Page 2 of The Girl and the Lies

She thought about running for the door, but her attacker stood between it and her, making it unlikely she’d be able to get to it. The back door in the kitchen was closer, but it had to be unlocked with a key. There was no way she could get to the drawer where the key was kept and take it out. She screamed for help, hoping one of her neighbors might be outside and would hear her. A hard object hit her across the side of the head, and she dropped heavily to the ground. Crawling, she tried to get back to the kitchen, still forcing her voice through the taste of blood in desperation for someone to come and save her.

Somewhere above her, she heard ringing. Her phone was in the bathroom where she’d left it while she was showering. The ache in her heart told her that it was Ander calling her. She needed to get to the phone. If she could get to the steps, she could get to the bedroom and lock herself in. She’d be able to get to her phone and call the police.

Filled with determination to survive, not just for herself, she flipped over onto her back and planted a hard kick into the gut of the person coming down on her. They were wearing a ski mask, and for a brief second, the image struck her as absurd. It didn’t seem real. This happened on TV and in movies. Not in real life. Not when she was still wet from the shower and only wearing her bathrobe.

The kick was enough to push the person away from her, and Sabrina scrambled to her feet. Dizzy from the blows to her head, she stumbled toward the back steps that led up to the second floor from the kitchen. She couldn’t get to the main stairwell, but if she could reach the ones in the kitchen, she would be able to get up to the far end of the upstairs hallway and then run for her bedroom. She could make it. She had to. This was for them.

She only made it as far as the bottom of the steps. The third blow was enough to drop her to the floor, and she didn’t move again through the others that rained down on her.

Her assailant left her there and took out a black permanent marker. There was no need to rush the messages written on the walls. No one else was around to see them being written. Upstairs, the phone kept ringing. The backdoor opened and closed almost silently. The privacy fence Ander put in place just last summer did its job. The house went still.

Two weeks earlier…

Tracy Ellis was in rare form tonight.

Every time she spoke to an audience, she got riled up and the presentation turned from speaking to shouting, but tonight there was extra fire in her voice. She stalked back and forth across the stage, gesturing wildly as she raged about the horrific death of Terrence Brooks. The beloved church leader had been found dead in brutal, gruesome circumstances, and though many thought it was just a bizarre suicide of a man obviously grappling with his own hidden demons no one knew about, Tracy refused to believe it. Not someone like him. Not a man who dedicated himself to the church and to leading vulnerable youth to try to protect them from the darkness of the world.

Something evil had befallen Terrence Brooks. Someone overcome with the vileness of sin and a searing hatred for those trying to bring good back into the world had taken the bright, compassionate, driven man away from all those who loved him.

And she couldn’t tolerate it for a second.

Right offstage, Ander Ward listened to the famed televangelist rant about the death and the downfall of society, whipping up the rapt audience into a fervor. It was exactly what she wanted. It was what she always wanted. Quiet and subdued didn’t get attention. It didn’t make waves. When she spoke, Tracy craved the reaction. To her, it meant that people were being moved by her words and galvanized to act. There was nothing demure about Tracy Ellis or the way that she latched on to the topics that fueled her presentations.

But unlike Terrence Brooks, who had become the centerpiece of her raving because of his own dedication to faith and her perception of his death as an assault on everyone who claimed to live that way, Tracy would not frequently bring to mind the world beloved. There were many who followed her ravenously, attending her gatherings and watching the videos she regularly released online, but they were drawn to her incendiary words and palpable passion that cemented their own views, giving them justification for the thoughts that bubbled up in their own minds. They might say they did, but Ander knew they didn’t love her. They loved what she said and the self-perceived justified fury it made them feel. If they felt that, they were righteous. They were higher.

But he also knew that was not the way everyone saw her. Tracy didn’t just draw the attention of those who lapped up what she said and carried it out into the world. She also attracted the intense ire of many others. That was why he was standing there, watching the crowd intently, making sure no one seemed to be making any moves toward the stage. It had happened before. He wasn’t just a showpiece meant to display her importance. He and the others assigned to protect her had been called to stave off infuriated attackers before. Some had come after her while walking to and from her car; others had tried to storm the stage during her presentations. They’d been subdued, handed over to the police, and disappeared into memory. They often showed up in her next presentation.

Tonight Ander felt particularly vigilant. The special presentation about Terrence Brooks had drawn a huge crowd, but he’d seen the comments online. He knew some people were angry that she was dragging the youth leader’s death into her world and using it for her own devices. He stood ready to defend her if he needed to, his eyes flickering over the captive audience and his ears tingling waiting to hear anything from the other guards standing at the ready at other points throughout the venue.

The presentation ended the way most of them did, with loud singing and a defiant call to action from Tracy, who then gave a deep bow and walked off the stage waving and smiling. The expression was always jarring, standing in stark contrast to the intensity she had just shown in her speech. She said these presentations filled her with the spirit, refreshed and emboldened her. In the shielded recesses of his own mind, Ander wondered if the smile came from that or from the applause that lingered long after she was off the stage.

As soon as Tracy was backstage, Ander followed her. Her assistant was already taking her microphone pack off her and chattering about how successful the talk had been. It was hard to hear her over the cheering of the crowd, and Ander knew it was going to be one of those nights. She wouldn’t leave the building while the audience was flowing out. They would wait until the people had thinned and then get her out through the back entrance. Because this was a last-minute gathering, it wasn’t one of the larger venues with the private parking decks that kept her fully shielded from the moment she got out of her car until she was back in it again. She would have to go to the small employee parking lot and contend with whatever intrepid fans had had her car staked out.

They moved from the backstage area to a small room to greet those attendees who had paid extra for the privilege of shaking her hand and taking a picture of her. Ander stood at one door watching and waiting for everyone to move through the greeting line and get their thirty seconds of glowing exposure. When it was finally over, Tracy went to her dressing room and emerged more than an hour later, changed and ready to leave. Ander stood at the door the entire time. Silent. Waiting. Watching. Her assistant would deal with everything she’d left behind in the dressing room and with any finalities with the venue. Now it was time for Tracy to go home.

Ander brought her out through the back and to her waiting car. The driver took off almost the instant the door was closed. Ander radioed to the other guards to let them know that she was safely on her way. Relieved that his duties were finally done, Ander walked through the now-quiet night toward his own car. He noticed the piece of paper under the windshield wiper when he was still several yards away.

His stomach tightened. This wasn’t the first time he’d seen something like this. He knew it wasn’t a ticket or an advertisement. He looked around as he snatched the paper from the windshield. No one was around. He unfolded the note and stared down at it. His fingers twitched with the thought of calling one of the other guards or any of the employees of Tracy’s company who would still be at the venue. But he stopped himself. He’d hear later if he was the only one who got one.

He looked at the note again:

How could you protect her? It’s like protecting the devil himself.

Ander balled the note up and got in his car. Tossing the paper onto the passenger seat, he started the engine and drove home where he knew his wife would still be up waiting for him.

I look down at the check in my hand, then the note I hold beneath it. The signature on it is illegible, just a tangle of strokes in blue ink that looks like it shook out of a trembling pen. But I know what it says:

Terrence Brooks

Knowing that, I can almost decipher the first letters of each of the names, but the rest seems to have been purposely scribbled so that it can’t be easily read. It isn’t the name that has my primary focus though. It’s the tiny symbol etched just beneath the name, almost lost in the jumbled letters. The same symbol that was carved into Terrence’s body when it was found. The sign of the person now known as the Game Master.

The chilling message sent to the Ashbury Police Department is still fresh in my mind. Detective Melton gave me the letter that arrived at the station when I returned to the town where Terrence Brooks lived and died, and I have it with the rest of the investigation into his horrific and mysterious death.

When you speak of me, know me as the Game Master. Player selection has begun.

It means there could be more. Other victims. Other horrors I can’t yet fathom because I don’t understand who this person is or what they are doing. All I know is Terrence Brooks was selected as a player, and he ended up dead after weeks of what those closest to him described as “strange behavior.” Now I’m scrambling to figure out what happened to him and who this person is.

But it wasn’t just the police department that received a note mentioning the Game Master and claiming a connection to the Terrence Brooks death investigation. The media has gone wild with notes they received claiming responsibility, signed with the strange symbol I’ve yet to decipher. Echoes of notorious killers from the past, sensationalized names like the Zodiac, have the heat turned up on the investigation as people start to panic about what it all means.

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