A Game of Murder (26 page)

“My ministry?”

Faith nodded. “Remember how you told me you were called to it? How one day you knew it was the thing you were meant to do?”

“Y-e-s.” He drew the word out, not quite understanding where Faith was going with this.

“It’s the same with me. I have to find the real killer when the accused are innocent. Even if the police won’t. Especially if the police won’t.”

John opened his mouth to object, then closed it. When she put it like that, it didn’t sound like something she could change. He realized that her determination and her sense of justice were what he loved about her. A moment later he said, “I suppose I can understand that. At least I can try.”

“You’ll help me?” Faith waited for his response.

John struggled with his answer. As long as they were involved, it appeared he’d be resigned to help her solve murders. “What do you need me to do?”

She didn’t seem surprised. Why should she be? They’d been a team before. He had a feeling they’d be one in the future. It was a reasonable assumption they were one now.

Faith tapped her fingers on the rock and stared off into space for a minute before turning her gaze back to him. “I’m not sure yet. Let me think about it.”

Faith glanced out her office window. The sky was dimming as the sun sank toward the horizon. This afternoon she’d followed John down the desert trail in her Honda, then the two of them continued to her house. Always concerned about appearances, John didn’t dare stay inside too long. Not that her neighbors would take much notice, and Lois Huffington, the church busybody, lived several miles away, but you never knew who might be watching.

A shiver ran up her spine at those words. Was the killer watching her now?

They went to the Prickly Pear for an early dinner, as much to reassure Hope of Faith’s safety as to eat. They also told her about what had happened at the tire house. Hope offered to come stay with her, but Faith declined, unwilling to put anyone else in danger.

Afterwards, she and John came back to her house and called the detective, who once again promised extra patrols. The police hadn’t made much progress towards identifying the people who were harassing Faith online, but the detective promised to keep trying.

John had been reluctant to leave her, but she didn’t want his reputation to suffer by making it look like he stayed the night. Now that she was in her own home with 9-1-1 on speed dial and people nearby who would hear her if she screamed, she felt safer than she had alone in the desert. She urged him on his way, promising to call him if anything happened.

And then she sat at her computer and worked on her game. The rooms were all done, the puzzles in place, and her creatures behaved as well as could be expected within the limitations of Twine. She did one last run-through for bugs, didn’t find any.

Still, she hesitated to take the final step of uploading the game to the competition site. She had until tomorrow night. Maybe she should wait, give it another going over in the morning.

She knew she was stalling. There was no reason not to upload her game now. What if there was a problem with uploading at the last minute because the site was overloaded? All her hard work would be in vain if she didn’t get to enter her game in the contest.

But what if her game wasn’t good enough? What if the other games were so much better and hers looked silly in comparison? There was only one way to find out. She logged on to the competition site and brought up the list of entries.

There was no way to know who had written the games, of course. In order to make the judging impartial, the site didn’t identify the authors. To her surprise, three Twine games were already listed. Apparently she and Dennis weren’t the only Twine competitors. She picked one of those to start. It would be most like her own in mechanics and simplest to compare.

She didn’t need to make many moves to figure out the creator of the game was an amateur. What wasn’t overly simplistic didn’t seem to work at all. She tried another one.

By the time she played all three games, she was confident hers would be a worthy competitor. She’d been more ambitious than most, including characters as well as rooms and objects. She also thought her puzzles were more clever and difficult to solve. Not impossible and not too terribly frustrating, she hoped, but requiring more thought and a twist in the way of looking at things in order to figure them out.

She was about to upload her game when she changed her mind. The only way to know if she had a chance of winning was to play at least one of the Inform games. She didn’t have time to play more than one, though. Her body ached and her brain was fried. Nightfall had transformed the view outside her window to a curtain of black.

Pixel thought the hour was late, too. He came up beside her chair, stood on his hind legs, and put his front paws in her lap, fixed on reminding her it was time to go to bed. His claws pricked through her jeans into her leg. She absentmindedly reached down and scratched him under the chin. “Soon, little guy.”

She read down the list of brief descriptions, mentally noting a few that might be worth a try. Then she reached one called “Chaos,” a space opera that sounded a lot like the old “Firefly” television series, a cowboys-in-space type game she couldn’t resist playing.

She found herself laughing at the silly situations the crew of the spaceship got themselves into. The author exhibited a great sense of humor and had created some ingenious puzzles. She admired the skill with which he twisted the tropes of “Firefly” into something uniquely his own.

It turned out Chaos was the name of the ship, a counterpoint to Firefly’s Serenity. Like Serenity, Chaos constantly broke down, requiring the player, as the spunky engineer, to patch together parts from various discarded bits found on asteroids, moons, and the interstellar equivalent of junkyards. Most of the puzzles resembled Rube Goldberg inventions, and Faith thoroughly enjoyed figuring them out.

As she completed another series of moves that equated to putting Tab A in Slot B, then installing the makeshift sterigation unit in the engine compartment, she suddenly stopped. Getting her mind off the mystery
 
had allowed her unconscious to solve it. In a flash of revelation, she knew who had written this game. She also knew the identity of the killer.

* * *

Early morning light filtered through the blinds on Faith’s bedroom window. She opened her eyes just enough to peer at Pixel, who was gently nudging her face with a wet nose. She supposed she should be grateful he’d allowed her to sleep this late. She knew she was grateful there’d been no disruptions during the night, no visits from stalking strangers to threaten her. Then she remembered what she’d deduced before going to bed. Her drowsiness vanished.

Faith hopped out of bed, slid her feet into her slippers, and headed for the kitchen. She had planning to do, people to call. But first she needed coffee. If only she could keep from tripping over Pixel on her journey to make it.

Coffee brewing and Pixel fed, Faith wandered into the living room. Even though she’d passed the night safely, she wanted to take a look outside, make sure no one was lurking, waiting to pounce as soon as she opened the door. She separated two slats of the blinds on the front window, trying not to be obvious about her spying. And smiled.

Parked at the curb was John’s truck. While he might not have dared stay in her house, apparently he also didn’t dare leave her unguarded overnight. Faith returned to her bedroom to put on some clothes.

A few minutes later she was poised at the door of his truck, full coffee mug in hand. She rapped on the window.

John jumped at the sound, shook his head, then smiled when he saw Faith. The smile emphasized the tired creases around his eyes. He lowered the window.

“Could you use some coffee?” Faith asked.

“I sure could. Let me get out of the truck first.”

She backed off a couple of steps. He opened the door and stepped into the street with a groan. “I feel like a pretzel,” he said.

“That’s what you get for sleeping in a truck. Have you been here all night?”

John took the coffee from her and took a sip before answering. “Ah… Most of it,” he said ruefully.

Her chest tightened at the knowledge he cared so much for her he’d given up a night’s rest in a warm bed and slept upright in his truck. “Thank you,” she whispered. She raised up on her toes, kissed him on the cheek.

He smiled gently at her, his ice blue eyes warm as an Arizona sunset. “Couldn’t take a chance on you heading out to the tire house on your own again.”

She laughed. “And here I thought you stayed to protect me.”

“That, too,” he said shyly. He stroked her hair.

A gaggle of preteen boys walked by on their way to the middle school, gave the couple curious stares.

“Why don’t we sit on my patio and enjoy the morning. I’ll tell you what I figured out last night,” Faith said.

John raised his eyebrows. “Didn’t you sleep?”

“Some. Probably not enough. My coffee cup is inside, so, even if you’re not coming, I’m going to get it.”

“I’m right behind you.”

When they were seated on the patio with the hummingbirds clustered around the feeder and mourning doves perched on the block wall eyeing the people who’d invaded their space, Faith relayed how she spent the evening. And a good part of the night.

John finished the last of his coffee and held the empty mug clasped in his hands. “Your theory seems to make sense. But is it proof?”

“No,” Faith said. “It’s only deduction. We’re going to have to set a trap, lure him into acting so he’ll give us the evidence we need.”

“Faith.” John’s voice held disapproval.

“Oh, not on our own,” Faith assured him. “We’ll call Detective Kastner and tell him the plan.”

“What if he doesn’t believe you?” John asked.

Faith noticed John hadn’t said us. Would he back out if the detective did? She kicked the negative thought out of her mind, focused on the positive. “I think he will.”

* * *

Once more Faith trudged up the rutted road to the tire house. She’d left her car at the turnaround, not only to avoid bottoming out on the rough trail, but also to convince the killer she had no easy means of escape. This time she didn’t carry a cat or a litter box or a suitcase. If things went as planned, she wouldn’t be staying long enough to need any of that. If they didn’t… Well, in that case, she still wouldn’t need those things.

Before leaving her house, Faith uploaded her game to the competition website, made it an official entry. She also posted messages on several of the boards, all of them saying the same thing.

“You can’t stop me. I entered my game and now you’ll see how good it is. In a week, I’ll be holding the Adventurer’s Torch. Meanwhile, I’m going to a place where you can’t find me. I’m headed back to my safe place.”

She hoped the last sentence wasn’t overdoing things, but she wanted her location to be clear. The killer knew the tire house hadn’t been a safe place before. But it had been safe enough for her to evade him.

Faith pushed the strap to her backpack back up on her shoulder. She didn’t plan to stay overnight, but she did need water and snacks if the killer took any length of time to show up. The dry desert air had already parched her throat. The backpack also contained her cell phone, keys, and wallet. No sense burdening herself with a purse if she was carrying a pack.

She finally reached the tire house, retrieved the key and opened the front door. She didn’t lock it once she was inside. Not that locking it would do much good. There hadn’t been time for John to replace the shattered glass, not even with sheets of plywood to keep intruders out. But an unlocked door would give the killer a false sense of security, make him think she’d been careless, make him less cautious about approaching her. She hoped.

She took off the backpack, put it on the table, and pulled out a bottle of water. She drank deeply, her throat dry from the dusty hike. She checked the time on her cell phone. Five-thirty. She’d cut it close. The sun would be setting in a half hour, leaving her in darkness. How long after dark would he arrive?

She was convinced the killer would wait until dark. Bad things always happened in the dark. Evil things lurked in the dark.

She settled herself in to wait, plugging a set of earbuds into her phone so she could listen to streaming music. She really was tired. She hadn’t slept long—or well—last night, and the day had seemed longer than she would have imagined possible. Her eyelids weighed as heavy as a lead blanket. Faith closed her eyes, just resting them she told herself.

Her eyes flew open. What was that?

Her pulse drummed in her ears. She wiped her palms, suddenly sweaty, on her pant legs. She hadn’t intended to fall asleep, but fatigue got the better of her. How long had she slept?

A footstep thumped on the hard floor, followed by another. The noise must have awakened her. Faith longed for a drink of water to ease her dry mouth. The moment was finally here. She was about to meet the killer.

She tried to keep her hand from trembling as she turned on the electric lantern. “Hello, Paul.”

He straightened from his crouch, stealth no longer necessary. “Faith.”

She struggled to keep calm, to play out the scene she had planned. “I’ve been expecting you.”

“What gave me away?” His eyes darted around the room, sizing up the situation, looking for a position and an opportunity to strike.

“Your game.” Faith, noticing his actions, added, “Why don’t you have a seat?”

“I don’t think so.” Paul took another few steps forward, close enough to reach her in a single lunge. “What about my game?”

Faith tried not to look toward the hallway, focused her gaze on Paul’s face. “The spaceship. I thought it was funny that the ship was always needing repairs. Then I remembered. So was your station wagon. The spaceship needed parts from a junkyard. So did your car. It wasn’t too big of a leap to get to the fact that junkyards don’t only have alternators. They also have airbags.”

“Clever girl. So you figured out I got an airbag from the junkyard and used the sodium azide from the canister to poison Mira.”