Page 42 of Twisted Games
She runs down the corridor to the meeting room that the HBO film crew has been using. I follow behind her, “Who called the code red? What the hell happened?”
Turning slightly to look at me, she says, “Dave… holy crap…” Winded, she shakes her head. “There’s a body.”
The documentary executive producer looks ghost white, and he’s sucking on his vape like his life depends on it. “We were doing a sweep of a camera we placed on the grounds. Christ, I’m going to need therapy after this project is over.”
I follow him to their temporary set up of monitors and mixing equipment. He points to a camera that shows through the pouring rain what looks like a body lying next to the maintenance shed. It’s definitely not a bag of cut grass. I tell everyone to stay in the room and lock the door.
Calling 911, I run outside with one hand on my holster. Skidding to a stop next to a female body splayed out on the ground next to the shed. The dark hair draped over her face. Her limbs splayed out like she convulsed. Foam and blood trickling from her mouth. I check her for a pulse and there isn’t one. Fucking hell.
I pull open her button up short sleeve shirt to start giving her chest compressions and almost fall back at what’s been cut into her skin. Someone took a sharp jagged object and pressed in ‘Time is Now’. I gag as I snap back into emergency responder mode. Each compression causing the blood to ooze and the rain to wash it down. Minutes last forever as I keep working and then the shouts of paramedics, the police officers, and Rick. I get up and back away. The blood on my hands is quickly gone in the rain.
In a daze, I head back inside to talk to Dave, along with Rick. “Do you need to sit down?” he asks me as I stagger a step or two.
“I’m in shock. It’ll pass.” Rick looks ready to argue with me but seeing the look on my face he throws his hands up.
Dave is breathing into a paper bag when I get back to the meeting room. His staff in varying degrees of panic. “Is your recording streaming and then taping over itself?” I ask him with a direct tone. He startles at it and his eyes are saucers while he lowers his bag.
“We have it stopped and ready to replay.” He shakes himself. “There isn’t anything on it, though. Except… her.” One of his staff starts to cry and pace the room. Dave won’t be the only one needing a counselor.
“Were you trying to stop me earlier to tell me about this? You should have called 911 immediately.” I can feel a vein pulse in my jaw as I grit my teeth.
He shakes his head. “No… no, we noticed a discrepancy on one of our dailies that we were going over. Along with something else…” He looks like he’s seconds from vomiting. “Might be nothing.”
“I’ll see about that.” At this point, everything could be something. “Show me.”
Dave instructs a bawling and shaky staff member to show me the daily footage that alarmed them. She pushes her glasses up. “I’m a true crime buff. I’ve seen all the documentaries done about the Lassiter girls’ disappearances, or I might not have noticed it.”
I pull a rolling office chair up to where she’s looking for the segment. She plays it and then pauses. “Did you see that?” she asks in awe. “I’ll play it again.” Then I do. Then I fucking do, and my immediate thought is Keir and if he’s safe sitting in the lounge by himself and where the fuck is Caleb at?
It's in that second, I know that I’ve gotten too many things wrong. The weight I’ve carried over Camp Carroll just became that much heavier. I look around the room and turn back to the film member, “Don’t tell anyone. Don’t trust anyone else with this and this information doesn’t leave this room.” She nods with a terrified look on her face.
“What else was Dave referring to?”
She slides a puzzle book towards me.
“What’s this?” I ask incredulously.
“Dave likes anagrams and sometimes when he’s done with a word search or something, he starts doing anagrams of random… or not so random words.” It looks like Lassiter made the list and my stomach drops further. It was all there in front of my fucking face.
To be continued!
