Puzzle House: A Novel by Duncan Ralston & Wicked House Publishing

Author:Duncan Ralston & Wicked House Publishing [Ralston, Duncan & Publishing, Wicked House]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Wicked House Publishing
Published: 2023-09-15T04:00:00+00:00

The Sigil

“What the fuck is this?" Ileana said.

Joy stayed crouched in front of the trapdoor a moment with Henry at her side. It was clear they were both thinking the same thing. Joy was the first to voice it. "He'll be okay, right?"

Henry looked up from the door in the floor. "I honestly don't know."

Joy sighed. He was right, there was no way to know for sure. Even if the money booth was close to air-tight, the gas mask could've been deliberately faulty. But the puzzle hadn't been meant for Rudy. Not if it followed the same rules as the room before it. The Janice studio, where she'd first announced her engagement to Alexei, the water, a clear reminder of the basement room he'd trapped her in… everything about it pointed to her, just as everything about the previous room had been meant for Oscar. Although, if she thought about it the morgue could also have easily been meant for her as well, considering her role as Dr. Margaret.

"I think I was meant to die down there," she said.

He looked at her sidelong, the two of them still crouched in front of the trapdoor. "What makes you say that?"

Joy shrugged, not ready to reveal all of her cards just yet. "Just a hunch. The water. You know?"

Henry nodded. "No compass, though. Listen, Rudy said some things down there—"

"There's no handle on this door," Atkins said before Henry could elaborate. The corrections officer was running his hands along the doorjamb, then pounded on it in apparent frustration.

Henry opened his mouth to finish what he'd been telling her, but was interrupted again, this time by Ileana.

"Guys, what the hell? There's pictures of all of us on this board."

"What?" Atkins brushed past them as Joy and Henry stood up to get a look at their surroundings. Henry's mouth dropped open.

"What the fuck is this?" he said, echoing Ileana's words.

They stood in what appeared to be the office of a paranoid schizophrenic. The desk was cluttered with documents, opened file folders, photographs, junk food wrappers and paper coffee cups, all surrounding a computer monitor. The contents of the desk were lit by a brass desk lamp with a green glass shade, like something out of an old detective movie, all but a photo frame and a nameplate which remained in shadow. The wire trash bin was filled with crumpled paper balls.

What had caught Ileana's eye was the cork board behind the desk, wallpapered with pinned photographs, fingerprint cards, newspaper clippings, a map of Los Angeles marked with red circles, documents and mugshots, each connected with red string to a central image. A conspiracy theorist's wet dream, in other words. In the early-2000s Joy had played an alcoholic detective unraveling a plot to tear down the global economy in a direct-to-DVD release universally panned by critics. They'd called it a "crazy wall" during production, and this crazy wall looked eerily similar to what set design had come up with for her office.

Another puzzle that could easily be meant for me.

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