Brittlyn wanted to be the woman of the hour;
instead she was choked by those delicate flowers.
Aiming to have absolute influence,
she became the most toxic effluent.
Will you be next? Look around, guess!
Who’s the killer—will they confess?
And where was the poison? The flower? That’s rich.
Perhaps it was always inside this
horrible excuse for a person.
Plum frowned at the note.
A tittering laugh shivered in the air. Cici stood, both hands hovering over her mouth, trying to hold back the giggle.
“I’m sorry,” Cici managed. “It’s a joke, right? This is all some practical joke?” She turned, slinging her high ponytail in a parabola as she pivoted, looking in the corners of the room. “Where are the hidden cameras? You can come out now!”
“It’s not a joke,” Sofia began gently. “No one dies in prank shows.”
“That’s supposed to be a poem?” Shelley pointed to the card still in Plum’s hand. “It kept breaking meter, and the last line . . .”
“Suddenly you know all about meter?” Dude mocked.
“Just what the hell are you trying to say?” Shelley snapped.
“Dudes,” Jalen said, trying to infuse the word with Dude’s zen.
“That’s my line,” Dude said, an only half-joke warning.
At the end of the room nearest the body, Jude put his hand up.
“Yes?” Plum called on him.
“I don’t understand the poem. It said she turned in . . . fluent? Like in a foreign language?” Jude looked around for help.
“No,” Marlowe said. “Effluent means, like . . . industrial waste. Something polluting.”
“The killer thinks offing Brittlyn was like cleaning up a toxic dump? Can’t say I disagree.” Sean crossed his arms high on his chest.
“That’s a horrible thing to say!” Shelley turned on him, hands on her hips.
“Well, go on and argue.” Sean shrugged. “I’m not a hypocrite, at least.”
The room broke into arguing voices, everyone either taking exception to being called a hypocrite or fighting over if that was indeed worse than being an “insufferable boor.”
“HELLO?! No one is paying attention to the most important part!” Warix bellowed over the chattering voices.
The room fell silent again as all eyes turned to the gamer.
“The note says one of us is the killer!”
Why did he look . . . almost gleeful? Plum wondered. More of that troll-recognizes-troll amusement?
“Dude,” Dude said in a disbelieving voice.
Warix held his hands out, palms up. “I’m just repeating what that note said.”
Could it be? Not only that Brittlyn had been murdered, but that one of them was the one who killed her? Plum felt weak, almost like the muscles that held her up had been robbed of strength by the sudden jolting thought.
“It’s worse than that.” Marlowe’s voice broke the group’s shocked silence. “Even if the note is lying, and one of us somehow isn’t the killer . . .”
“Yeah! It could be lying!” Jude interrupted. His eyes were big with a sudden fervent hope. “It’s not one of us!” He fell silent as he realized no one else seemed to share his optimism.
And that they were waiting for Marlowe to finish.
Her blue-green eyes circled the room, lighting on each of the group in turn before finally landing on Sofia, then Plum.
“Everything that has happened on the island is deliberate,” she said. “No Wi-Fi, no phone signal. No other people here. And no boat. No way off the island.”
Jalen’s voice was deep and profound. “Listeners.” He spoke into his phone. “We’re trapped on the island with a serial killer.”