"I think she admitted to killing her grandparents with poison," I said, trying to remember Tiran's voting session.

Rucker gulped down some food. "Move her ass to prime suspect."

"I agree," Yaz said, nibbling on a noodle.

"You don't even look fazed by it," Sebastian said, looking at Rucker. "You had sex with Chi, and you don't even look upset about making her a suspect?"

Rucker began cackling, a deep throaty noise. "You're one of those guys who cries after sex, aren't you, cotton candy?"

Sebastian tightened his lips. "I don't cry—"

"We fucked, that's it." Rucker shrugged. "I didn't promise her a ring, a white picket fence and two point five kids. All I promised was a mind-blowing orgasm and a good time. That's it. I don't get attached to pussy."

"That's so vulgar," Sebastian said, glaring at him.

"It's the truth, feather boy," he said. "I want to go the fuck home, and if I have to convict some girl I fucked to get there, I'll do it ten times over."

"Back on topic," Khan said, cutting off Sebastian before he could speak. "Chi's a suspect, but there's no proof. Just her past history. We need to keep digging."

"Did you find anything on the camera footage?" I asked Khan.

"I'm still analyzing her route," Khan said, rubbing his neck, "while trying to study where everyone was at the time of the murder. I could use another set of eyes."

I gave the plate to Sebastian and grabbed my iPad. "I'll track Layla's movements while you track everyone's whereabouts before and after the murder."

"What should the rest of us do?" Sebastian asked, gulping down a noodle.

"Some of you can help Khan with tracking down contestants before the murder and someone else can track what they're doing now," I said, tapping on the iPad screen. "The killer could be discussing it right now as we speak. You know how people love to talk. People's current conversations might be helpful."

"I'll do that," Yaz said, eating her last bite. "I love being nosy."

Rucker got to his feet, putting his dish on the stove. "I'll help Khan track people before the murder."

"Me too," Sebastian said.

"We got this, people," Rucker said, grabbing his iPad and sitting next to Khan on the floor.

"We only have like twenty hours left so let's get to it," Khan said, turning back to his multiple computer screens. "Remember to take notes."

It took only a few minutes for everyone to finish eating and get to work. Rucker, Sebastian, and Khan worked by the computers, surprisingly there were no arguments. I worked on the bed, and Yaz in the corner on the recliner.

Placing the semi-empty plate on the floor, which Duke attacked, I went to the camera to get started, shifting through the live footage first out of habit, and then my mouth dropped once I got to the pool room footage. "Holy shit."

"What's wrong?" Sebastian peered up from his screen.

I looked away, closing my eyes. "Umm check the pool room footage."

Sebastian squinted his eyes at me before flicking his finger across his tablet. "Oh wow."

Yaz must've gotten there next because she let out a loud squeal. "Yooooooo! They're going at it," she said. "We know why Demo follows Gmie around now."

Peering down at my screen, a live footage feed of Gmie and Demo fucking in the pool covered my iPad. The viewer comments were coming in a mile a minute, most of them being very vulgar, probably all perverted men.

Rucker jolted his head back. "Who knew Gmie could use her tongue like that? No wonder she got Demo whipped. Fuck."

I stared at my team, seeing that Khan was the only one not watching. He flicked it on for a second before going back to his work. "Should we be watching this?" I asked.

Yaz pushed her glasses up on her nose. "You always watch when someone's fucking in public. It's a requirement. It's rude not too. It's the proper etiquette of voyeurism." She tapped her screen, zooming in. "You also have to rate it, preferably from one to ten."

Rucker leveled his stare at Yaz, a laugh bursting from his lips. "Me and you need to hang out more."

"That makes no sense," Sebastian said, shaking his head.

"It's the unwritten law of public sex, you must watch," Yaz said with a shrug. "They probably want us to watch. Some people get off on that. They know where the cameras are. Why not fuck in one of their rooms, huh?"

True.

"Chi wanted people watching us, saying it would get her more fans." Rucker leaned over Yaz's shoulder, watching her screen. "This is like a solid eight, not enough movement for me though. Chi and I was like a ten."

Yaz snorted. "Nah, you and Chi were like a seven at best."

Rucker looked insulted. "Just a seven?"

Yaz waved her arms around. "You kept tossing her around like a sack of potatoes, like can a bitch get a breather before you flip her on her face?"

"I can't believe we're talking about this," Sebastian whispered, shaking his head.

"First off, no one was talking to you, feather boy." Rucker zeroed in on him. "And I know you're not over there judging. You probably have a diaper fetish or like licking toes."

"I'm going back to work," Khan said, turning back in his chair as he coughed, probably stifling back a laugh from trying to understand Yaz's public sex logic or thinking of Sebastian's sex fetish. "Maybe, we should all get back to work? Twenty hours, remember?"

They listened to him or I thought they did, but I swore I saw Rucker switching between the pool cameras.

I been clicked off the scene. I really wasn't interested in watching Gmie have sex. Going back to the camera app, I rewound the footage to right after everyone escaped Layla's room.

It was very confusing at first, trying to follow the different cameras while she was running, but once I figured out the pattern and saw which cameras were aimed at which areas, it was easy.

From when she left her room, she ran through the hallways in circles, going counterclockwise as Rucker chased behind her, cursing at her to come back. She kept whispering to walls while running, looking frustrated and then sad as she made her way to the pantry. That's when Rucker completely lost her.

He ended up punching a wall and going in the opposite direction, which was back to us, near her bedroom.

Clicking on the kitchen pantry footage, I watched the frantic Layla wait a few minutes before tiptoeing to the common room. Inside, she hurried in, knocking over the table of clues.

Pausing, she leaned down and dug around on the floor. A moment later, she flicked her head back, bringing her hand to her lips before going back into the hall. Tiptoeing again for a few minutes, before wobbling a bit, looking haggard.

Following her route still, she wobbled her way into the laundry room, stumbling a bit before waving her arms at the corner, a loud clacking noise hitting the air, and then, she fell into the sink. She drank from the sink like she hadn't had water in weeks.

Layla inhabited the laundry room for a while, just drinking water and sobbing. I wondered why no one had encountered her yet; she was sort of loud, but this must've all happened when we were all getting cleaned up.

After getting herself together, she continued sobbing a bit, slipping and sliding out of the room. Her body hugged the wall, stumbling through the dimmed hallways until she arrived at a door and started knocking.

It took a few seconds to realize that it was my door. That must've been when she knocked on my door earlier when I was in the shower, and I didn't open it.

A knot formed in my tummy, getting bigger by the second as a mix of sadness and guilt fluttered through me. That was the last time I heard her voice.

Layla continued to cry at my door for a bit before staggering her way back to the common room. Falling into the corner desk, she grabbed a pen, and I think a sheet of paper and started writing while swaying back and forth.

While trying to write in the air with the sheet in front of her but failing, she toppled into the hall again, making it less than halfway before she looked behind her and started running — sloshing forward would be a better word.

I slide over to the next camera and saw Demo walking near her in an adjacent hallway before everything cut to black, and an amused Jookie materialized on my screen.

With thick, glossy hair swept back and over, while his purple eyes danced with a multitude of emotions that I couldn't read, an impish smile sliced his lips. "Sorry, my sleuthing peach, but the rest of the footage is forbidden."

"What? Why?" I asked, everyone in the room watching me for a second.

"Because it would reveal who the killer is." Jookie rolled his eyes, snapping his fingers. "We can't make it easy for you. The footage you saw should be helpful enough. All the footage in the hour before her death is locked."

"That means anyone could've done it," I said, glaring at him. An hour was a big gap. Even if we knew everyone's whereabouts before the screen cut to black, it wouldn't mean anything because anything could change in an hour. "Everyone's location before you cut the footage is useless. It's an hour before her death. No one's in the same place."

Right before the screen cut, I saw Demo walking in the hall near Layla, but that was an hour before Layla died, so Demo could have nothing to do with it or she could.

Jookie shrugged. "Not my problem. The footage you saw should be enough to solve the murder." He cocked his head. "Unless you are truly worthless."

"Fuck you, Jookie." What the fuck was his problem? I might have said some shit, but he needed to get over it.

He giggled at me before giving me a kissy face and leaving me to a black screen. Every time I tried to look at footage from that time, my screen flashed "locked" and skipped to after we found the body. The others got the same message.

Sebastian sighed, throwing his iPad on the floor. "He's such a dick," he said, scratching his jaw. "What do we do now? There's no point in studying people's whereabouts."

"I checked the timing from when we found the body to when the footage stops," Khan said, typing away. "And it only stops forty minutes before her death. Not an hour."

That son of a bitch was trying to trick us. Ass. "That doesn't necessarily mean she died forty minutes later though. She could've died much earlier, and we just found her body forty minutes later."

"I was thinking that too, but we'll never know," Khan said, banging his keyboard. "We can't find out cause of death either. Even if we get equipment to check her blood for poison, we don't have the time for that. That's hours upon hours that I don't want to risk. And if we're wrong, we're back at square one."

"You're right." I rubbed my face. "I don't think we need to do all that stuff though anyway. Jookie made it sound like the footage would help us find the killer."

"Did you see anything interesting when you followed her?" he asked, watching me.

"Nothing too much, just her walking around." I sighed, my fingers twitching. My tummy told me I was missing something, but I couldn't put my finger on what. "I'm going to rewatch her footage. I must be missing something."

"They really didn't want to make this easy for us," Yaz said, looking up at the ceiling. "Forty minutes is a long time. Anyone could've left their current location and killed her somehow."

"From the footage, Demo was the last person near Layla before her death," I said, thinking it over. "Just for talks, where was everyone else?"

"I was in my room," Khan said. "And I saw Gmie and Demo leaving Gmie's room. Gmie was still pissed and bitching about Layla. They go to the pool room, and that's when they start whispering before Demo goes into the hall." He looked at Rucker and Sebastian. "You guys tracked everyone else, where were they?"

That's when it hit me. Shit. I just fucked myself over.

Once I left my room and entered the pantry, I wasn't on the footage again until after Layla's body was found. That's a huge gap of time, almost an hour.

Perfect timing and opportunity and let's not forget that she was found in my room, and only I have the key. And I was seen covered in filth.

They'll probably move me up the suspect list, and I wouldn't blame them for doing that. I was the perfect suspect who had so much evidence stacked against her.

Damn. Why did I ask such a stupid question without thinking? I got so into solving the murder I didn't think. How was I going to explain myself to them?

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