nothing but snark and confidence, then marched up to the whiteboard, stood squarely beside Riot, feet shoulder-width apart and hands planted on her hips.
“It’s a flowchart,” Riot explained. “For an elaborate Escape-Capades escape room build.”
Arlo shushed him. “You want to just share that with everyone?”
Wes cupped his hand to his mouth. “Works for me!”
“Leah said we’d have to work together.” Riot shrugged. “I’m just following directions.”
Rather than jumping right into action, Neela watched everyone else stake out a claim in the room before she moved, letting out another anxiety meep as she assessed her surroundings, verbalizing her thought process. “The whiteboard is too obvious, but the water cooler, yes, that’s a good idea. Seems innocuous, but innocuous places are usually where the best clues are found. The cubicles are interesting. Lots of drawers and decoration, plus the computers themselves. I’m editing my valuation: the cubicles are very interesting. Don’t you think?”
Persey had known her long enough to realize that an answer was not expected.
“One, two, three…” Neela counted under her breath. “Eight. Just like us.”
Persey tilted her head to the side. Now that was interesting. “Let’s check them out.”
“Together?”
“Why not?” Leah did say that they’d have to work together, and she liked Neela, whose mindless chatter calmed Persey’s nerves.
Neela’s not-very poker face reflected skepticism, then suspicion, and finally relief. “Sure!”
Wes was making his way down the right aisle, so Persey and Neela took the left one, sticking their heads inside the first cubicle. It was pretty standard: leather chair, desktop computer, file holders and stacked binders, plus a “Sights of Old Las Vegas” calendar pinned to the cubicle wall.
Neela read the label on a white binder leaning against the computer monitor. “Escape-Capades Employee Manual.” She snorted. “I guess it was easy to gather props for this one.”
Too easy.
“But why last year’s calendar?” Neela said, more serious than before. “Nothing on it but this one day circled. What’s the significance of—” She cut off mid-sentence, her eyes growing even wider behind the thick-framed lenses as she stared at the artistically rendered photo of the Stratosphere hotel and casino above the month of May.
“What?”
Neela swallowed. “May twenty-second of last year.”
“What about it?”
“The murder-suicide of Derrick and Melinda Browne. The founders of Escape-Capades.”
“Oh, right.”
Neela leaned forward eagerly as she took a deep breath. Girl really loved a long-winded explanation. “The Brownes did this promotion with massive prize money for anyone who could beat the unbeatable escape room but someone leaked the secret to the final challenge and somehow it ended up on the DaringDebunker website and I’m just going to assume that you have no idea what that is either, so I’m not going to wait for you to ask. It’s like the WikiLeaks of escape room, gaming, and RPG secrets where insiders and enthusiasts alike can post spoilers, secret codes, et cetera, et cetera, but Escape-Capades had never, ever had a leak in the history of their company because they were family-owned and everyone loved the Brownes, et cetera and so forth, but suddenly there’s this rumor that’s leaked and supposedly it’s a clue to the big final secret to solving the room and…and…”
Neela paused. Not to take a breath, but because she was suddenly flustered.
“You okay?’
“Yeah.” Her face scrunched up as she continued, but the words came more slowly now. As if she was choosing them carefully. “It wasn’t the solution per se, but a schematic of the final challenge. I mean, I’m sure the person who posted the solution didn’t actually realize what they were doing. Or—or what it might be used for. The anonymous owner of DaringDebunker just promoted the puzzle as like the ultimate challenge. A bragging-rights thing. So the one person who finally did figure out that the whole chamber was a Baguenaudier with a solution that corresponded to a specific binary code…” She paused, panting. “Well, I don’t think that person realized what it would do.”
That person. “What did it do?”
Neela shrugged. “Like two thousand people solved the Prison Break escape room on the first day. All over the world. They all tried to claim the prize money. But Escape-Capades didn’t have two hundred and fifty million dollars lying around and then…” She grimaced, glancing away from Persey. “And then, two days later, on May twenty-second, the bodies of Derrick and Melinda were found. Right here in this building.”
Persey’s eyes drifted to the calendar, where May 22 was circled in thick red ink. “What do you think that has to do with this challenge?”
“Not sure.” Neela