving.”
“Savannah’s upstairs getting ready right now. I don’t think she’s going to be back down here any time soon,” she added gently over Paige’s groans. “So, since you’re free for the moment. How would you like to go exploring?”
“Might as well. Where do you want to go?”
Arden glanced up at the ceiling. “The attic.”
“The attic? Why do you want to go to the attic?”
Arden handed Paige the photos of Zeke Tapper and Elaine Sutton and pointed to the stained glass window behind them. “I think that was Elaine’s room and I’m hoping that’s where Zeke’s hiding.”
Paige followed her up the back staircase. “Why do you want to find Zeke? Wouldn’t that be cheating? I’m pretty sure we’re not supposed to have any contact with him.”
“At this point, I don’t care. To tell you the truth, I’m kind of spooked and would be happy to spend the rest of the weekend at the cottage relaxing by the pool.”
“Not me,” Paige said turning to go back down stairs. “I want to win.”
Arden grabbed her arm and pulled her along with her.
“What do you need me for?” Paige complained, as she reluctantly followed her up the last flight of stairs.
Arden paused in front of a large wooden door. “I don’t want to do this by myself.” She shuddered as a large brown spider crawled over the door. “It’s creepy.” She gestured to the door. “You go first.”
“I’m not going first. This was your idea. You go first.”
Arden wiped her palms on her jeans. “What are you afraid of? It’s just a game. Right?”
“Who said I’m afraid,” Paige said brushing her hair off her forehead. “It’s just rude to show up unannounced.”
“Right.” Arden lifted her hand and knocked lightly. She exchanged a nervous glance with Paige as the door swung open.
Gathering her courage, Arden stepped inside the dark and dusty room. She fumbled around for a light switch, and then turned around. It was obviously a girl’s room, with pale yellow walls, floral bedding and posters of boy bands littering the wall. A brass bed stood on one side of the room along with a white dresser, a desk, and a nightstand. On the other side was a couple of bookcases filled with dolls, mystery books and an old portable television set.
Paige stopped in front of a sheet covered object in the back of the room. She lifted the edge of the sheet, peeked underneath for a second, and then let it fall from her fingers. She shook her head as she moved from one music poster hanging on the wall to another. “It’s like walking into a time capsule. I don’t think anything’s been touched since the seventies.” Something on the wall caught her attention and she stopped. “Oh! Hey, look at this.” She pulled open a door in the wall, revealing a dirty old rope and spider webs. “They do have a dumbwaiter.” She glanced over her shoulder with a grin. “You want to help me bring it up?”
“Sure, why not. Maybe we can find a clue in it.”
Paige started to reach for the rope, but jumped back with a squeal.
Arden jumped back as well. “What? What’s wrong?”
Paige swiped at her hand. “Spiders. I think I’ve changed my mind. No one in their right mind would touch that thing.”
“Who said Zeke’s in his right mind,” Arden said reaching for an old broken tennis racket. She thrust the racket inside the shaft, trying to ignore the way her skin crawled as the top of her hand came into contact with a spider web. Once it seemed clear of webs, she grabbed hold of the rope and tugged. “It’s not moving.” She grimaced as she tugged as hard as she could. “Maybe he is in there.”
“Let’s hope not,” Paige said as she reached her hands inside and tried to help. A loud groaning and scraping sound filled the room as the dumbwaiter slowly started to move up the shaft. “Goodness, this thing’s heavy.”
Arden merely grunted as she struggled to pull the dumbwaiter up the shaft.
Once the inside was visible, they stepped back and dusted their hands against their clothes, relieved to find nothing more than an old hatbox.
“See no body,” Arden said.
“No, but I think we found a clue.” Using her palms, Paige carried the hatbox to the dresser and gently set it down.
Arden rubbed her hands in anticipation, eager to rip the lid off the box and begin investigation. “Come on, let’s open it up.”
Paige, on the other hand, was treating the old box as though it was wired with explosives, her movements were slow and cautious.
“What are you doing?”
Bending over until she was eye level with the box, Paige whispered, “I hope there’s no spiders hiding underneath here.”
“I doubt it. This hasn’t been here long.”
“How can you tell?”
Arden ran her finger over the hatbox and held it up. “See? No dust.”
“Oh, I guess it’s okay then,” she said, her hands still hovered over the box.
“Now, what’s wrong?”
“What if there’s something creepy in there? You open it.”
Arden smiled at her friend in bemusement before ripping the lid of the box off, revealing nothing but pictures and old yellowed letters.
They both froze as a strange ethereal voice floated up out of the shaft.
“Did you hear that?” Paige asked breathlessly. She leaned closer to the dumbwaiter then with a gasp she lurched away from it and pointed. “It’s calling your name.”
Arden looked at her friend as though she was crazy.
“I’m telling you I heard your name. I had a feeling this place was haunted.” Paige looked disgusted as she balled her hands on her hips. “That’s going to make selling it difficult.”
“Arden!”
Over the sound of her heart thumping against her chest, Arden leaned her head closer to the dumbwaiter, listening intently for the ghostly sounding message.
Once again, a disembodied almost ethereal voice floated up towards them. “Where’s my PRC sandwich?”
* * *
“SO, THIS IS WHERE YOU two have been hiding,” Savannah said a few minutes later as she wandered around the room. “Lunch is over with by the way.”
Paige sat the guitar down on the floor before flopping down on the chair. A cloud of dust filled the air causing her to cough and sneeze. When she was done, she choked out, “Great, I hope you saved us something.”
“I was talking to Haskell about that very thing, when we heard this horrible noise. I thought the building was falling about us.” She pulled a sheet off a full length mirror and checked her reflection. “We traced the sound to the pantry where we found the dumbwaiter.” She looked at Arden and Paige curiously. “What brought you two up here anyway?”
Arden reached into the box and pulled out some of the pictures of Elaine Sutton. “Her. She looks like you.”
Savannah tilted her head to the side. “A little. Maybe. Who is she?”
“Elaine ‘Sunny’ Sutton.”
“Get out!” Savannah snatched the picture from Arden’s hands and looked at it closer. “She does look like me, doesn’t she? I wonder where Zeke found her.”
“She was Zeke’s girlfriend,” Arden said. “Reese told me she died about forty years ago here.”
“Oh boy,” Paige said from behind them. She held up a handful of pictures. “I think I found something else.”
Savannah took the pictures out of her hand, her eyes widening. “These are of me.” She held up a photo of her shopping. “This was taken last week.”
“Zeke’s been following you,” Paige said in an outraged tone of voice.
“Either that or he grabbed it off my Facebook page. He friended me a year ago.” Savannah snatched another photo out of the box. “And this one was taken last week at the grocery store. I swear, as soon as I see him, I’m going to set him down and have a long talk with him. The game is one thing, but this is just...just...”
“Scary?” Paige offered.
“Unflattering,” Savannah said. “Look at this picture. The lighting is all wrong.”
Arden dug into the box. Spotting a folder at the bottom, she pushed aside the letters and pictures and pulled it out. She laid it on top of the desk. “I think I just found something.”
Paige was at her side in seconds, her notebook out and a pen hovering over the page. “What is it?”
“Someone’s notes on Zeke Tapper,” Arden said opening the file and flipping through the contents. Spotting the Raven Falls News and Record letterhead on a few of the documents, she said, “I think I just found Brad Anderson’s notes.”
“Brad Anderson?” Savannah’s brow furrowed. “Why does that name sound familiar?”
“He was a reporter in town.”
“Oh, that’s right,” Savannah said. “He called me a few weeks ago wanting to interview me for a story.”
“What did he say to you?” Paige asked.
“Nothing much,” Savannah said digging through the box. “I got the feeling he was a tabloid reporter just looking to dig up dirt, so I told him I wasn’t interested in giving an interview and hung up. He eventually stopped calling.” She giggled. “Had I known it had something to do with the game, I would have given him an earful.”
Arden cringed. “Savannah, I’m not sure it has anything to do with the game. I’m thinking we should take this file to the police.”
“You are taking this way too seriously. I remember one game we played in London. We all pretended to be a team of jewel thieves and Zeke had us running all over the place looking for the stolen crown jewels. Gee, it was such a blast.” Her smile fell. “At least until Yvette got the drop on me and picked me off at Trafalgar Square. I spent the rest of the week watching from the sidelines while everyone else had fun.”
Uninterested in previous games Savannah had played, Paige tapped impatiently at the file with her pen. “What does the file say?”
Arden returned her attention to the file. “It looks like a few pages are missing,” she said shuffling the pages around looking for the beginning. “Everything’s out of order.” Giving up on finding the first page, she started to read. “It looks like a biography on almost everyone involved in the show.”
“What does it say about me?” Savannah asked.
“Just that you hung up on him five times.” The more Arden read, the more concerned she was that there was more to this game than they thought. “This folder looks real, Savannah.”
“Think of this as alternative reality,” Savannah said plucking another photo from the box and ripping it into two. “Real, but not real. We used to do this type of thing for the show all the time. What else does it say?”
Arden returned her attention to the file. “Let’s see, what else? There’s a newspaper article on Elaine Sutton’s death.” She quickly skimmed through it. “Not a lot of facts. Reese was right about them finding her behind the fireplace wearing a costume.” She set aside the clipping, turning her attention to a drawing of the house sitting on top of a cliff with what appeared to be a tunnel leading from the house to the beach. Old Smuggler’s Pass was written above the drawing. She set that aside and skimmed over typewritten notes. “It appears Elaine Sutton’s death had a profound effect on Zeke. He went through years of therapy. Some people in town accused him of causing her death despite an alibi—his brother vouched for his whereabouts at the time of her death—the girl’s unfortunate medical history and the coroner declaring her death was due to natural causes. Zeke and his family returned to California a few weeks after her funeral and never came back until recently.” She started rattling off facts. “His father was rather wealthy. Owned his own production company. Zeke and Dennis took over after he died. Yadda yadda yadda. He and his brother co-created the Sutton & Grimes show. There were creative differences. Stopped speaking to one another after Dennis married Yvette. Made up six months later.”
“I remember that,” Savannah said. “Zeke felt Yvette was trying to take over the show. They eventually made up, but for a while there, things were pretty bad between them.”
“I can imagine. According to this, the show was Yvette’s idea.”
“Says who?” Savannah asked.
Arden tapped her fingernail against the file. “Says Yvette. She came up with the concept of the show and Reese and Kevin’s characters and pitched it to the network. They passed on it, so Zeke rewrote the show with Sunny Sutton as Clay Grimes’ love interest and the rest was history. Whoever wrote this said she’s still bitter about it and won’t let it go.”
Paige held up her hand. “Slow down. My shorthand needs a bit of work.”
Arden returned to Brad Anderson’s notes. “It appears most of his information came from Reese and Yvette. It says here that Yvette liked to talk in her sleep.” Her brow furrowed as she came to a page ripped into two. Setting it aside, she turned to the next page. “Dennis threatened to kill him if he ever came near Yvette again. The date at the top says that happened last week.” She turned to the next page. “Walter wanted money to talk. It appears Brad called Kevin too. Not only called him, but visited him too.” She lifted the small business card up. “Here’s Kevin’s business card.” She put that aside and picked up a receipt for a flight to Vegas and a two-night stay at some motel out there. “He doesn’t report what they spoke about.” She moved to the handwritten notes, skimming over the almost illegible writing. “From what I can tell, Brad was apparently trying to find out who your stalker was and who almost killed Kevin twenty-five years ago.”
That got Savannah’s attention. She cocked her head to the side. “What did he find out?”
“I don’t know. His writing’s atrocious. There’s something about Kevin here. Says a friend of Kevin’s might have information. Something about Johnny’s confused, then something about Dennis. Dennis wasn’t a cheater or crazy,” she read out loud. “There’s a phone number here. A 310 area code.” She leaned to the side as Paige peered over her shoulder and jotted down the number.
“That’s in California,” Savannah said.
Arden squinted as she tried to make out Brad’s handwriting. “Then there’s something about Kevin and Walter and roses.”
Savannah rolled her eyes. “I’m telling you, Walter is allergic to roses. We filmed a fight scene in a garden once and Walter had to step in for Kevin. By the time we were done, Walter was covered in hives.”
Arden shuffled through the pages, pausing when she came to a report from a sanitarium in Switzerland. When she was finished reading, she said, “You’re not going to like this. According to this, Zeke tampered with the chandelier.”
Savannah resolutely shook her head. “No, that’s not possible.”
“Zeke voluntarily committed himself to a sanitarium in Germany after the show ended. Yvette told the doctors there that she saw Zeke on the scaffolding before the chandelier fell. Walter confirmed her account. He even claimed he saw Zeke tampering with it. Said Zeke had been drinking and was talking crazy that morning. When they asked Zeke about it, he claimed he couldn’t remember. Walter also told the doctors that Zeke was obsessed with you, Savannah.” She gathered up the papers and placed them back into the folder. “Zeke denied it but the doctors didn’t seem to believe him.”
“You know, you’re right,” Savannah said becoming visibly agitated. “This does feel a little weird. Zeke always did have such a strange sense of humor about things. I wish he had chosen a different theme for this game. The one we did after the second season was such a blast. We pretended to be assassins.” She turned back to the hatbox and with a cry of dismay, said, “Oh, would you look at this picture. This is a horrible angle. I never look good from that angle.”
