Roses Manor Chapter 29
After it had dragged on for so long, Gabriella was surprised how quickly the Sixteen Roses case wrapped up. She was off on Saturday, so she slept in. Having two days off close together like this was a rarity and while she felt guilty when she woke up, she also felt queasy. Sure, some of it was probably the spinach and feta pizza she’d ordered from Domino’s at midnight, but some of it was probably still that mysterious energy emanating off the Princess.
Whatever she was and wherever she was from, Gabriella hoped she was safe now. And far out of the reach of Sixteen Roses, LLC.
She took the morning for herself, going back to sleep for another hour, then getting her chores done for the week. Those trips to Market Basket she’d hoped to accomplish during work hadn’t panned out in time, so she took a trip over to the one near her house to get her groceries for the week. Midway through her shopping trip, she went to the deli counter only to spot Bradley coming out of the back room with his crutches under his arms and a terrified-looking manager walking a step behind him.
“I don’t get why I’m here weekly, and there’s one thing I ask for, one fucking thing, that you can’t do,” Bradley was saying. “Keep that amulet hanging by that door. It’s going to cut your problems in half and I won’t spend half my fucking life here.”
The man nodded. “We’ll do it this time,” he said. “Sorry, one of my guys must’ve-”
“Don’t blame your fucking guys,” Bradley said. “Just do it. My partner’s got the paperwork. He’ll be in in a minute.”
“Right, thanks.”
The manager went back behind the counter, and Bradley kept walking, stopping when he spotted Gabriella. “What the hell are you doing here?” he demanded.
She raised her eyebrows and motioned dramatically over her half-full shopping carriage. Bradley scowled. “Congratulations on being cleared for field work,” she said.
“Hey, is that Gabriella?” James said over the comms unit on Bradley’s chest.
“Hi James!” she called.
“Hi! He’s trial run cleared,” James said. “If this goes fine, then he’s fully cleared when he can drive again. And if he gets eaten, my problems decrease significantly. It’s a win-win.”
“Fuck off,” Bradley muttered. “I’m fine.”
“Hey, Gabriella,” Graham said from behind her as James and Bradley continued to bicker over the comms. “Hang on if you have a sec, I want to talk to you. Let me just get the manager’s signature on these papers first.”
He hurried behind the deli, leaving her alone with Bradley. The seafood counter was right beside them and she wanted to look at the salmon this week, so she stepped over there, took a number, then came back for reasons unknown to her.
Bradley was writing something on his notepad, so she looked back at the counter, wondering if she’d have the time or energy to cook trout this week. Not that she’d ever done so. But how hard could it be?
“Do you know how to cook trout?” she asked, almost absently as she compared fish prices. “Can you steam it?”
There was a beat, and she knew Bradley was either ignoring her or coming up with a devastating trout-related putdown. “Yeah,” he said finally. “But I do stovetop. Salt, olive oil, lemon, and garlic.”
She nodded. “Thanks.”
Her number was called a second later and by the time she was done getting her trout fillets (salmon could wait until next week), Graham was back.
“I’m going to see Charlotte this afternoon,” Graham said.
“Do you want me to come?” Gabriella asked, before remembering she wasn’t actually working right now.
“No, I think I should do this one alone. I know it was yours and Madelyn’s case, but…”
“No, it’s much better coming from you,” Gabriella said. “Thank you for doing that.”
“Of course,” he said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
***
When she was done bringing in her groceries, Gabriella noticed a text notification on her phone and groaned. There were far more people she didn’t want to talk to right now than there were people she’d enjoy having a conversation with on her day off. Whether it was the Sixteen Roses creeps with more cryptic bullshit or Elliot wanting to talk more about why they weren’t going to date (or maybe were? God, why did she ever get her hopes up like that with someone so fucking unreliable? No, she knew. She knew why.), it was just going to ruin her afternoon.
But it nagged at her as she put her groceries away. By the time she had a pan heating on the stove, salt, olive oil, and her last slightly shriveled lemon sitting on the counter beside it, she relented and opened her display.
MADELYN
I know you’re not working right now so it can wait if you want. But look at the search results for Sixteen Roses LLC pretty much anywhere.
Gabriella wasn’t waiting, and she had a feeling Madelyn knew that. She took a minute to prep the trout fillet, tracked down her powdered garlic, then pulled over a chair and started to search.
And laugh. And as she continued to read, the harder she laughed.
It hadn’t even been twenty-four hours, but the story of Sixteen Roses’ “cringey attempt at escalating” as one person put it, were all over the internet. People were sharing their own experiences at the gala, some of which lined up with what Gabriella had seen, while others were wildly off. She scrolled through post after post, video after video, dissecting the event. Some were defending the creators, claiming that people didn’t understand creativity and the need to take risks in order to make real art. Others pointed out that while they’d had a legal obligation to attend the event, nobody had signed an NDA at any point. So now they were sharing every detail.
She put the fish on to cook, then sat back down, continuing to scroll through videos. It was incredible how many there were for something that happened last night at an event for a cult game. There were some others thrown in there, too, clearly in an attempt to stem the tide of bad publicity. But either they didn’t have the resources to hire a PR expert, or the wave of criticism was so big that they couldn’t fight it.
The videos were all pretty similar, people describing their ruined clothes, the buildup and letdown of the event, the way some had signed this contract years ago and had to scramble to get to Boston in time to fulfill their side of it. Then there were the reaction videos to these, as well as stories from people who had played Sixteen Roses in the past, but never completed it.
It was only as she was halfway through eating the trout, rice, and salad she’d put together for dinner that she found one that made her pause with her fork halfway to her mouth. An extremely good-looking, familiar man was facing the camera in a fancy hotel room.
“I’m going to sound crazy saying this,” he said, with his fingers steepled thoughtfully in front of him. “Everyone is saying it was an illusion. And yeah, if anyone could swing it, I think these guys could. After all, the game itself is wild. I’m still not over the reverse image search. That took me days to figure out.”
She winced, but kept watching. “But it didn’t feel like an illusion. There was something real in that room, and it was hurting. And…” He sighed. “I don’t know, man. It was like no one cared. This thing, whatever it is, is screaming in agony and they threw me out of the circle for saying it was hurt. And maybe it was a kayfabe thing, and they were really invested in keeping the experience immersive. And I might believe that if they hadn’t been so put out by everyone getting mad about the sprinkler system malfunctioning in the middle of it.”
Now she laughed. “But what really jarred me – like, to the point I’m rethinking my entire life here, right? – is that almost no one else gave a fuck,” the man said. “This thing was in pain. If it wasn’t, then this is the best damn acting job I’ve ever seen in a game. But people just disregarded it. One chick stood up to them and they were awful to her. So, way to go, guys! Bra-fucking-vo on that.” He mock applauded toward the camera. “But how can we as a group of people, just ignore that? I have a theory that the screaming girl on the phone was supposed to desensitize you, and it worked. But I don’t know, I’m just…” He ran a hand through his perfectly messy hair. “I don’t know, you guys. I know I won’t be doing anything with Sixteen Roses again, that’s for sure. But outside of that, I don’t care what kind of blowback I get for this. I don’t think that shit was a game. I haven’t been able to say anything about it yet. Like there was something that was keeping me from telling you guys anything about it. At first I figured it was just, you know, ethics. But it was like every time I started to mention any of the weird shit that was happening during the game, I got sick. Or just… forgot. And that’s not like me. Something weird was happening in that room, it was happening before then, and I don’t know what it is. So yeah.”
The video ended and Gabriella looked at the account name. MontpelierKieran, apparently a big gaming review channel. And New England-based. Interesting. She wasn’t going to touch this without talking to James first, but she followed the account and then went back to her food as she texted Madelyn.
***
Gabriella had been working on her next research assignment for about an hour when Madelyn got to work the next morning. She held two small bouquets of flowers in glass jars.
“From Charlotte,” she said, handing Gabriella one of them.
They were a beautiful deep red. And more importantly, carnations. She set hers beside Madelyn’s on the coffee table, then moved over so Madelyn could sit next to her on the couch. “Check this out,” she said, opening MontpelierKieran’s video again.
They were silent for a moment when it ended. “What do you think?” Gabriella asked.
“I think this guy is going to move from video game reviews to paranormal investigation within six months.”
“So it’s not just me?”
“Oh no,” Madelyn said. “No, that’s… let’s see what James thinks later. But I think he answered some of our questions about why social media was so weird about the game. Thank God for the wardings around headquarters,” she added with a shudder.
It was Gabriella, Madelyn, and Amelia on for the day, with James coming in to take the overnight with Amelia so she could take several hours off on the premises to sleep between shifts. Another non-ideal situation, but it wasn’t like Gabriella had a solution, so she didn’t say anything about it.
Madelyn wrapped up Sixteen Roses as Gabriella moved on to her next case. Most of her work was at headquarters today, but she did end up in Fitchburg to interview a homeowner about voices in his attic. The house was filled with bad vibes and she got out of there as fast as she could, getting straight into the shower as soon as she got back into headquarters twenty minutes later.
When she got back out to the living room, Madelyn was sitting at the coffee table with a bowl of soup and her phone. She looked up as Gabriella came in. “Jessamyn says great job with the case.”
“Thanks,” Gabriella said.
“She also says that Teddy called her about all the activity online. Maybe these creeps can come back from this, but I doubt it’ll be easy. The blowback is wild.”
Madelyn had spent a lot of time talking with Jessamyn since their interview the other day. To the point where Gabriella had wondered more than once since then if Madelyn might leave the Foundation to go work freelance as well. Apparently the question was a little too obvious on her face, because Madelyn looked up from her phone to see Gabriella still looking at her.
“What’s up?” Madelyn asked.
“Can I ask something that’s none of my business?”
“I’m not leaving.”
Gabriella laughed, louder than she expected to. “Shit, was it that obvious?”
“No, but I realized I was,” Madelyn said with a wince. “So, yeah, I thought about it. But I can’t. I’m going to be twenty-six in a few months. If I were to quit right now, I’d get less than a year on my dad’s health insurance. I have too many medical problems, so I need to keep my coverage. If I’m freelancing and can’t afford insurance, I don’t know if public insurance would be enough for all my shit.”
Gabriella hadn’t even thought of that. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“It was a fleeting thought,” Madelyn said. “Please don’t tell James.”
“No, of course.”
He could say he didn’t mind if they left, but Gabriella knew he’d be quietly devastated if any of them did. “I just really liked this online investigation,” Madelyn continued. “I could be in the field without worrying about getting hurt or slowing everything down. It was amazing.”
“Maybe more will come in,” Gabriella said.
“We can hope,” Madelyn said, but she looked almost wistful as she went back to her phone.
