C8H7N3O2
"The danger in becoming a good fraud is that eventually you fool yourself."
~ Zandra, to herself, several years prior
Zandra closes the door to Aaron's cabin with the quiet care of putting a sleeping baby into a crib. She double-checks for the lawnmower knife, once again sheathed up her sleeve.
I hope I won't need this again, but hope is in short supply right now. I need time to find some missing pieces before the police get here. That means finding a spot to work from, somewhere out of the way.
Zandra creeps down the hallway, choosing the quickest of two routes to the stairs. She picks up the pace when she hears two people in conversation, but she can't tell from what direction they're coming. The volume remains the same even as she turns a corner.
It's coming from above me. Everyone is at the demos in the conference rooms.
A new set of voices, however, isn't from the level above Zandra. They're from the stairs, only a hallway turn away, and they ring clearer and louder with each second.
"...make sure that door is locked," Zandra hears Captain Mel say.
Oh, shit.
Zandra reaches for the handle on the nearest cabin. She gives it a twist. It doesn't budge.
"She's sick, so we want to make sure she stays in there," Captain Mel says, this time even louder.
He must be talking to a crew member. Ivy told everyone I was sick.
Zandra tries another door. It's also locked.
I'm not going to get lucky, am I?
There's no point in trying to hide in the hallway. In her purple gown, she's as obvious as the eau-de-bait-shop smell that lingers throughout the Curd Queen.
Zandra braces for the inevitable by sliding down the hallway wall into a crouch. She closes her eyes and pretends to be asleep.
Not sure how I'll spin this, but it's a place to start.
The inevitable, however, isn't quite that. Captain Mel's voice carries into a turn away from Zandra. There's more than one way to get from the stairs to Cabin 27, and the captain took the long one.
Makes sense. He's the captain. He wants eyes on as much as possible.
Fuck me, though. I can barely breathe.
Zandra slides back up the wall, pushing herself with her good ankle. Captain Mel won't be suspicious if he knocks on Cabin 27 and receives no reply, but he also won't be long since the door remains locked.
I've got to hurry, but I can't look like I'm in a hurry. Don't want to look like I'm creeping around if one of those dipshit attendees spots me.
Breaking the sound barrier isn't an issue for Zandra, given her bad ankle. She reaches the stairs and hobbles up to the main level of the Curd Queen.
That puts her at the edge of the lounge. Two crew members clean up the breakfast service. They're within easy sight of Zandra at the stairs, but they're also occupied with bussing dishes and wiping tables.
Fuck. Can't go into the lounge.
Zandra glances at the stairs behind her.
Can't go back down there, either.
Captain Mel's voice re-emerges from cabins.
Fuck.
A cool breeze drifts in through a window near the stairs.
Into the river?
Zandra hikes up her purple gown and takes a step toward the window. The floor creaks. One of the crew members looks up.
Don't look at me, don't look at me, don't look at me.
"Fog looks like it broke," the crew member turns and says to their co-worker.
"Yep," the other crew member says.
Both of the crew members' backs turn toward the stairs. Zandra makes her move toward the window. That's when she spots something that makes her pause.
A yellow "Out of Order" sign hangs on the door to a bathroom just off the lounge.
That's the one Bexley and Chad turned into a biohazard. How did I forget about that?
Zandra slips into the bathroom just as Captain Mel emerges from the stairs. She hears him say something about it being, "all good."
The bathroom, on the other hand, is a lot less than good. Zandra flips on the light. Chad and Bexley left an intro to phlebotomy on the porcelain and the floors.
Zandra rips away long lengths of toilet paper. She bunches it into a nest and places it on the closed toilet lid for a clean spot to sit. After switching off the light, she plops down and rubs out the pain in her left ankle.
Something is bothering me, and it's not the ankle.
In the dark, she thinks back to handling the Beretta Bobcat, Cherry Peach's pistol.
I don't know a lot about guns, but I know inches. The barrel couldn't have been three inches long. The whole thing was less than six inches long. I could've held two of those guns in one hand. Weighed around a pound. Just a mouse of a pistol. Could a mouse blow someone's face off?
Zandra swallows a cough back down into her chest. The pressure of holding it in has her seeing stars in the dark.
Cherry Peach said the Bobcat was a ".22 caliber." Is that a lot, in gun terms?
Footsteps outside the bathroom interrupt her thoughts.
Probably just the crew members from the lounge. Good thing I turned off the lights.
The footsteps continue away from the bathroom. Zandra wipes away the worry under her neck.
Let's put the .22 caliber question aside. Holding that gun, I know it's enough to fuck someone up—because it's never a little thing to get shot—but probably not enough to make meatballs out of someone's face.
Even if I'm a rank amateur at guns, physics stays the same. Newton's Law—I forget which one, but who the hell cares—says that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. There was only one, little entry wound in the back of Aaron's thick skull, and a hamburger of an exit on the other side. That means a single, powerful shot did all that damage.
That same force would've been applied back at the Bobcat. Sure, the pistol is made of metal, but is it really designed to accept that much brutality over and over again?
No.
Sweet fuck, I'm good at this stuff.
Zandra grins to herself.
Now combine that with the fact I heard Jade's scream through the vent but not the gunshot. That suggests four things.
First, the Bobcat wasn't used to kill Aaron.
Second, someone planted the Bobcat in my cabin to frame me.
Third, whoever killed Aaron used a different, more powerful gun.
Fourth, despite being more powerful, that gun didn't make much or possibly any noise.
Zandra's eyes work back and forth in the dark as she kicks the four conclusions around in her head. It makes her dizzy, although she can't tell if it's the eye movement or something else that causes it.
Are silencers a thing? Or do those only exist in movies? Do they really "silence" gunshots or only make them relatively quieter?
The answers wait as Zandra listens to footsteps outside the bathroom once again. This time, they stop at the bathroom.
Crew?
The door handle squeaks as it turns.
Shit.
Without thinking, Zandra reacts with her gut and says, "Can't you read? The bathroom is out of order."
Dammit, that sounded stupid. Was that supposed to be the toilet talking?
The squeak falls silent.
Then again, maybe talking toilets are a thing now. The latest shit-taking trends are not something I keep up on.
The door swings open. Zandra covers her face with the purple of her sleeve.
"Whoa. Zandra?" a familiar voice says. "What are you doing in here?"
Zandra lowers her sleeve.
Let this mark the only time I'm grateful to see Chad.
"Shut up and get in here," Zandra says in a hiss.
Zandra flicks the light on. Chad steps inside. Zandra shushes him like a librarian.
After the door closes, Chad lowers his voice to a whisper. "Did you get diarrhea so bad you broke the toilet in your cabin and had to come up here?"
Diarrhea? Oh, right. Ivy told everyone I was sick.
"No. I mean, yes," Zandra says.
"What?" Chad says.
Think fast. Keep control. How much should Chad know?
Zandra rubs her palms together. It keeps her grounded.
Chad yawns.
"I've been expecting you, child," Zandra says.
"You've been waiting for me in the bathroom? Kinky," Chad says with a stoned-ass smile. "I just came in here to drain the lagoon. Figured it'd be empty, but this works, too."
Gross. Fuck no.
"I came here to read these, child. I couldn't turn down the chance. Something drew me here," Zandra says. She waves a hand at one of the many patches of Bexley's dried blood. "To you, they look random, chaotic. To me, they speak."
Chad runs a hand along a rusty-red splotch on the wall. "What do they say?"
"Everything," Zandra says. She stuffs as much dramatic effect into her whispers as they'll hold. "For you see, child, the soul is like a mirror. Break it apart, and the pieces are still mirrors. Blood, separated from its host, allows for as close a spiritual inspection as a soul laid bare. And as souls are eternal, there can be no time contained within, which means this blood tells of everything past, present, and future. What it foretells for Bexley is, to put it mildly, extremely enlightening."
Chad's jaw droops. He traces a finger from blood stain to blood stain. "Amazing."
Got him right where I want him.
"Would you like to know more?" Zandra says.
"Yes, of course," Chad says.
Let's ratchet this up just a smidge more. Let him own his decision so he doesn't back out.
"Are you sure you're prepared for that, child?" Zandra says. "You and Bexley are close. Knowledge can be a blessing and a curse. Once you know, you can't go back."
Chad puffs his chest and nods. "I'm ready."
"Very good, child. I admire your courage," Zandra says. "But before I tell you what the future holds, I need a favor."
"I'll do anything," Chad says.
Good.
"I need you to get me something," Zandra says. "And I need you to be very quiet about it."