Everyone Is Watching, page 1
Praise for the novels of Heather Gudenkauf
“Fully realized, wholly absorbing and almost painfully suspenseful... The journey is mesmerizing.”
—New York Times
“Intelligent, thought-provoking... If there’s such a thing as a ‘thoughtful thriller,’ this is it.”
—Sandra Brown, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Out of Nowhere
“Heather Gudenkauf is a master of suspense.”
—Liv Constantine, bestselling author of The Last Mrs. Parrish
“Heather Gudenkauf proves herself the master of the smart, suspenseful small-town thriller.”
—Gilly Macmillan, New York Times bestselling author of What She Knew
“The Overnight Guest is not only compelling, it’s addictive.”
—Samantha Downing, bestselling author of My Lovely Wife
“Masterful and absolutely addicting... Tense, taut, and terrifying.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“A tale so chillingly real, it could have come from the latest headlines.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred review
Heather Gudenkauf is the critically acclaimed author of several novels, including the New York Times bestsellers The Overnight Guest and The Weight of Silence. She lives in Iowa with her husband and children.
HeatherGudenkauf.com
Everyone Is Watching
Heather Gudenkauf
In memory of my father,
Milton T. Schmida
Contents
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
CHAPTER THIRTY
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CHAPTER FORTY
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
PROLOGUE
MatthewSwimBikeRun was sitting on the sofa staring at what was unfolding on his laptop. One Lucky Winner, a reality show his coworkers were droning on and on about, was streaming. He had listened to them endlessly babble about the show for the past four days. From what he gathered, the contestants were competing for ten million dollars. Curious, he decided to tune in.
On-screen, a group of four people, dressed in the same white outfits like some kind of cult, were sitting on a fancy outdoor patio drinking wine. Another woman, dressed in a white high-necked halter top, appeared and seemed to be holding court. Riveting stuff. He glanced at the comment section on the right-hand side of his screen.
They are going too far.
You think this is real? Nothing on TV is real.
Have you even been watching? It is real! And someone is going to die if they aren’t careful.
This got Matthew’s attention. Someone could die? How? Why? What was this? Squid Game?
He set the laptop on the coffee table in front of him, leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and examined the contestants more closely. Based on the bruised, angry faces he saw on the screen, there was some kind of drama happening. One of the women had her face buried in her hands and one of the men, fist balled, banged on the table, causing the glasses of wine to jump. At the sudden sound, Matthew jumped too.
* * *
“Speak or shoot?” the woman in the white halter top asked calmly. “The choice is yours.” The man didn’t respond at first. Simply stared at the woman, the muscle in his jaw pulsing.
Wait a second, Matthew thought. He knew halter-top lady. Knew the host of the show, though he couldn’t remember her name. They’d lived in the same building in New York for about a year. If he recalled, she was an intern on some big-time network show. Wow, he thought. She ended up making it big. Impressive.
That’s when Matthew saw it. Sitting right in the center of the table, atop the white linen cloth, long-barreled and glinting in the candlelight.
Is that a gun? Matthew typed.
Just tuning in, huh? someone responded.
It was a gun. A Ruger with hardwood grips, and a seven-and-a-half-inch satin stainless steel barrel. This was a gag, right? Why was there a gun sitting in the middle of the table for anyone to grab?
Someone should call 911. This is getting out of control.
No! came the swift responses.
It’s fine. It’s just part of the game.
I don’t think so...
She’s handling that asshole perfectly.
Yeah, don’t screw up the show by calling the police.
Matthew had to agree. He was hooked. Let’s wait and see what happens, he added to the mix.
Is that a bruise on her neck? someone typed.
I think it’s just a shadow, said another.
“Speak or shoot? The choice is yours,” the woman in the halter top said.
The man reached for the gun. Lifted it from the table and, despite himself, Matthew gasped.
“I choose shoot,” the man said, calmly getting to his feet and pressing the gun to his temple.
OMG! Don’t do it!
Someone call the police.
Someone DO something!
Just stop! You don’t think this is real, do you?
Of course it’s real!
Matthew rolled his eyes. The thread devolved into profanity and name-calling. Hilarious, Matthew thought. All these bored armchair warriors threatening to kick each other’s asses.
He had to agree with the naysayers. Everyone knew there was nothing real about reality television. He took a closer look at the man holding the gun against his head and his eyes widened. Then he recognized him. What were the chances that he knew two people on the show?
Isn’t that... Matthew began typing but stopped when the man on-screen lowered the gun from his head and extended his arm. Matthew saw himself staring down the barrel of the gun through his laptop screen. The man was aiming the gun directly at him.
Three explosions in quick succession filled the air and the livestream went black and silent. It was loaded. The gun was really loaded. Matthew covered his mouth with his hand, his heart knocking against his chest.
It was quiet. Too quiet.
Finally, comments began to appear.
What happened?
Did someone get shot?
The livestream flickered and lit up. It showed the veranda, but this time, from a different angle. All that could be seen was an upended chair lying on the stone floor. There was still no sound, no lady in the halter top, none of the other contestants could be seen.
What is that? someone typed.
Oh, Jesus.
Matthew stared, mouth agape, as a slow stream of red liquid crept across the white stone collecting in a crimson puddle.
I think it’s blood.
Matthew agreed. It did look like blood. Once again, the livestream went dead.
The man had shot someone. But whom? And why? Matthew felt sick. He wanted to close his laptop but couldn’t tear his eyes away from the screen, half hoping the livestream would return, half hoping it wouldn’t. What the hell kind of game was One Lucky Winner and why was it worth killing for?
ONE
THE BEST FRIEND
Maire Hennessy squinted against the bright October sun as she drove down the quiet Iowa county road. The fields were filled with the stubbled remains of the fall harvest and stripped bare by heavy-billed grackles and beady-eyed blackbirds eating their fill before the cold weather set in. It made her a little sad. Winter would be coming soon, unrelenting and unforgiving.
That morning, she had packed up her girls and Kryngle, their four-year-old Shetland sheepdog, to drop them off at her former mother-in-law’s home. Maire, who hadn’t traveled more than a hundred miles away from Calico since she’d abruptly dropped out of college over twenty years earlier, was embarking on an adventure that could change the course of their lives forever. Ten-year-old Dani kicked the back of Maire’s seat in time to the throbbing beat coming from her older sister Keely’s earbuds. Keely, a twelve-year-old carbon copy of Maire, had the hood of her sweatshirt pulled up over her head, her red curls springing out around her sullen face, as she silently pretended to read her book.
“I don’t want to go,” Dani murmured. “I like my own bed. Grandma’s house feels weird.”
Both Dani and Keely dreaded the two weeks that they were going to stay with their grandmother, a bland, unexcitable woman with steel-gray hair and stooped shoulders. There would be no movie nights, no special outings, no grand adventures, but they would be well-cared for, safe. And that’s all that Maire wanted.
“I thought you liked Grandma Hennessy,” Maire said. “You’ll make cookies and she’s going to teach you both how to crochet. You’ll have a great time.”
“Why are you going to be gone for so long?” Dani asked, staring at Maire through the rearview mirror, her eyes filled with hurt. A wet cough rumbled through her chest and she buried her mouth in her elbow.
That familiar cloud of worry that materialized every time Dani had a coughing fit settled over Maire.
“It’s only for two weeks and it’s not that I don’t want to see you,” she said. “You know that. I would be with you every single day if I could. It’s kind of a work thing and I can’t pass up the opportunity.”
“You work from home,” Keely said, briefly pulling out an earbud.
Maire didn’t mind lying to Shar but lying to her children was different. She had the chance of a lifetime and in a way, it was work related. Money was involved. Lots of it.
“It’s like a contest,” Maire explained. “And if I win, well, that would be nice. And even if I don’t, a lot of people will learn about my Calico Rose jewelry and might want to sell it.”
“Like Claire’s in the mall?” Dani asked.
“Yes, Claire’s, Target, who knows?” The lies slid so easily off her tongue now. Dani’s kicks to the back of Maire’s seat slowed as she mulled this over.
“I’m sorry,” Maire said. “I know it’s hard.” Her voice broke on the last word. Hard wasn’t anywhere close to how things had been for the last year. Terrifying, humiliating, devastating, soul-crushing were more like it.
Bobby had never been much of a husband or father, but his health insurance had been a lifeline for Dani. When he lost his job at a local grain elevator and then took off with the nineteen-year-old waitress from the Sunshine Café, gone was the health insurance and any hope of child support. When the first $3,000 notice for Dani’s nebulizer treatments came in, Maire ran to the bathroom and vomited. It was impossible. Too much.
Between the implosion of her marriage, the impact it had on the kids, her bank account that was dangerously low, the unpaid medical bills, the jewelry she made for her Etsy shop, and the search for a job that provided decent health insurance, Maire was exhausted.
Things couldn’t go on this way. “It will get better,” she promised.
Maire glanced over at Keely and caught her accusatory glare. Out of all of them, the divorce hit Keely the hardest. Despite his drawbacks, Keely was a daddy’s girl, and she was suffering in his absence.
The worry never ended. At the top of the list was Dani’s health. Her cystic fibrosis was stable for the moment, but she was fragile. Her last infection required a two-week hospital stay, a PICC line with multiple antibiotic infusions, therapies, and nebulizer treatments. It was so much that Maire had to put together a binder for Shar filled with in-depth directions for Dani’s care, and she hoped she wasn’t making a huge mistake by leaving. A lung infection that may be mild for most children could be deadly for Dani. And poor Keely. Quiet, shy Keely was getting lost in the shuffle, becoming more removed, isolated from them. Another thing to worry about.
A month ago, when she got the email about the show, she almost deleted it. Maire had been online, scanning articles about the newest cystic fibrosis research, when she heard the ping. Grateful for an excuse to tear her eyes away from words like Fibrinogen-like 2 proteins and cryogenic electron microscopy, she tapped the email icon on her phone.
CONGRATULATIONS—YOU’VE BEEN NOMINATED, the subject line called out to her. She scanned the rest of the email. Trip of a lifetime, groundbreaking new reality show, ten million dollars. Scam, Maire thought and went back to reading about clinical trials and RNA therapy. But an hour later, she was still thinking about the ten million dollars. She opened the email again to read it more closely.
Congratulations, you’ve been nominated to take part in the groundbreaking new reality competition show One Lucky Winner! Set in the heart of wine country, you, along with the other contestants, will battle for ten million dollars through a series of challenges that will test you physically, mentally, and emotionally. Competitors will spend fourteen days at the exclusive Diletta Resort and Spa in beautiful Napa Valley. When not competing, spend your time in your lavishly appointed private cottage, swimming laps in the 130-foot pool, or head to the spa for our one-of-a-kind vinotherapy-based
treatments—massages, wraps, and scrubs made from grapes grown in the Bella Luce vineyard. As a special treat, each contestant will receive a case of Bella Luce’s world-famous cabernet sauvignon with an exclusively designed label just for you!
Maire snorted. It had to be a joke. A rip-off. She closed the email, even sent it to her trash folder, but an hour later, she pulled it up again. Ten million dollars. Maire was one month away from not being able to pay the mortgage on the house, from not being able to make the car payment, from not being able to put money in the kids’ school lunch accounts, from not being able to pay for one dose of Dani’s medication.
She should probably just sell the house, take the loss, start over, but this was her home, the kids’ home. There was no way she was giving it up without a fight. She didn’t need anywhere near ten million dollars to save the house, but that was what it was worth to her, and that kind of money would change her life, all their lives.
Who would have nominated her? And how did that actually work? Hey, I know of someone who could use ten million dollars. The entire thing had to be fake. The email was signed by someone named Fern Espa, whose title read Production Assistant, One Lucky Winner.
Anyone could send an email. Maire trashed the message again.
Then, over the next three days, the car started leaking oil, Kryngle ate a sock and had to have emergency surgery, and Dani’s hospital bill came in. Her credit cards were maxed out and she’d given up on any help from her ex. Maire needed money, fast. Burying her humiliation, she called her parents and asked for a loan. It wasn’t nearly enough.
Maire hung up and went to the garage, sitting in her leaky car so that the kids wouldn’t hear her crying.
Maybe this was the email she was waiting for. The sign she needed to finally take control of her life. Maire wasn’t a fool though. She did her due diligence. While sitting in the waiting room at the vet’s office, she looked up One Lucky Winner and found a website and an IMDb entry—both short on details—but it clearly was a real show. She searched for the name Fern Espa and found a LinkedIn entry that looked legit. And the Diletta Resort looked amazing.
And now, under the guise of a work trip, here she was, dropping her kids off at her former mother-in-law’s house for two weeks, hopping on a plane to Napa to take part in some Survivor-type reality show for the off chance she might win ten million dollars. It was ridiculous, over the top, maybe even irresponsible, but it ignited a spark of hope that she hadn’t felt in a long time.
“You’ll be okay,” Maire said to the kids as she turned onto the cracked concrete of Shar’s street. Shar was waiting for them, standing on her rickety front porch, a cigarette dangling from her knobby fingers. With hail-pocked, dirty white aluminum siding and a crabgrass-choked yard in need of mowing, the home her ex-husband grew up in was grim and depressing. But Shar was a sweet woman who loved her grandchildren. Maire scanned the street. Every house was in the same state of disarray and neglect. A jolt of fear shot through her. If she didn’t turn things around, they would end up living in a place like this, or worse.
