We all know who Rose’s next suspect is going to be. When Rose appears with her spinning wheel and that knowing smile, I’m almost ready. Seeing her standing there, even if she’s made of light and computer code, still takes my breath away.
I can’t accept that it’s not the real Rose. The way she slouches with her weight on one leg. All her little habits, like how she sweeps her hair from one side to the other. How can she be so much like Rose and not be Rose?
No. Matthew and Erin have to be wrong. It’s too painful to accept that this has all been a trick.
“How are you enjoying my haunted house?” she says, taking a bow.
“What do you want from us?” Beatrix says.
“Let Anton go!” Charlotte cries.
“Let’s meet our next suspect, shall we?” Rose says. She spins the wheel, as noisy as ever. She’s drawing it out. Playing with us.
It’s obvious the next suspect is Amber. I’m presuming Rose knew about her financial situation and was threatening to tell on her. For all her faults, Rose didn’t like lies.
Like before, an embedded video screen opens. This time, it’s a recording taken in Anton’s kitchen. The camera’s been left running after filming some stupid eating challenge or whatever. Rose is there, making a cup of tea, quietly humming to herself. She’s so alive and so beautiful. I swallow, watching as she jabs aggressively at the tea bag with a spoon.
“Fetch me a cuppa, will you Rose. Be a love, Rose,” she mutters. A smile twitches on her lips. She makes a hacking noise and spits into the tea. “Screw you, Anton.”
I laugh out loud. It’s good to know she hated him. It’s also heartbreaking to know that she hated him.
She’s happily stirring the spit tea when a redhead storms into the shot. I was expecting Amber. But this girl is younger. Prettier.
I look across at Erin, and she’s gone as still as a mannequin.
In the video, Erin goes straight over to Rose and shoves her hard. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
Rose steps back and examines her striped sweater where Erin touched her, dusting it down with a look of mild irritation. “Questioning my choices in life, if you must know.”
“My mother’s problems are none of your business,” Erin yells. “Stay out of it, Rose.”
It’s weird seeing Erin so worked up. I remember her temper when I rescued her from that crate at the museum. Despite her cold exterior, Erin’s blood runs hot.
“It is my business when her seedy loan shark friends turn up here, isn’t it?” Rose says coolly. There’s a pause. “Oh, you didn’t know that? Sweet.”
“What did they want?”
“Er, money? Being loan sharks. They tried to intimidate me into paying them. I guess they were banking on me giving a shit about Amber. Which I don’t.”
“There’s not giving a shit, and there’s threatening my mother with social workers? You don’t think things are bad enough already?”
Rose sighs dramatically and folds her arms. “I heard about your side hustle, Erin. You’re sixteen for fuck’s sake. You shouldn’t be selling photos of yourself online to fund your mother’s gambling habit.”
Back in the tatty hotel bedroom, Emma gasps softly and glances at Erin. She snaps a photo. Erin pretends to not notice though. She continues staring straight ahead, her chin defiantly lifted.
The video keeps rolling. “It’s none of your business,” Erin snarls.
“It is my business when I have to work with you and Amber. You’re a child, and she isn’t fit to be a parent.”
“You can’t call a social worker on her. She’s not that bad. She really isn’t.”
“You’re a coward,” Rose says. “Why are you protecting someone who doesn’t give a shit about you?”
With no warning, Erin swings a punch. Rose staggers backwards, raising her fingers to dab at a bleeding lip.
“Stay away from me, and stay away from my mother,” Erin says quietly, her face twisting into something vicious. “Come near me again and you’re dead.”
The video ends.
Grinning, Rose points at the wheel as it slows and stops spinning. She tears the silhouette off to reveal two faces—Amber and Erin.
“Like sisters.” Rose laughs. “But which one is really calling the shots?”
“This is bullshit,” Amber snaps. “Who the fuck does she think she is?”
“There’s a special prize hidden in one of the rooms,” Rose continues. She purses red lips at us and blows a kiss. “The mannequins will show you which way to go.”
I glance at the mannequins and try to figure it out. I’ve got nothing.
“Smile for the camera, Erin.” The ghost flickers and disappears. We all stand here, waiting for someone to speak.
“What are the photos of?” Charlotte finally says. “Were they…you know?”
“Fuck off, Charlotte,” Erin snarls.
“I wasn’t being mean. I just don’t understand,” Charlotte says. She goes quiet, chewing her lip.
Amber grabs her daughter’s arm and pulls her outside the room. The rest of us crowd around the door and watch them. Emma stands poised with her camera.
“This could ruin me,” Amber hisses, loud enough that everyone can hear. “How could you be so stupid?”
“They’re your debts.” Erin snatches her arm from Amber.
“They’re private. You dragged me into this sordid mess by threatening to murder Rose days before she died for real. And the photos she was talking about? Didn’t you think about my reputation?”
“That’s all you care about, isn’t it?” Erin cries. “How you will look.”
“Was this your plan all along? To cast me as a terrible mother?” She slow claps her daughter. “Congratulations, Erin. You win.”
“I was trying to help you!”
“For the last time, I don’t need your help. Especially not that kind of help. How could you be so stupid as to let Rose—of all people—find out about your little photo shoot? Now the whole world will find out how much of a—”
“Whoa, time out.” Matthew interrupts, placing himself between the two. “Amber, you’re being seriously uncool right now.”
Amber laughs hysterically. “Is this you looking for a signed picture? I’m sure she’d be happy to sell you one for the right price.”
I don’t usually agree with Matthew, but right now I want to punch Amber on Erin’s behalf. What kind of mother lets her daughter feel responsible for fixing her financial problems, then turns on her when the truth comes out? Amber should feel ashamed, but only of herself.
Erin swallows heavily and fixes her mother with a cold stare. “We’re done,” she says, her voice shaking. “As soon as this is over, I’m leaving.”
“Where exactly are you planning to go?” Amber laughs. “Oh, wait—you’re planning to run away with your little boyfriend, Jesse? Ah, you thought it was a secret? How adorable.”
Jesse. Erin and him? I can’t for the life of me understand why a girl as beautiful and as sharp as Erin would ever go for Jesse. It doesn’t make sense. Charlotte’s surprised too. She lets out a gasp and clamps a hand over her mouth.
A flicker of hurt crosses Erin’s face, but she pushes it away. “You knew about me and Jesse?”
“He picked you up because you looked like a meal ticket, Erin. And you let him use you because that’s what you do.”
I can’t listen to this anymore. “You’re the one using her,” I say. “You’re pathetic.”
Everyone looks at me in surprise. Like they didn’t realize I had it in me. I’ve surprised myself too.
Amber tosses her head. “And here comes another boy wanting a piece of my daughter. But don’t worry; I’m sure there’s plenty to go around.”
“Stop it,” Matthew says. “That’s enough.”
Amber looks him up and down, then turns to Erin. “They don’t care about you, not really. They’ll use you and throw you away, and it’s me you’ll come crawling back to.”
“No, I won’t,” Erin says in barely a whisper.
“We’ll see,” Amber says before leaving the room with a swish of her hair. Her heels tap down the stairs.
Erin smooths down her T-shirt, and then, ignoring all of us, she sets about ransacking the bedroom. She picks up every mannequin and tosses it down, limbs popping out of sockets, wigs sliding off shiny plastic. After she’s done with the mannequins, she pulls the pillows off the bed and flips the mattress.
When she’s turned over every piece of furniture in the room, she starts on the next. The rest of us silently follow, no one knowing what to say or do. We stand there watching. She’s too calm and methodical to be taking her temper out on the hotel. She’s looking for something. It’s times like this I wish I were smarter because I have no idea what’s going on.
“What’s she doing?” Beatrix whispers.
“Finding the special prize that Rose talked about,” Charlotte says, her teeth chattering. “The photos she sold to pay Amber’s debts.”
She’s gone really pale. I guess she’s spooked like the rest of us, but I can’t help wondering if something else is going on too. She was acting odd when we got here, all shaky and skittish. But since Erin and Jesse’s relationship was revealed, she’s gone as white as death.
Matthew grimaces at Charlotte. Then he silently hands her his leather jacket. “The ghost said the mannequins would show us the way,” he says. “I don’t get it.”
Erin finishes searching the upstairs and goes downstairs. Outwardly she looks calm, but her eyes have this panic in them that’s not been there before. We follow her into the living room. This room is warmer than the rest, with a fire burning in the hearth. The mannequins bask in the light of the crackling flames, without a care in the world.
Erin turns on the spot. “Where is it? I’ve searched everywhere.”
“Rose blew us a kiss. She was wearing red lipstick,” Charlotte says, small in Matthew’s oversize jacket.
“Rose always wore red lipstick,” Erin says.
“But only some of the mannequins are. It’s a clue.” Seeming to pull herself together, Charlotte walks over to the one mannequin in the room with red lips and follows its outstretched arm to the mantelpiece. She pulls an envelope from the face of a carriage clock.
Erin freezes, her chest heaving. Charlotte hesitates with her fingers on the envelope’s flap; then she tosses the whole thing into the flames.
“Hey, that could have been important,” Emma says, springing forward. The envelope is ash now.
Charlotte shakes her head. “It wasn’t.” She walks out of the room toward the front door. The rest of us follow.
Beatrix clears her throat. “Um, people? Who set this up? Because it wasn’t a ghost.”
It’s a good question.
Charlotte’s bottom lip wobbles. “Jesse,” she whispers. “He was here earlier. I was following Erin, and I saw them meet outside. There was a van here too. He must have unloaded the mannequins and set everything up.”
Erin nods. “She’s right. I guess someone—Rose’s fake ghost—was paying him to sabotage Anton’s little game from the inside.” She gives a sour smile. “He did always love money.”
It fits with what he was up to at the river, I think. That call I overheard, where he mentioned Rose. The projector.
Charlotte takes a deep breath and lifts her head. “I need to tell you something else about Jesse,” she says, and then the lights go out.