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Chef Parker @2_Bee_Or_Not_2_Bee ∙ July 15

What did the Millennial do for their 25th birthday? They worked a double. Because they’re poor, have overwhelming student loan debt, and have no medical insurance. #dadjokes #happyalmostbirthdaytome

Raleigh shrugged. “Come on, no one is exactly who they say they are online. Although, I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised by you. You’re the real deal.”

“But that’s just it. You weren’t talking to me. You were talking to my friend, who was pretending to be me.”

“Are you telling me I’ve been catfished?” Raleigh asked, his brow wrinkling.

Unlike some men who let their facial hair explode in whatever direction it liked, including their ears and neck, Raleigh probably spent more time on personal grooming than I did. His eyebrows were as neat and ordered as his goatee, with nary a sign of the dreaded unibrow. Despite his dark hair, I didn’t see any telltale black chest hair peeking out of the collar of his ringer tee. His skin looked moisturized and if he had any pores, they would only be visible under an electron microscope. Add in long, full eyelashes and I was almost jealous of him.

None of which made this conversation any easier.

“Not exactly. I told her I wasn’t interested in dating, but she went ahead and opened a Tinder account for me anyway. I just found out she’s been talking to my matches without my knowledge so she can set me up on dates.” I thought back to all of the odd text messages, gifts, and the attempted video chat. Izzy had been busy.

“What a horrible friend!” he exclaimed.

“She meant well,” I said, defending her. I could get mad at Izzy for doing all this behind my back, but I wasn’t gonna let Raleigh talk smack about my bestie. “She thought she was helping.”

He took a deep breath, unconsciously scratching at his elbow. “Sorry. That was uncalled for. It’s cringy, you know. I really liked you, or at least the you that I had such great conversations with.”

Great. Apparently, Izzy was a modern-day Cyrano de Bergerac. “I’d introduce you two, but she already has a boyfriend.”

“Isn’t that always the case? But this clears up why you act so different in person than you did over IM. I wrote it off as you being shy or something. I thought we had a real connection, but you acted like you didn’t know me at all. I guess that’s because you didn’t.” He sighed. “And the escape room? Was that a ruse, too?”

“No, that’s real,” I admitted. “In fact, I’m heading there now. I’m running late.”

“Mind if I tag along?”

Seriously? I told Raleigh that I wasn’t at all who or what he thought, and he still wanted to spend time with me? Those must have been some spectacular conversations he’d had with Izzy.

“Odessa, wait up!” I turned to see Parker hurrying toward us. “I’m glad I caught you. Instead of waiting for Wednesday, how about we go get that coffee and Limoncello cake we talked about now?” He looked over at me and then back to Raleigh. “Am I interrupting something?”

“Nope,” I replied. “Parker, this is Raleigh. We, um, kinda met on Tinder. Raleigh, this is my good friend Parker.” They exchanged curt nods. “Sorry, Parker, I’m gonna have to take a rain check on that Limoncello cake. I am supposed to be meeting Izzy at the escape room in . . .” I glanced at the clock on the wall over the front desk. It was enormous, a custom piece with heavy hands in the middle ringed by number-themed books that we swapped out whenever we got bored. The long hand was almost pointing at Twelve Years a Slave. I could see that someone had removed my most recent contribution, Life of Pi, which I had hung just a tad bit lower than the previous “three” book had been. “Well, now, actually.”

“I’ll walk with you,” Parker offered.

“I already Venmo’d you for my escape room ticket,” Raleigh said. “So I might as well come along.”

“Another escape room?” Parker asked. “This is your second in, what, a week? Next thing you know, you’re gonna be one of those escape room junkies that goes every weekend.”

“I doubt that,” I said. “They’re expensive. Why don’t you and Hazel join us?” I had no idea how many people could participate in an escape room or how many people were already coming, but it was comforting to know that there would be at least another friendly face there.

Not that Raleigh wasn’t friendly, I just didn’t know him very well. Or at all.

“Hazel’s got plans, but I’d love to tag along,” Parker agreed. He was closer to the front door, so he opened it and gestured to Raleigh. “After you.” I followed Raleigh out onto the sidewalk.

It was nearing sunset, and the sun was piercing between the Manhattan high-rise buildings on the other side of the river. It was still stifling outside, and I was glad I’d worn a breathable skirt. However, I’d forgotten to change out of my work shirt. I tugged at the stiff collar and willed myself not to sweat. I’d learned the hard way that these cheapo dyed polos were not color safe and unless I wanted to look like the Incredible Hulk, I’d do best to avoid sweaty skin coming into contact with the shirt until I’d had a chance to wash it a few times.

We arrived at the building on 5th Street, and I noticed a “For Sale” sign on the door below the “Verrazzano-Narrows Escape!” sign, along with a phone number and website address for the same company that Vickie Marsh and Marlie Robbinson worked for. I hadn’t noticed the sign the last time we were here. Vickie’s picture was on the sign as the listing agent. That was interesting. I wondered if the companies inside would soon be homeless or if they would continue to lease space from the new owner.

The idea that someone could own an entire building in New York City blew my mind. I couldn’t even afford bus fare to get home to Piney Island. I couldn’t fathom scraping up enough money to pay rent for a studio apartment in Williamsburg, much less the exorbitant real estate broker fee.

We approached the sign-in desk, and to my surprise, I instantly recognized a familiar face behind the counter. Yes, one of the two men was the same pimply-faced tuxedo-wearing man who had checked us in last time, but my attention was drawn to the other clerk. Standing there in a crisp white shirt and shiny black pants, with a sparkly red bow tie around his neck was Detective Vincent Castillo.

He narrowed his eyes at me and gave me a shake of the head so slight that if I wasn’t focused completely on him, I would have missed it.

“Hi,” I said. “Three more for the Clueless room. I see the rest of our party is already here.”

“Aren’t you . . .” Parker started to ask, and I stomped on his foot, cutting him off in midsentence. I’d forgotten that he had to have seen Castillo hanging around Untapped Books & Café before and likely recognized him.

“Everyone needs to sign in,” I said, grabbing clipboards that I shoved at Parker and Raleigh. If the Game Master noticed Parker’s gaffe, he didn’t show any sign of it. I got another clipboard for myself and turned to wave at the assorted women assembled on the waiting room chairs. “Hey, y’all. This is Parker and Raleigh,” I announced to the room.

Gennifer waved back. Marlie was there, too. She glanced at them without much interest. She was dressed as usual in business attire that had probably been purchased in a store that had gone out of business a decade ago. Her clothes were in great condition for their age, but they were out of fashion. Then again, maybe there were clothing websites that catered exclusively to real estate agents permanently stuck in the nineties.

Amanda was taking selfies of herself, of course. She didn’t notice us. She was too busy reviewing her pictures and then trying again with a slightly different angle.

Finally, there was Izzy. She looked bored as she played with her phone, but then my phone buzzed. It was a text from her. Act cool! it said, followed by a winky-face emoji. I gave her a half grin. It would have been nicer if she had warned me before I noticed Castillo behind the counter.

“Excuse me, ma’am, I need a copy of your driver’s license,” Castillo said, holding out his hand when I turned back toward the counter.

“Yeah, alrighty, sure.” As I dug for my wallet, Parker and Raleigh must have been in a race to see who could produce their driver’s license first, and both slapped their ID cards down on the counter at the same time. I noticed that Raleigh’s was an actual driver’s license, whereas Parker’s was a state ID. Considering how few native New Yorkers ever needed to learn how to drive a car, much less own one, it wasn’t surprising.

“Follow me,” Castillo said, indicating me. I gathered up the other IDs and followed him into an adjacent room where he lined up the IDs on a copier. “You don’t know me,” he said.

“I’m starting to think I really don’t,” I agreed.

“When Izzy told me your plan, I knew I couldn’t talk you two out of it, but I wasn’t about to let you get locked in a room with a bunch of potential murderers.”

“You know the door isn’t really locked, right?”

“Huh?” he asked.

“Ask the other guy, the Game Master. He’ll explain.”

“He is going to give me access to the cameras so I can watch your every move. Company policy is they only observe but never record, so I’m not taking my eyes off that screen.”

“Oh yeah? That’s inconvenient that they don’t have a tape of Vickie’s death.”

“That’s what I thought, too. Apparently, there was a legal kerfuffle a while back . . .” He shook his head to get himself back on track. “In any event, I’ll be watching closely, and I’m just a scream away.”

It was cute how overprotective he was of me and Izzy, but then again, he might be more worried about protecting his crime scene or his pool of suspects. With Castillo, it was hard to tell. “You interrogated everyone here, even me. Aren’t you afraid they’ll recognize you?”

“Who? Me?” He pointed to his name tag. “My name is Trainee. I’m invisible. Those ladies haven’t so much as made eye contact with me. No one notices the help. I mean, tell me one thing about the last cabbie you met.”

“His name was Raoul. He was born and raised in Jamaica, Queens. He has two daughters, nine and twelve, and raises angora bunny rabbits that his kids sell in Grand Central Terminal on the weekends. Should I go on?”

“Only you, Odessa,” Castillo said, shaking his head, but he sounded grudgingly impressed.

“Problems?” The tuxedo-clad Game Master stuck his head in the room.

“Machine jammed,” Castillo lied, and pushed the button. He took the copy and handed me the IDs, walking out of the room without so much as a backward glance at me.

“I’m so glad you were able to squeeze us in today,” I told him. “Brandon, right?”

He looked impressed that I’d remembered. My little talent for remembering names sure did come in handy. “You guys got lucky. The cops released the room thirty seconds before your friend called to make a reservation. It’s about time. It was one of our most popular rooms before, and now that, well, you know, requests have been flooding in.”

Ew. “People specifically want that room because someone was murdered in it?” I asked as I followed him back to the waiting room. Maybe the landlord had made a mistake when he discounted the Williamsburg Slasher apartment. I hadn’t realized that a gruesome murder scene might actually make it more attractive to some people.

He shrugged. “I mean, you guys were pretty adamant about wanting this room, weren’t you?”

“That’s just because we thought that finishing the room would be a fitting way to say goodbye to our friend.” If only that were the real reason we were here. That would be a nice tribute, instead of searching for a killer.

“Whatever,” he said. He raised his voice and addressed the rest of the assembled players. “If we’re all ready? Welcome to Verrazzano-Narrows Escape!, Williamsburg’s premier escape room experience. In a minute, your exciting experience will begin. Please follow me.”

He led us to Door Three, the same room as we’d entered last time, and gave us the same speech, word for word. He went over safety and rules with about as much enthusiasm as someone might muster up to order a pizza over the phone if the website was down and they couldn’t order online. I admit I wasn’t paying much attention to him. Instead, I was watching the three suspects as closely as I could without being weird about it.

On either side of me, Parker and Raleigh listened to his every word as if there might be a quiz later. “Good luck,” Brandon the Game Master intoned, and opened the door. We all crammed inside the dark room. I held my breath as the door clanged shut behind us.

“There’s a switch on the wall somewhere,” Izzy said, and everyone shuffled. A few seconds later, the lights clicked on, illuminating the glowing numbers on the far wall. “Anyone remember what number we pushed last time?”

“Four,” I said, reasonably sure that was it. If I was wrong, we would have another chance, but I wasn’t wrong. The door unlocked and swung open to reveal the library.

The last time we’d been in here, the room had seemed impressive with its attention to detail and the overwhelming number of objects. Add in the noise of everyone talking at once and the confusion of not knowing what to do next, it was downright mystical. Now the shine had worn off and it wasn’t just because my last memory of this room had been Vickie lying facedown in a pool of blood just over there.

I forced myself to turn my attention elsewhere.

The room felt cheaper this time around. I was seeing painted plywood and sloppily constructed bookshelves where before it had been a magnificent library. Even the props looked faker. “Moby-Dick in the fish tank,” I said, pointing to the table in the middle of the room. “And someone grab that flashlight, too.”

There might be other clues that we were missing, vital to solving puzzles farther down the road, but I wanted to be out of this room as quickly as humanly possible. Parker reached the book first and held it up. “What next?”

“It goes in that slot up there,” Izzy said, pointing at the wall. “Hold the ladder still for me?”

“No need,” Raleigh said, plucking the book out of Parker’s hand. “I can reach.” He had to stretch, but was able to settle the copy of Moby-Dick into place. I heard a click, and the secret passage swung open.

“Seriously, what’s even the point?” Amanda asked as she turned on the flashlight app on her phone and entered the tunnel.

Izzy was immediately behind her. “Come on, Amanda, be a sport. Do you really want to leave this room unsolved?”

Marlie entered the tunnel, moving stiffly. It was her fault that she’d worn a long suit skirt and heels. She knew she’d have to crawl through this dark, narrow tunnel, and possibly worse. “I wasn’t going to lose any sleep if we didn’t,” she grumbled.

“Just don’t go wasting all of our time with stupid questions this time around, okay, Marlie?” Gennifer grinned at me before following her. “At least it’s easier now that we know the solutions to some of the puzzles,” she said, her voice nearly swallowed up by the tunnel.

“After you,” Raleigh said to me.

“No, go ahead.” I gestured for both of them to go. After a minute of hesitation, Parker entered the tunnel with Raleigh at his heels. Raleigh was tall enough that crawling through the narrow passage was awkward for him. Only when I was convinced that everyone in the group was through to the other side was I ready to follow them. That was the biggest mistake I’d made last time, not keeping track of everyone in the party.

I glanced around the library one last time, taking comfort in the fact that Castillo was back in the control room, watching our every move.

Or was he?

I couldn’t see any cameras.

Yes, I knew that the whole point of hidden cameras was that they weren’t supposed to be easy to spot, but the last time we were in here, they had been obvious. I took a step back, and sure enough, there was a white globe mounted to the ceiling with a lens pointing at me. I hadn’t been able to see it before because when the secret passage door opened, it partially obscured the view.

Talk about unfortunate design.

Then again, it made sense to an extent. The Game Master wouldn’t have been able to see inside of the library once we solved the Moby-Dick puzzle. He wouldn’t have noticed that Vickie had either stayed behind or retraced her steps later. He couldn’t have seen the killer, much less witness the murder. He would have watched this screen long enough to verify that we moved on to the next room, and by then he wouldn’t have cared that his view was blocked because he assumed we were all in the billiard room like we were supposed to be.

I ducked into the tunnel and crawled as quickly as I could. I got there just in time to hear Amanda, on her back underneath one of the pool tables, call out the numbers written in invisible ink while Marlie punched them into the lock and opened the next door.

“It feels like we’re cheating,” Parker observed.

“Not really, because this is as far as we got last time,” I told him. “Everything after this is totally new territory.”

“Wait a second. It took you guys a full hour just to get this far?” Raleigh asked.

“It’s harder than it looks.” I protested, but he did have a point. The puzzles were challenging but not nearly as intricate or difficult as I had imagined they’d be. If we’d worked together a little better, we would have made it further. “Come on, let’s see what’s in store for us in the next room.”

Parker gasped when he saw the kitchen. “Just look at the size of this place!” he exclaimed. “I could die happy if I had a kitchen this big.”

“I cook a little, too,” Raleigh added. “You should come over for breakfast sometime. I make a mean French toast with brioche bread.”

“Oh yeah?” Parker asked, even though the invitation was clearly aimed at me. “But do you make your own brioche?”

“No, I buy it at the market like everyone else,” Raleigh said, opening the top cabinets and pulling out anything that looked like it might be a clue.

“I bake my own brioche,” Parker muttered.

“I know you do, Parker,” I told him, patting him on the shoulder.

“I make a killer vegan brioche,” Izzy added.

All this talk about bread was making me hungry. I returned my attention to the escape room to distract myself from the rumble in my stomach. “What are we looking for, guys?”

“Last time, the Game Master entered the room through the fridge when our time ran out, but I’ve already tried and the door feels like it’s sealed shut. Probably only opens from the outside for employees. But there’s a padlock on this pantry door, and I think that’s our way out,” Izzy said, rattling the door for effect.

“Key or code?” I asked.

“Key,” she replied. “Everyone keep their eyes peeled for a key.”

“It’s hot in here,” Marlie said. “Is anyone else hot?” She walked over to a thermostat on the wall and started fiddling with the temperature. “I don’t think this dial is working. It’s set at fifty-six, and it’s at least seventy in here.”

“Wait a second.” Gennifer came over to join her. “I did an escape room once where the thermostat was actually a puzzle. Start looking for anything with a temperature on it.”

“Like this?” Raleigh asked, holding up a cookbook.

“Maybe.” She joined him, and they started flipping through the pages to see if anything jumped out at them.

I walked over to Marlie, who was tugging at her elaborate necklace. A bead of sweat formed on her temple. Guilty conscience, maybe? Stress from returning to the scene of the crime? Fear of getting caught?

Either way, short of wearing an “I’m guilty, ask me how!” button on her scalloped collar, I couldn’t think of a better sign that I was on the right track.

Was Marlie the killer?