Tricks for Free (InCryptid #7)

It was difficult to understand why murdering a guest would be worse than killing a cast member, but it was written plainly in the speaker’s tone: by supposedly killing a guest, Fern had committed a mortal sin in the eyes of not just the law, but the entire Lowry entertainment complex. I swallowed the urge to snort derisively. Right now, it was too important that I listen.

Gossip is toxic, especially because it’s often so much more interesting than the truth. The truth is provable, and dull, and difficult to change. Gossip, though . . . by the time there was a statement about the body that cleared Fern of all wrongdoing, she would already have been convicted a hundred times over. The man would be her lover, her brother, her blackmailer, her illicit son. Speaking up would only make things worse. The slightest attempt to defend her would be read as proof of her guilt, since innocent people don’t need to be defended.

Again, sometimes I want to take a walk through the writers’ rooms of all those police procedurals, and see how well bullshit television tropes can burn.

There were three good things about the situation, if I could call them “good.” First, Fern was genuinely innocent. Being convicted in the court of public opinion might annoy her, but it wouldn’t impact her life in any meaningful way. None of these people were her friends. She had me, she had Megan, and she had her bowling league every other Wednesday night. That seemed to be enough. Humans are among the most social of the world’s various intelligent species. What would have been unbearable for me—what was unbearable for me—was just fine for Fern.

(Humans aren’t the most social. I’m not sure who gets that label, but I’m betting on the dragons. They live in Nests that can contain hundreds of individuals, all piled on top of each other like a garter snake mating ball, and they seem perfectly happy that way. Which is good for them, given the cost of real estate in some areas.)

Second, and more importantly where Fern’s job prospects were concerned, cast members don’t gossip with guests, no matter how hard some guests may try to make us. It’s not snobbery, although it can seem that way. It’s a matter of drawing a hard, firm line between work and play. The fact that Lowry sometimes sends “secret shopper” guests into the Park to see whether we’ll rise to the bait and start talking trash doesn’t help. Even if the rest of the cast thought Fern was a murderer, she’d never be outed to the guests, and her job wouldn’t be in danger. Princess Aspen would continue untainted, as she always had.

Thirdly and most importantly, at least for me, none of the people on the train were saying my name. Fern’s instinct to shoo me away had been exactly right, and I’d managed to get out of there fast enough that no one was connecting me to the scene of the crime. I’d be able to keep my head down and stay out of the spotlight, and honestly, that was exactly what I needed.

The train pulled into the stop for the employee parking lot. I “woke up” and followed the others onto the platform, not bothering to conceal my yawn. When playing a role, it’s best to fully commit.

The platform fed into two stairways and one escalator, with an elevator at the far end. I yawned again and joined the crowd thronging at the escalator entrance. I always tried to leave the elevator for people who needed it—hard to fit a wheelchair on the escalator—but I didn’t feel up to stairs. Not with the night I’d had, and my balance as shot as it was. I’d try to descend normally, trip, fall, and spend the day trying to come up with an explanation for my stitches that didn’t make me sound like a total klutz.

Someone grasped my elbow as I stepped off the escalator. My hands balled into automatic fists, fingers instantly red-hot. I clenched them and forced a smile as I turned to see who was touching me. Punching is frowned upon at Lowryland, and we had technically been on company property since stepping onto the train.

Setting people on fire is also frowned upon at Lowryland, which was a problem, since my hands were only getting hotter. I was going to start leaving blisters on my own skin soon, and that was never easy to explain.

Sophie smiled at me, the expression not reaching her eyes, and let go. “Melody, so glad I ran into you,” she said, in the exact tone she had once used to call freshmen girls to task when they showed signs of buying into the bitchy cheerleader stereotype. It wasn’t a tone I’d heard directed at me in years, and it still made my skin crawl and my clothes suddenly feel three sizes too tight. “Can I give you a ride the rest of the way to work?”

Translation: she needed to talk to me, preferably in private, and her “offer” was really a command veiled in a thin veneer of free choice. Oh, sure. I could refuse, but then she’d have to press the issue, and we both knew who was going to win that one.

As always, Sophie made me feel like an absolute mess just by existing. Her hair was perfectly groomed, and today’s pantsuit was a shade of burgundy that made her skin seem to glow from within, tan and healthy and filled with wholesome goodness. The contrast it made against her cream silk shell top was almost criminal. I, on the other hand, was wearing Lowryland sweatpants and a black tank top, and hadn’t bothered brushing my hair before leaving the apartment, since I’d need to style it in the locker room anyway. Goblin Market meant sausage curls for the long-haired girls, hairsprayed to within an inch of their lives to make sure they would never be knocked out of place.

“Sure,” I said, unclenching my hands and trying to flex away the heat in my fingers, letting it disperse into the morning air. At least we were in Florida. Even the mornings were so warm here that the increase in the ambient heat around me was unlikely to be noticed.

It’s too bad I didn’t get a tendency to freeze things, instead of burning them. I could have gone to work for Disney instead of Lowry, made the big bucks as the most accurate Elsa they would ever have.

(Except I couldn’t have. Consistency is the keyword across face characters at all the Parks that use them, regardless of the parent company: what one Princess Laura does or says or knows must be echoed across all the other Princess Lauras, lest they damage the illusion that they’ve casually wandered out of a cartoon. Sadly, this is why Princess Thistle and her husband, the dashing Prince Corwin, are the only face characters who speak American Sign Language.)

Sophie nodded, clearly having anticipated this outcome when she made her request, and turned to stroll out of the station, trusting me to follow. My coworkers stared as I left in the company of a hiring manager, and the first mutters started before I was out of earshot. Swell. I’d managed to keep myself out of the rumor mill where Fern’s corpse was concerned, but now I was going to get my turn for a completely different reason.

Three spaces outside every Lowryland employee train station and bus stop were reserved for managerial use. This was the first time I’d seen one of them filled. Sophie strolled toward her silver Lexus, pausing at the last moment to beep the doors open, and slid inside.

The interior of the car smelled of leather and cleaning fluid and money. It was like inhaling the inside of a very expensive wallet, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was going to be charged for it. Sophie didn’t say anything, just slid her key into the ignition and started the engine. Eyes watched from all across the station entrance as we pulled away, some jealous that I was getting a ride, others taking in every detail of what they saw so they could repeat it later to anyone who would listen.

“So,” I said finally, desperate to break the silence, “how’re you?”

“They make these cars so they don’t even need a key anymore,” she said. “You use your thumbprint to unlock it. Guess I shouldn’t be surprised. We started using guest thumbprints to key to their tickets three years ago. Did you know, we’ve been sued for our guest information by the federal government six times? They say we have the largest private fingerprint database in the country, and even wanted felons have children who want to ride a roller coaster. We could help them solve a bunch of unsolved crimes.”