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Authors: Elise M. Stone

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BOOK: A Game of Murder
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“Everything okay?” Lorna asked as she took her seat.

“Perfect. I don’t smell any herbs or spices in the dressing, so I should be fine.” She turned toward Faith. “I have to be very careful of what I eat. I can get seriously ill. Several times I’ve been rushed to the emergency room because my throat closed up. I brought an EpiPen with me, so that shouldn’t be necessary tonight.”

Before Faith could respond, Derek’s voice roared from the other table. “I can’t eat this. There’s meat on my plate. There’s feta cheese in the vegetables. I’m vegan!”

Hope stood next to him, wearing a look of dismay. “I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t know you had special dietary requirements. I’ll be right back with something else.”

“It better not be contaminated with any animal products.”

Hope scooped up the offending plate and headed for the kitchen. Derek gave Lorna an evil glare.

Faith wasn’t sure she wanted to belong to this club as long as Derek was a member. Being vegan was okay. Shouting at people because of a simple mistake wasn’t.

With all the stress, Faith was losing her appetite. What could possibly happen next?

She didn’t have to wait long. The sound of retching from the other side of the table made her wince, and she twisted her head to locate the source.

Mira had turned pale, even as she made choking sounds. The retching turned into projectile vomiting, green liquid spraying over the table as Mira tried to rise to her feet.

Faith pushed her chair back from the table, getting out of the way of the noxious stream. Cathy screamed and leaned back, raised her hands as if to ward off the sight of Mira’s distress. Adam jumped up to try to help.

Despite the care Lorna had taken in preparing Mira’s food, something was wrong. Adam grabbed Mira as she was about to collapse. Unconscious now, she started convulsing.

Faith whipped her out her phone and dialed 9-1-1 with trembling fingers.
Please
don’t die!

Adam lowered Mira to the tile floor while Cathy scrabbled in Mira’s purse. Cathy pulled out the EpiPen and tried to find a place to inject it, but Mira’s body jerked so violently she couldn’t make contact long enough to get the needle in. “Hold her legs still, Adam.”

Adam pressed Mira’s legs down, then grasped her thighs just above the knee. Cathy pushed up Mira’s skirt, jabbed the device into her thigh, held it for a few seconds to let the medicine pass into Mira’s body. She pulled out the needle and massaged the injection site. A moment later, Cathy rocked back on her heels to watch the results. The convulsions didn’t stop. Mira’s skin paled, took on a bluish cast. Her breath came in short gasps as she writhed on the floor.

A prickling started at Faith’s spine, crawled across her shoulder blades, the tingle creeping down her forearms, leaving her fingers weak and trembling. A voice pleaded inside her head:
No, no, no.

By this time, most of the club members stood in a circle around the stricken woman. Hope returned, carrying Derek’s replacement meal, then stopped. Her face turned ashen. “I’d better call the paramedics.”

“I already did,” Faith said, but even as she heard sirens, she knew it was too late. Mira’s convulsions had stopped. So had her breathing.

CHAPTER THREE

The door to the Prickly Pear swung open once more, this time admitting a pair of paramedics pushing a stretcher. As soon as one of them saw Mira, he dropped to his knees, opened the large case he’d been carrying, pulled on a pair of latex gloves, and started performing CPR. The second one also put on gloves, grabbed an oxygen tank from underneath the gurney, attached a mask with plastic tubing, and covered Mira’s nose and mouth with the mask. The two hovered over the woman’s prostrate form, hiding her from view. As the second paramedic reached for something in the open case beside them, Faith noticed the slightly longer hair, the touch of lipstick on her lips. She also noticed the grim expression on her face.

While the first paramedic continued CPR, the second turned and fired questions at the gamers. What was her name? What happened? Any known illnesses? Allergies? Cathy responded with the answers, including a list of allergies almost as long as the Affordable Care Act, as best she could between catches of breath. The EMT keyed the answers into a portable computer. When she was done, she turned back to Mira.

Lights from the fire truck and ambulance parked outside strobed through the windows, painting the café in garish stripes of red and white, lending an air of unreality to the scene. Plastic caps popped from vials, sterile wrappings ripped from gauze pads. The paramedics’s hands flashed in and out of the lights as they worked over the girl. The female paramedic collapsed the stretcher to floor level with a click and a clank, and the two of them slid Mira onto it. As soon as that was done, the paramedics whisked her out the door and into the ambulance, leaving the gamers in shock.

Cathy turned to Adam. “Take me to the hospital?” she asked in a hoarse voice. Her body was shaking, her knees bent as if at any moment they might collapse.

“Of course.” Adam, his face drawn, wrapped his left arm around her, grasped her hands in his right, supported her as they stumbled out the door.

Faith dropped into her seat. She’d seen death before, but always after the fact. Watching Mira’s struggles, the way her face turned pale, then blue, the jerking of her body followed by the contrasting stillness, the way life left her… The experience sent shockwaves through her system, explosions of empathy for Mira’s suffering. Had Karl’s last minutes been like that? Did he suffer? Did he fight against his approaching death, or accept it peacefully, even gratefully? She never asked.

“Do you think they’ll be able to revive her?” Lorna’s voice trembled.

Faith shook her head, not trusting herself to speak.

The last hint of hope left Lorna’s face. “It’s my fault,” she whispered.

“I don’t think so.” Faith said, her voice thick with emotion. She cleared her throat, but that did nothing to ease the heaviness in her chest. “I saw the salad. It was just greens. Romaine and field greens, right?”

Lorna nodded. “And oil and vinegar. Exactly what she asked for. Maybe she has some other medical problem we don’t know about.”

Faith noticed Lorna’s use of present tense. She didn’t bother to correct her.

The other gamers, now that the action was over, started shuffling toward the door. There would be no more meeting tonight. Hope sank into an available chair. “What happened?”

“I’m not sure,” Faith said. “We were all watching Derek have his hissy-fit, then Mira started throwing up.”

“I hope it wasn’t the food,” Hope said, worried.

“It wasn’t,” Faith said firmly, although she couldn’t help but feel a twinge of doubt.

As if noticing the state of the table for the first time, Hope rose. “I’d better clean up this table.” While the Crime Scene Unit had collected what remained of Mira’s meal, both before and after she’d ingested it, the other dirty dishes, glasses, and used napkins remained. Hope returned in a little while with rags and a container of water, her hands sheathed in rubber gloves, and started wiping up the mess.

Lorna rose as well. “I should get started on the rest of the cleanup.”

“Do you need me to help?” Faith asked.

Hope shook her head. “No rush now. Lorna and I can handle it. Go home.”

It would be nice to be in her house, have a glass of wine and forget tonight’s tragedy. If she could. She had a feeling she’d be having nightmares about Mira’s death, not only tonight, but for many nights to come. Stopping by John’s apartment might be an option, but it was late and would only delay the inevitable. At some point, she’d still have to climb into bed and be alone with the memories. And the horror.

* * *

Faith pushed open the door of the café, her eyes focused on her car, alone in a puddle of light from the street lamp overhanging the parking space on the far side of the lot. As she stepped off the curb, a hint of motion flickered at the edge of her vision, and she slowed her pace as she steered her gaze toward it.

The black hood of a large station wagon angled toward the sky over a car body of the same color; a faux wood panel streaked down the side. An antique, something from her parents’s generation, was Faith’s first thought. One of the geeks—Paul—from the meeting bent over the radiator, hands plunged inside the engine compartment. Next to him stood the waif, chewing on a knuckle.

“I can take the bus, Paul,” the waif said. Her pale blue ribbed top and white cropped pants combined with her alabaster skin to give her a ghost-like appearance.

Faith changed direction and approached the woodie. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

Paul straightened and shoved hands covered in black grease out in front of him. Faith reflexively stepped back. His blue sleeves shot up his arms. “No. Ethel here just needs a little coaxing to get started. I’ll have her fixed in a minute.” He smiled, whether at her or “Ethel,” Faith wasn’t sure.

“I could give you a ride,”—Faith wracked her memory for what he’d called the girl when she walked in the door—“Ashley?”

Ashley looked as if she were about to accept the offer, then glanced at Paul. Her eyes blinked rapidly one, two, three times.

Paul’s smile disappeared as he fixed on Ashley’s face. His nostrils flared and his voice turned brittle. “I told you I could fix it. I’ll take you home.”

“It wouldn’t be any problem,” Faith said. Her eyes flicked from Paul to Ashley to Paul again. She wasn’t sure it was a good idea for the young girl to be alone with the mercurial older man.

Paul turned his ire on Faith. “I told you I’d take Ashley home.”

Actually, he hadn’t. He’d told Ashley. But, rather than escalate the confrontation into a full blown war, Faith decided not to quibble. She smiled in an attempt to disarm his wrath. “See you next time, then.”

Paul returned to working on the car before she’d taken a single step toward her Honda. Ashley resumed chewing her knuckle.

Faith’s misgivings refused to go away. She took her time opening the door to her car, fishing the key out of her purse and inserting it into the ignition before fastening her seatbelt. She pretended to adjust the rearview mirror, using it to observe the couple in front of the Prickly Pear.

Paul extricated himself from the engine and hopped into the driver’s seat, leaving the door open. The engine roared to life as a puff of white smoke came from the tailpipe of the wagon. He hopped out and gave Ashley a thumbs-up sign. The girl said nothing. She got in the passenger seat while Paul closed the hood.

Apparently Paul really did know about cars, and Ashley wouldn’t be stranded. Faith turned the key, starting the engine, hoping they wouldn’t realize she’d been waiting to see if Paul’s car would start.

She needn’t have worried. The station wagon bolted out of its parking space and turned away from her, headed for the far exit. Faith put the Honda in reverse, backed out, and drove toward home, wondering if she should have followed them.

CHAPTER FOUR

Faith chewed on her lower lip as she worked on updates to the Prickly Pear website. She was hoping to finish putting up next month’s performance schedule before John dropped Luke off. He’d called early this morning, forgetting Faith was a night person by nature, and told her he’d be over with Luke by eight-thirty. The crack of dawn to Faith, if not to John and Luke, and she’d had to use all her willpower to get out of bed, into the shower, and dressed in time. Her first cup of coffee, only half-drunk, sat on her desk within easy arm’s reach.

As she picked up the cup to take another sip, the doorbell rang. Pixel, her orange cat, woke up from his nap and turned his head toward the sound. According to the time on her computer, it was too early for John. Or maybe not. Maybe he was running ahead of schedule. Good thing she was already dressed.

But when she opened the door, on the other side stood a man with dark brown hair trimmed in a burr cut, not her boyfriend, the shaggy blond. The man’s face was all square angles, and the muscles of his upper body sculpted the shoulders of his suit. Pixel took one look at the stranger and scampered off toward the bedroom to hide under the bed.

“Miss Andersen?”

She moved her head up and down, then found her voice. “Yes, I’m Faith Andersen.”

“Detective Kastner, Tucson Police Department.”
 

What was he doing here?
She didn’t have to wait long for the answer.

“I’d like to ask you a few questions about the death of Mira Levinson at the Prickly Pear Café last night.”

The fact that he was standing at her door told Faith more than she wanted to know. He hadn’t said the word, but she was fairly certain right before “detective” should have been the word “homicide.”

“May I come in?”

“Of course.” Embarrassed she’d been stunned into silence, Faith stepped back and opened the door wider. She threw a self-conscious glance over her shoulder to ascertain the state of her living room. It would pass. Faith remembered the mug on her desk and how little of the coffee she’d drunk. Hoping he’d say yes so she could retrieve hers, she asked, “Would you like some coffee?”

“No thanks.”

The detective scrutinized the diminutive living room with the red couch under the window next to the door, a black leather recliner on the opposite wall that shared an end table and a lamp with the couch, and a forty-two inch HDTV sitting on a wrought iron stand. In an alcove beside the half wall that divided the living room from the kitchen, a small wooden table and four chairs were positioned in front of a window with plantation shutters.

“Why don’t you have a seat on the couch?” Faith said as she led the way.

Detective Kastner followed her the length of the room. He pushed aside one of the throw pillows, white with a black and red pattern reminiscent of Mata Ortiz pottery, before sitting on the far end of the sofa, while Faith perched on the edge of her recliner.

“I was told you were at the gamer meeting at the Prickly Pear Café last night.” Kastner didn’t bother with the niceties of conversation.

Her mouth went dry. “Yes, I was.” No sense in saying more than the detective asked her about. It was too easy to get into trouble following that path, as Faith found out once before.

BOOK: A Game of Murder
4.12Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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