Page 98 of Alice Chen's Reality Check

I think back to Seth bringing us the smoothies that Anton was supposed to get for us. “And that ‘dumb stuff’ was enough for you to punch him?”

Seth rubs his eyes. When he answers, he sounds utterly defeated. “A couple nights ago, he told me that he wanted us to pay up. But I’m not rolling in it, and Mikayla shares a bank account with Trevor. So I tracked him down during the Wrath Challenge for a chat.”

“Some chat,” Daniel mutters to me.

“I wasn’t planning on hitting him,” Seth says. “Believe me. But you know Anton. He can really get on your nerves. And yeah, I lost it. I hauled off and punched him. After that, he said he’d lay off, that he had bigger fish to fry anyway. Then we heard someone coming, so I got out of there. But Anton was alive and working on the set when I left him, I swear. You can ask any of the crew where I was after that.”

“God, you’re such a loser,” Leah says, shaking her head. To Dawn Taylor, she says, “I think he’s telling the truth. I saw him and Anton later at different points during the Wrath Challenge. I did notice he had a shiner, but I assumed he’d gotten high on set and walked into something.”

“I’m telling you, I didn’t kill him,” Seth says, his voice pleading. “I know I shouldn’t have hit him, but the things he said, the way he was ready to ruin Mikayla’s life—I couldn’t let him do that to her.”

“Youcouldn’t let him do that to Mikayla?” Trevor cuts in, his voice shaking with rage.

Trevor moves faster than I’ve seen him move in any of the challenges.In an instant, he’s grabbing the collar of Seth’s garish Hawaiian shirt.

“Trevor, no!” Mikayla shouts, and flings herself at Trevor. “Please, don’t do this. Let’s just talk, okay? I’m sorry, baby, I’m so sorry.”

Trevor takes one look at Mikayla’s face and shoves Seth hard against the wall. Then he backs off, chest heaving.

Dawn Taylor stands up, surveying the scene with disdain. “Seth, I’m taking you off your assignments. Leah, can you take care of Trevor and Mikayla?” She says this with a pointed look that I take to mean “make sure you get their messy and inevitable fallout on camera.”

Leah nods and leads Trevor and Mikayla out, talking to them in low, soothing tones.

Peter Dixon clears his throat, getting everyone’s attention again. “Obviously, we’re facing a serious issue here. Seth, we’ll need you to talk to the authorities. Once they can make it to the island, that is.” He runs his hands through his hair, looking conflicted. “I don’t know, DT. Maybe this is all too much. Maybe we should stop filming.”

Dawn Taylor folds her arms. “No, absolutely not. We’ve got way too much momentum to stop now. And there isn’t a problem here. One little affair isn’t going to derailmyshow.”

“Wait, what’s this about the authorities?” Seth says, sounding panicked. “I didn’t kill Anton. You believe that, right?”

“Of course,” Peter Dixon says. “But he’s dead, and we know that you punched him—you admitted as much yourself. Until we can clear you, you’ll have to sit tight.”

Moments later, a couple more burly crew members arrive. “Seth will need to be confined for the duration of our stay here,” Peter says to them. They nod without questioning this bizarre order, which makes me wonder how bizarre the orders around here can get before anyone blinks. “It’s just for now, Seth.”

Silence falls over the room once Seth is gone. Finally, Dawn Taylor crumples up the photo and chucks it into a nearby trash can.

“Well, that was more drama than I was expecting for one evening,” Dawn Taylor says. She moves to sit back down, favoring the leg thatdidn’t get burned during the fireworks. “Alice, thank you for bringing this to our attention. We all want the show to be the best it can be, and what Seth was getting up to with Mikayla—that was unacceptable. I’m glad we sorted that all out.”

It sure doesn’t feel like everything’s been sorted out.

“But what about Anton?” I ask.

“What about him?” Dawn Taylor says. “He’s dead. It’s unfortunate, but it is what it is.”

I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Dawn Taylor is just brushing off the fact that someone on her set was murdered. For her, all that matters is that filming continues.

And it’s clear that even if Daniel and I uncovered one mystery on set, we haven’t solved the case. I remember the shoeprints in the labyrinth, how they were pointed. In addition to what Leah said about seeing Anton and Seth throughout the Wrath Challenge, Seth’s shoes weren’t pointed. Someone else dragged Anton’s body through the sand, and I’m a hundred percent sure it wasn’t Seth. So who was it?

“Someone killed Anton,” I say, looking Dawn Taylor and Peter Dixon in the eye. I need them to acknowledge this.

“You really think so?” Peter Dixon says, looking concerned. “DT, I know you said no, but we should really consider pausing the shoot. If there’s any chance that Anton’s death wasn’t an accident, we can’t keep on like this. We have to think about our cast.”

“I am thinking about our cast,” Dawn Taylor says heatedly. “And the best thing we can do is to continue filming. Our contestants didn’t come all this way just to be mired in some controversy. The press will have a field day over this.”

“I don’t know, DT,” Peter Dixon says. “I think we should take this seriously—”

Dawn Taylor throws up her hands. “Pete, what do you want from me? I can’t believe you’re even saying this.”

It’s like we’re not even in the room right now. I look at Daniel, and he nods at the door. We start to sidle out as Peter Dixon and DawnTaylor continue to argue.

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