her voice. “This one’s an article about the death of the Brownes.” The paper crinkled at her touch, rigidity setting into the material even though it was barely a year old. “Looks like it’s the first report, from the same day their bodies were discovered. ‘Derrick and Melinda Browne found dead in the Escape-Capades Headquarters building in northwestern Clark County Thursday, in what police are calling an apparent murder-suicide.’”
“And the rest?” Persey whispered quickly. She didn’t need a full rehashing of those events.
Neela, thankfully, took the hint and skimmed through the pack. “It’s basically everything the Review-Journal wrote about this case.” She thumbed through, then paused at the last page. “This one’s from three months later. The official investigation had finished. Mentions corporate espionage in the Prison Break scandal. I guess there was some evidence to suggest that they had been murdered, but the official verdict was murder-suicide.”
Official.
“And then all business inquiries should be directed to an L. Browne.”
Kevin’s head popped up over the wall from where he’d been searching the adjacent cubicle. “Must be a son or daughter who inherited.”
Persey sighed. “Don’t you ever knock?”
“I thought there was an open door—Hey! A puzzle ring!”
Neela pointed to the tangled key-chain-looking thing on the desk. “Is that what it is?”
“Hell yeah. My parents’ wedding rings are puzzles like this.” He snapped his fingers and pointed at the ring, which Persey dutifully handed to him. “Watch this.”
In Kevin’s nimble hands, what Neela had identified as a key chain or bracelet went from four separate metal rings—gleaming white gray like platinum—to an intricate knot of a ring. He turned and aligned the bands, threading the curved parts of the metal between each other until their loops and dips lay perfectly flat with each other. He held up the finished product after just a minute’s work—a man’s ring in the pattern of a Celtic knot.
“Holy cow babies!” Neela cried. “I should have known what that was.”
Kevin pushed the ring in Persey’s face. “Beautiful, right?”
She couldn’t deny it. “Yes.”
“Think it might fit me, too,” Kevin said. And before Persey could stop him, he’d slipped the ring onto the fourth finger of his left hand.
The instant the ring was in place, Persey heard a swooshing sound. Something had moved behind her.
She spun around to find an open door in the wall, where nothing had been before.
THE DOOR OPENED ONTO A SLIM CORRIDOR, HARDLY WIDE enough for a single person to squeeze through sideways. It reminded Persey of an aisle in a cramped airplane, complete with dull red LED lighting strips embedded into the floor. Before the corridor disappeared into darkness, Persey saw a single name stenciled onto the black wall with stark white paint: “KEVIN.”
“Why just his name?” Wes asked as everyone gathered around the newly opened door. “He doesn’t deserve to win. He didn’t even discover that thing. Fuck, he doesn’t even deserve to be here! This competition is fucking rigged.”
“I don’t think this is the end of the game,” Arlo said. “I think it’s just the beginning. Look.” She pointed to the top of the flowchart, where a large box encompassed the words “Individual Challenge.” It came directly after a section entitled “Office Drones,” which must have been the room they were currently exploring.
“What else is on that board?” Shaun asked, although the question was merely perfunctory as he was already in motion toward the whiteboard to examine it for himself. “From the Individual Challenge it goes to Boyz Distrikt. That must be the big escape room.”
“I don’t think so,” Persey said, peering around his shoulder. “Look down there.” Below the first phase of the flowchart were several more boxes, each labeled with a name. “Collectibles. Cavethedral. Iron Maiden. Recess. High Tea. True North.”
“They must all be separate rooms,” Neela said. “One after another.”
“Eight rooms?” Mackenzie groaned.
“Nine,” Kevin said, “if you count this one.”
“This is going to take forever.”
Arlo rolled her eyes at Mackenzie. “You got somewhere else to be?”
“Unlike the rest of you, I happen to have a life.”
“I wonder what ‘Individual Challenge’ means,” Riot said, checking on the structural integrity of his Mohawk with his fingertips.
Arlo took command, turning to face everyone like a general addressing her troops. “How did this door open?”
“Sir!” Kevin saluted her, clicking the heels of his Vans together and squaring his shoulders. “I put on this puzzle ring, sir. Er, ma’am.”
“His parents had ones just like it, he said,” Neela added. “And we, I mean Persey and I, were thinking that with eight cubicles and eight of