Page 125 of Alice Chen's Reality Check

“Thank you, really,” I say. “But are you okay? Did Bryan hurt you?”

“Alice,” Daniel says, taking hold of my shoulders. “Don’t worry about me. Worry about yourself.”

“Don’t tell me what to do,” I say stubbornly. I crane my neck, trying to check Daniel over for any injuries.

“Fine, then about how about this,” Daniel says, taking my hands. “You can worry about me, and I’ll worry about you. Deal?”

“Deal.”

“Again, this is very cute and all, but we’re on a deadline,” Lex says. They reach into their utility jacket breast pocket and produce Anton’s key. They toss it to me. “You need to get to the crew lockers. Find out what’s going on.”

“What about you? We need to get you looked at,” I say.

“I’ll be fine,” Lex says. “You’ll have to go without me. With my ankle like this, I’m only going to slow you down.”

“But Bryan—”

“I’m tougher than I look. The only reason Bryan had me on the ropes was because I didn’t see him coming. And he’s needed on set, so he won’t be coming back anytime soon,” Lex says. “Just head back down the tunnel and you’ll find the locker room. Now go!”

Daniel and I sprint off. The fluorescent lights flicker overhead as we hurry through the tunnel, casting a sickly glow on our surroundings. We pass countless closed doors and a handful of dark rooms that look like they haven’t been aired out in decades. Eventually, we spot a piece of paper taped to the wall with the wordsEMPLOYEE CHANGING ROOMprinted in black Sharpie. We take a left and step inside.

There are rows and rows of faded blue lockers. A few have stickers or writing on them, and each one has a little silver plaque with a number and a letter. The key has 398 written on it, but the numbers here only go up to fifty.

“There’s always trial and error,” Daniel says as he kneels and starts with the first locker, labeled 1A.

I study the key. “Each locker has two sides,” I point out. “Try 39B.” In addition to his many other sins, like having a taste for blackmail, Anton had sloppy handwriting.

Daniel moves over to 39B and tries the lock. The door creaks open, revealing a hoodie that saysAmirion it, a small wireless camera, a sheaf of notebook pages, and—as we clear aside the papers—a laptop.

“Yes!” I pull out the laptop and power it on.

“Do you know his password?” Daniel says. We’ve sat down on the locker room bench, and he’s perusing the notebook pages while looking over my shoulder at the screen.

“No, but I can guess,” I say. I type in a few different passwords, and on the third try, we’re in.

“Wait, what was it?”

“It was ‘admin.’ I figured Anton wouldn’t have bothered to change his password from the default.”

“Wow. At least his laziness is working in our favor,” Daniel says. He holds up the notebook pages. “I’m assuming these are Anton’s notes.This page has a list of timestamps correlating to dates that go back to the first day of filming.” Daniel shuffles through the papers. “And this page looks like he was brainstorming ways to blackmail people. Dawn Taylor’s on here, too. Something about a stalker?”

I ponder that. “This is proof that Anton was planning on blackmailing her, too. But I’m not sure what the timestamps and dates are for.”

“They look like video timestamps. Check the files on the laptop.”

Anton’s desktop is a mess. Just looking at it stresses me out. There are countless docs and folders, along with several SpongeBob memes, for some reason.

“Try that one,” Daniels says, pointing at a folder labelednothing to see here.

Inside the folder are video clips, dozens of them. I click on one, and it starts playing. The video starts off with a partial view of one of the party rooms. The camera angle is not great; the view is from a low point, and a curtain covers the top third and side of the screen. Daniel holds up the notebook page, and we match the date with a timestamp. When I scrub through to the timestamp, Anton walks into view, followed by Peter Dixon.

“—that’s your plan to get rid of Dawn? Seriously?” Anton is saying.

“Keep it down,” Peter Dixon says quietly.

“Relax, man. No one comes over here. I scoped it out, remember?” Anton says, and then, of course, winks directly at the camera. Luckily for Anton, Peter Dixon doesn’t notice. “So you want me to sabotage the fireworks? Like set them off in the wrong place, or what?”

“I don’t care how you do it. Just scare Dawn,” Peter Dixon says. “I want her shaking in her four-inch heels. By the time filming’s done, renewing for season two will be the last thing on her mind.”

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