I would know Lenny’s voice anywhere. But it turns out that I don’t know Lenny.
The reason she never wanted to talk about her past wasn’t because she’s a private person. It was because our friendship’s been a lie. A con. A trap. She used to work with Anton, behind the scenes, coding his games. She knew Rose. Was friends with Rose. Loved Rose.
She’s the one who’s been revealing all those secrets and playing all those games. Outing the suspects. Trying to force Rose’s killer to give themselves away. And now that she has Emma’s photo and claims to have discovered the truth, she’s turned against the lot of us.
I should have figured it out sooner, but I was in denial. All the clues were there though. She’s at college studying AI design, for god’s sake. How did I not suspect her? I can’t help but wonder if she sought me out on purpose, coming into the ice cream shop and striking up conversations. Was she trying to find out if I killed Rose? Did she suspect me all this time? She must have, or she wouldn’t have included me tonight.
But then I think about what she said to me this morning, while I waited for Beatrix to appear with my equipment. Just remember that I’m rooting for you. There was something both sad and hopeful in her voice. Like she genuinely wanted me to pass these impossible tests of hers and make it out the other end.
I don’t know if I am going to make it out. I need to think, but this goddamn music is so loud, turning my brain to porridge. I have to find her. I need that remote. I stumble out of the kitchen into the hall, not caring what any of the others do. I’ll deal with them later.
“Where are you?” I scream, but my voice is lost to the noise.
My fingers find the polished banister, curving up the wide flight of stairs to the upper floor. I climb, tripping on the steps as I go. My spiraling thoughts question our entire friendship. All the times she encouraged me to talk about Rose. All the questions she asked me. I can’t believe she’d do this. I can’t fucking believe it.
“Lenny,” I cry. “Come out!”
I feel my way across the landing and find a door. It opens into a big entertainment room bathed in moonlight. I can see again, and the music is quieter in here, so I can finally hear myself think. OK. I need a plan. I don’t have a plan.
Where would she be? Where would she be? I need to find her. I need to get out of this house.
The room runs the length of the house with an entire wall of glass looking out over the gardens. From the outside, it's always reminded me of a rooftop restaurant. Finally seeing it from the inside, I realize it’s mostly empty except for a few pinball and arcade machines and a bar in the corner, still fully stocked.
I don’t usually drink, but for some reason, it feels like a good idea, to calm my panic. I pour myself a glass of clear liquid—vodka. It burns all the way down. As I lower the glass, I see a figure appear in the doorway. I think it’s Amber’s ghost for a second, but it’s Erin. They’re almost impossible to tell apart in the near dark.
“Grayson,” she says, shoes tapping as she approaches. Her face is haunted, eyes hooded, skin pale, lips deep and swollen. It makes her look tragically beautiful. “Any luck finding your little friend?”
So she figured it out. Of course she did. “Nah, but I did find a bar,” I say.
She pulls herself up onto a stool. She eyes me suspiciously, then pushes a photo across the bar. It’s of Anton’s team. Lenny is standing near the back. “When did you realize the ghost was her?” she asks.
“About ten minutes ago when I heard her voice, although I started suspecting something when I discovered she knew Jesse.”
I don’t like how she’s looking at me, so I busy myself pouring us both a drink. She runs a finger around the rim of hers but doesn’t swallow it.
“She sought me out a few weeks after Rose died, you know? Started turning up at the ice cream shop where I worked. I guess she was scoping me out.” I shake my head and sigh. “It suddenly makes sense why she was helping me with the game. You were always going to be at the top of the board. As was Charlotte. But I’d have been knocked out within minutes, and that wouldn’t have fit with her plans.”
Erin picks up her glass and swirls it. “She must have been planning this for a while. Researching Rose’s case. Compiling her suspects. Setting up this whole takeover in a last desperate attempt to discover the truth.” She puts the glass down and pushes it away. “About that. I have a theory.”
“Oh?” I watch her over the rim of my glass, the smell of the alcohol sharp and eye watering.
“Whoever killed Rose was seen by Jesse that night, somewhere they weren’t supposed to be. Jesse didn’t think anything of it until he saw them taking part in the game and began to get suspicious. Maybe he confronted the killer. Asked a few questions. Made some accusations. Whatever happened, the killer must have thought it best to get rid of him just in case.”
“That’s an interesting theory,” I say, gulping back my drink.
“The killer bludgeoned Jesse and threw him into the river. It was a coincidence that both Jesse and Charlotte washed up in the same place,” Erin continues, watching me for the smallest reaction. She’s sharp, far cleverer than I am. It’s disconcerting to have that ice-cold intellect directed right at me. “Of course, Beatrix thought that Matthew was behind Rose’s murder, so when she found Jesse’s body while she was rounding up contestants who’d fallen in the river, she covered it up like she covered up Rose’s murder.”
“So was it Matthew?” I say, pouring another drink. God knows I need one.
She laughs softly, but I think it’s a trap. “Actually, I suspected Beatrix for a while. But then I thought about the photo that Emma took. The one of Jesse and our killer. How did she know they were the killer?”
I shrug. “Maybe they were wearing a little sign saying, I’m a killer. I don’t know.”
“Emma was thrown out of the party hours before Rose died. If that photo had been of anyone who was meant to be at the party, Emma wouldn’t have been suspicious. It had to be someone who wasn’t meant to be there. Someone who has consistently claimed that they never visited Anton’s house. So Emma had to die too.”
“You’re very smart to figure all this out,” I say, forcing a smile.
“Not just a pretty face.”
“What about Amber, then?” I fold my arms. My move. “Why was she stabbed?”
A brief flash of hurt crosses Erin’s face. She lifts her chin. “I don’t know for sure. Perhaps she saw through the killer’s lies before the rest of us?” She says it like it’s a question. Same tone as Lenny. She’s hoping she’s wrong.
I snort under my breath. She really is clever. Way too clever for her own good.
“It’s funny,” I say, pouring another drink. My hand makes the bottle shake, and it’s an effort to get the vodka into the glass. I screw the lid on to the bottle before downing the shot in one. “The police report into Rose’s death was right in one respect.”
“What was that?” she says quietly.
“Her death really was an accident.”
Before she can respond, I swing the bottle. She tries to duck, but she’s too slow. The heavy base strikes her on the side of the temple, and she falls from her stool, landing heavily.
I circle the bar, holding the bottle. “I didn’t want it to come to this.” I sigh. “You have to believe me. But you’ve left me no choice.”
She shuffles across the floor. She keeps collapsing to one side, then pushes herself up. At least she’s not pleading and begging like her mother though. That was gnarly.
“Fuck you,” she spits.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I really am.”
“Sorry?” Her voice is slurred, but she still manages to snarl in anger. “You murdered four people, and you’re sorry?”
“I didn’t murder Rose! I told you. It was an accident. I swear. I didn’t mean to hurt her.”
“Right,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Of course it was.”
“I came to the party to talk to her, that’s all. I wanted to know why she wasn’t answering my calls. I’d written her dozens of letters, but she wouldn’t reply. I knew if I could talk to her, then she’d realize we were meant to be together.” I’m not sure why I need her to believe me. Maybe I’m trying to convince myself.
“Guess that didn’t work out for you.” She scoots farther away from me. Her eyes flick to the door.
“It was an accident,” I yell.
This is the truth.
Days became weeks became months. My friends told me losing her would get easier—that I’d move on—but the pain got worse. I’d stay up all night obsessively checking her social media for new photos, watching Anton’s channel for any clue that she missed me as much as I missed her. All I saw was a girl I barely recognized.
At my lowest points, I’d alternate between tears that left me unable to get out of bed and all-consuming anger that saw me smash holes in my parents’ walls and get into fights at school. My thoughts would spiral out of control as I imagined the life she was leading without me. And Anton was always there, the grinning puppet master who’d stolen her away and ruined her.
I wanted to grab her and shake her and scream at her. This isn’t you! Why are you letting him change you like this? Where has the girl I fell in love with gone? But she wouldn’t see me, or speak to me, or answer my texts and letters.
I started sneaking into Anton’s garden. Rose often went for a late-night swim, and I’d stand against the glass, smothered by the darkness, watching her in the brightly lit pool house. One night she wasn’t alone. She was with him, splashing around. Laughing. Just the two of them.
I sent her another letter. I know you’re sleeping with him, it read. I saw you together in his pool.
After that, it got harder to break in. Anton hired better security and put up a taller fence. My only way to get to Rose was his parties when dozens of people would descend on the house. So that fateful night, I put on my best clothes and waited for the front gates to open for the first guests.
I didn’t get a chance to talk to her though. I didn’t even find her. Jesse found me first.
“It’s G, isn’t it?” he said because back then I went by that ridiculous nickname. He grabbed me by the arm and dragged me toward the gates. “Rose asked me to keep an eye out for you.”
He threw me out and left me with a few choice threats of what would happen if I came back. I didn’t realize it at the time, but Emma caught us on camera. Like Erin said, I’ve consistently denied ever visiting Anton’s house. If people found out that this was a lie and I’d been there the night Rose died…well, I couldn’t let that happen.
Because Rose hiring Jesse to intercept me had made me even more determined to speak to her. It had to stop. I’d had enough. I waited until the majority of the party moved into the house, and I went back. And I found Rose sitting on the edge of the pool, kicking her legs in the water.
“G!” she gasped, jumping to her feet. Then she regained her composure. “Get the hell out of here.”
We argued, accusations flying. I pleaded with her. I begged. I yelled and accused. I can’t even remember the things I said, just the feeling of desperation and powerlessness. I couldn’t make her understand. In the months since she left me, she’d turned into this bitch who thought she was too good for me.
“I don’t want you,” she yelled at me. “I will never, ever want you. It’s over, and if you don’t stop stalking me, I’ll call the police. You’re pathetic. You disgust me!”
The rage was white-hot and all-encompassing. I kicked out at one of the statues, slamming my foot into it again and again. My thoughts were consumed by needing to break something. Smashing and destroying in the hope that it would rid me of all the fucked-up feelings racing through my head.
Rose was yelling at me to cut it out. She was shoving me and grabbing at me, her long nails scratching my arms. Calling me names and screaming as if she were the one full of pent-up rage and frustration.
The statue tipped off its pedestal. It fell. It was only after it crashed to the ground and my out-of-control fury vanished that I realized Rose was no longer yelling. The statue had struck her on the head. She’d been killed instantly.
There was so much blood, trickling along the gaps between the tiles, dripping into the pool. Rose lay there, her angry face slackening, her lips parted with the final insult she’d hurled at me. I didn’t know what to do. So I ran.
I thought the police would come knocking on my door. No one ever did. I guess Beatrix made it look enough like an accident that no one asked the right questions. Jesse was the only one who could place me at the party, but he said nothing. I asked him why down on the riverbank. Turns out, Anton paid all his staff to keep their mouths shut so the investigation would conclude quickly and quietly.
My life fell apart. I got kicked out of school, and the only job I could find was at the ice cream shop. I tried to move on from her, but I couldn’t. Over time, I started to forgive myself. I came to terms with the fact that it wasn’t my fault or even hers. It was Anton’s. When he relaunched his channel like nothing had happened, I knew I couldn’t let him get away with it any longer.
I promised I would make him pay. Someone had to pay.
Nothing went to plan. For starters, Jesse recognized me at the museum, even though my hair is different these days and I entered under my given name. It wouldn’t have mattered if everyone had still believed Rose’s death was an accident. But the ghost—Lenny—had just revealed that Rose was murdered. Jesse was suspicious.
When I spotted him alone on the riverbank, I took the opportunity to make sure he didn’t implicate me. But I was worried that Charlotte had seen me with him, so I tried to strangle her in the mannequin house. In the end, it was a blessing in disguise that Emma interrupted us. Charlotte is so clueless that she didn’t suspect me after all.
Emma was less naive. I knew she was trouble the moment she mentioned she was a journalist. That's why I tried to scare her off in the building site, by pushing that scaffolding pole onto her. I should have tried harder because it was only a matter of time before she figured out the truth. She realized that she'd taken that photo of me at the party, placing me not only at the scene of Rose’s death but revealing that I’d argued with Jesse, who by that point was also dead. So I shoved a statue onto her.
All the loose ends were tied up, and Lenny’s plan to out Rose’s killer had failed, or so I thought. I didn’t realize Emma had sent that photo to Anton HQ and Lenny had intercepted it. I also didn’t bank on a certain redhead sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong.
My consciousness jumps to the here and now. Erin is still edging away from me, blood trickling down the side of her face. She blinks like she’s trying to clear her head.
I grin crookedly at her. “You got everything right apart from one thing. I wasn’t worried about Amber figuring out the truth. She wasn’t the one who’d started to put the pieces together.” I raise the bottle with a wink. “Truth is, I thought she was you.”