A Game of Murder (27 page)
Authors: Elise M. Stone
Faith nodded as she appraised his stance. “I remembered how you were standing outside the restroom at the first meeting. Mira’s salad was on the counter in the kitchen in plain view. All you had to do was wait until Hope left to refill drinks in the dining room, then take advantage of the opportunity to add the poison.”
Faith wet her lips.
Could she get him to confess to murdering Ashley as well?
“Ashley’s murder threw me off at first. I thought you liked Ashley. It didn’t seem likely you’d kill her.”
A pained expression crossed Paul’s face. “I did like Ashley. But she saw the setup I built at the house to handle the poison and figured it out, too. You have to be really careful with that stuff or you’ll kill yourself. She wanted to go to the police. I couldn’t let her. It wasn’t impossible to force her to ingest some sodium azide. Not easy, but not impossible.”
A shadow moved in the darkness behind Paul. Faith prayed he wouldn’t turn around. A bead of sweat trickled down the side of her face. She didn’t dare wipe it away. “So you killed both of them.”
“I think I already said that. And now I’m going to kill you, too. Only nothing as subtle as poison.” He pulled a knife from a sheaf on his belt. Paul’s muscles tensed as he crouched to spring.
“Tucson Police. Hold it right there, Hawkins.” The detective’s voice rang out with authority from the hallway where he and John had been hiding. Quickly they moved forward, positioning themselves to prevent Paul’s escape.
Paul started, whirled toward the two men who flanked him, guns pointed at his chest.
“It’s on me,” Lorna said as she pushed a vanilla latte across the counter toward Faith.
“I’ll pay.” Faith opened her wallet and began counting out bills.
Lorna shook her head. “It’s the least I can do. If it weren’t for you, there’s a good chance I’d be in jail right now. At the very least, I would have lost my job here at the Prickly Pear.”
Faith was going to object more strongly, but decided to let it go. She picked up the heavy hand-thrown mug, once again admiring the way the colors evoked the desert, the blue deep and clear as the Arizona sky, the brown the color of desert sand, and carried it to a table not too far away, where Hope and John sat waiting for her.
A week after the confrontation at the tire house, the cozy atmosphere of the Prickly Pear was exactly what she needed.
“Hey, girlfriend,” Hope said.
John smiled at her as she sat beside him. He took her hand after she put down the mug. She squeezed his in response.
“It’s nice to have things back to normal,” Hope said, indicating the clasped hands.
Faith agreed, even if she didn’t say anything. Almost losing John had come close to sending her reeling into the crazy place she thought she had left behind.
John laughed. “As normal as they can be when you have Faith stumbling upon—and solving—murders every time you turn around.”
“Speaking of normal,” Faith said, “business at the Prickly Pear appears to be good.”
“More than good,” Hope said. “Since the Health Department cleared the food and you proved Lorna innocent, all the bad publicity turned into good. People who never heard of the Prickly Pear are coming to sample the food.”
“That’s great news,” Faith said. There was one other open issue. She was almost afraid to ask the question. “How’s the adoption coming?”
Hope’s face lit up. “All clear. Walt and I have been approved by the agency. Next week we’re going to meet with them and go over available children.”
“Fantastic,” John said, but beneath his cheer was something else.
What was he not saying?
Faith would have to ask him, later, when they were alone.
“There’s one thing I still don’t understand,” Hope said.
“What’s that?” Faith asked.
“How did the killer know you were at the tire house? I didn’t tell anyone except John, and that was after Paul Hawkins found you.”
“Oh.” Faith felt the blush rise in her cheeks. “Remember the nifty new app I showed you? The one where I left the review of the Prickly Pear?”
Hope nodded. “Yes.” Then her eyes widened. “It knew you were here. Do you mean to tell me…?”
Faith’s face blazed. “My fault. When I installed the app, I was in a hurry and clicked on all the ‘I agree’ prompts without reading through them. I agreed to let TheGathering share my location with everyone in my address book and all my online friends. That would have been okay, except I didn’t realize the default setting is to do that in the background, even when I wasn’t actively using the app. So when I called you to tell you where I was, all the people who had TheGathering app got notified.”
“But you weren’t at a real address or anything…” Hope looked confused.
“It doesn’t use an address. It uses longitude and latitude and displays a map. Like Google does with a bright red circle of where something is. I might as well have called Paul Hawkins directly.” She shook her head. “Dumb. Dumb, dumb, dumb.”
“I never would have thought about any of those things,” Hope said.
“Me, neither,” John agreed.
“But I’m a techie. I’m supposed to know about those things.” Her embarrassment threatened to overwhelm her. “Anyway, I deleted it off my phone. If I do put it back—and I’m not saying I will—I’ll be more careful about what I agree to. And turn off background notification.”
The door to the Prickly Pear swung open, admitting Derek and Stan, with Rok not too far behind. Rok
carried the Adventurer’s Torch.
“Hi,” Faith said, confused by their arrival. “What’s going on?”
Derek led the way, marching forward until he stood beside Faith. Stan and Rok followed and took a position a half-step back on either side of him.
Derek shuffled his feet. He glanced toward his companions before speaking. “I want to apologize for what happened, Faith. It’s partly my fault Paul did what he did. I think he was trying to impress me with his attitude of superiority toward women and his desire to win the trophy. Except he took my bias” — Derek grimaced — “and turned it into full-blown misogyny. It made me recognize how off-base my attitude was.”
Faith wasn’t sure what to say. Anything like the usual “no problem,” or “that’s okay,” or “don’t worry about it” didn’t apply. Because it had been a problem, it wasn’t okay, and he should have worried about it. Finally she came up with, “Apology accepted.”
She glanced over at the trophy.
Rok grinned. “No, you didn’t win. This is mine.”
“That was the other reason we came over,” Derek said.
Now Faith was truly confused. If she didn’t win, what could possibly be the reason for bringing the trophy?
Derek pulled a small box out of his pocket. “The club kind of got decimated during the competition, so we decided to skip the awards dinner this year. We finished tallying the online votes and, yes, Rok won. He wrote a great game.”
Faith couldn’t argue with that. She’d played Rok’s game this past week and been impressed.
“You came in second. It isn’t often a first-timer scores as high as you did. I have to admit you did some pretty great things in your game, things I didn’t think Twine was capable of. So the three of us got together and decided you deserved some recognition.”
He handed her the box, shyly, like a teenager on a first date. Curious, she opened the lid, peeled back the tissue paper. Inside was a delicate silver charm bracelet with a single charm, a miniature version of the Adventurer’s Torch.
Joy filled her eyes with happy tears. She picked up the bracelet and held it up for everyone to see. “It’s beautiful.”
Hope clapped her hands. John’s eyes sparkled with pride.
Derek cleared his throat. “I wouldn’t be surprised if next year you won the real one.”
Thank You!
Thank you for reading
A Game of Murder!
I hope you enjoyed it. If you liked it, please consider leaving a review or rating on the site where it was purchased. Reviews on Goodreads are always appreciated. Your help in spreading the word is gratefully appreciated and reviews make a huge difference in helping new readers find the series.
You can find the previous adventures of Faith, John, Hope, and Walt in:
If you like police procedurals, try my Lacy Davenport Mystery Shorts:
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About the Author
Elise M. Stone was born and raised in New York, went to college in Michigan, lived in the Boston area for eight years, and not too long ago moved to sunny Tucson, Arizona, where she doesn’t have to shovel snow. Her first degree was in psychology, her second in computers. She’s worked as a pizza maker, library clerk, waitress, social worker, programmer, and data jockey.
She wrote her first story in kindergarten. She loved writing stories. She wrote fewer and fewer stories through high school, finally abandoning the practice in college.
Every once in a while, she’d think wistfully of her dream to be a published author. Ten years ago she decided it was time to pursue that dream and started writing again.
A Game of Murder
is her third published book.
I love hearing from readers. You can connect with me at:
Email:
[email protected]
Twitter: @EliseMStone
Facebook:
www.facebook.com/EliseMStone
Acknowledgments
While writing is a solitary occupation, creating a book requires many people to become a reality. This book is no exception.
I’d also like to thank Barbara Rebok for her copyedit of the manuscript. I did not always incorporate her changes, and any errors that remain are mine.
Karen Phillips
designed the cover for this story, using the beautiful photographs of
Ed Mullins
.
And, last of all, but certainly not least, my fellow writers. I’d like to thank the Guppies Chapter of Sisters in Crime for years of education, camaraderie, and support. There is no better group of writers than the Guppies. The Christian Indie Authors Facebook group has been a constant source of support and inspiration. Most recently, my local face-to-face group, TAZA 2, has provided a warm circle of writing friends.