A Murderous Game

Copyright
2011 Patricia Paris

This book is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, places, brands, and events are either the product of the author's
imagination, or were used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual names,
characters, places or events are purely coincidental.

As always, I owe a great deal of
thanks to the many people who helped make this book possible, including the
Anne Arundel County Police Department, for providing me the opportunity to go
through the Citizens Police Academy program and giving me access to many
officers who were kind enough to answer my many questions. I am also, and
forever, grateful to my amazing editor, S.M. Ray, who painstakingly and
patiently goes through revision after revision with me. And of course, many
thanks go to my loving family, for understanding the time commitment necessary
to bring this book to fruition and never once making me feel guilty when the
keyboard called.

For my husband, John.
Thanks for always believing in me.

This
one is for you, babe.

CHAPTER
ONE

A
bby Carpenter was positive
not one of her six coworkers, gathered around the conference room table for
their weekly staff meeting, would believe she'd just committed the perfect
murder.

The corners of her mouth lifted in
wicked satisfaction. How many times had she done it? Too many to count, and
really, did she even want to know?

Her initial weapon of choice had
been poison. She read somewhere women preferred it, less messy she supposed.
Dick just fell asleep and never woke up. One could argue it lacked creativity,
but in all fairness she had been a novice.

This morning's kill had been her
best. The stunned surprise in Dick's eyes when he woke up to find his hands
tied to the bed posts with the black silk stockings she'd found under the back
seat of his precious Mercedes had been priceless.

Oh, he had tried to bully her into
releasing him. Dick was a master among bullies. But she shut him up quite
nicely with the leopard bikini panties the clerk at the dry cleaner had found
in Dick's suit coat pocket and mistakenly thought belonged to Abby.

Yesterday she murdered the cheat in
the Super G while she waited in line for the checker to get a price on an
organic eggplant. She dispatched him one day last week when she had been stuck
in a three mile backup on the Schuylkill Expressway. Of course driving the Schuylkill,
or
Sure-kill
as some locals un-lovingly referred to it, could spur
anyone to acts of violence. At least she never flipped anyone the bird like so
many other rude drivers. She had her limits.

No doubt some therapist would tell
her dreaming up ways to knock off her soon-to-be ex was the result of an
entangled neurosis involving latent antagonism over Dick's inability to keep
his pants zipped.
Whatever
!

She didn't need a therapist's spin.
Some people worked their frustration off with exercise. She imagined killing
Dick. She got the idea from her best friend, Rachael Gooding, who had majored
in psychology until halfway through sophomore year at Temple, before she found her true calling and
switched to Communications and Media.

When Dick makes you so angry you
feel like you could kill him
, Rachael had said,
just imagine doing it
and get it out of your system
. Exorcising your demons she'd called it,
insisting it was actually healthy. Abby wasn't sure about that, and her little
game did make her feel juvenile sometimes…but it beat marking him as an
adulterer by spray painting the hood of his car with a fluorescent green
A…
or
tie-dying the pristine white Egyptian cotton shirts he paid a small fortune
for.

Imaginary killings aside, she
didn't really wish Dick ill will. She just wanted him to stop delaying their
divorce so she could get on with her life. She wouldn't hold her breath, but
after nearly a year of drawn out proceedings, it appeared till death do us part
would soon be replaced with a property settlement.

The speaker phone next to her boss,
Roger Norwell, buzzed loudly. Abby jumped. Norwell scowled and jabbed the
intercom button.

"What?" he barked with
blatant annoyance.
Bully Bulldog
, she thought. She'd given him the
nickname shortly after being hired four years ago. With his flaccid jowls and
stocky physique the moniker fit.

She'd accepted the job with no
misconceptions. No, she'd done her homework. She'd known the guy was a bastard,
but he was a brilliant bastard, and while time served with The Norwell Group
was difficult at times, she considered it time well spent. She planned to stick
it out a couple of more years, learn everything she could, and then go out on
her own and start her own marketing firm.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Norwell."
Madeline didn't sound sorry, not to Abby, but Madeline was one who seemed immune
to his brusque manner. "Mrs. Carpenter has a visitor."

Norwell turned the full force of
his squinty gaze on Abby.

She gave a negative shake of her
head. "I don't have anything scheduled until this afternoon."

Norwell pressed the speak button,
his accusing glare still on her face. "Carpenter isn't expecting anyone.
Tell whoever it is they need to call later and schedule an appointment."

"They're insistent,"
Madeline said.

"I don't care," Norwell
said. "Carpenter's tied up. She'll need to get back to them."

"I only need ten minutes of my
wife's time, Roger." The voice Abby had silenced during her morning shower
snaked over the intercom. "I promise not to keep her long."

"Dick," Norwell said, his
tone doing a 360. "Madeline should have said it was you. Abigail will be
right out."

Abby frowned. Her boss was no
different from anyone else. Dick had powerful connections, garnered during his
father's two terms in the senate, and most people were afraid to cross him.

The moment she entered the lobby,
she saw Dick laughing with Tammy, the new receptionist, an oversexed flirt all
the men in the office drooled over and the women wanted to throw up on.

Tammy bent forward, showing off
more cleavage than a billboard for Hooters. Dick leered as if he'd never seen breasts
before.
Bastard
.
Abby crossed her arms over her
chest and shifted her gaze to Tammy.
Skank
.

Damn
. Why did she let it
bother her? She glanced at Madeline. The sympathy in the other woman's eyes
only pricked Abby's anger. Dick could do whatever he wanted elsewhere, but he
had no right to humiliate her in front of the people she worked with.

Squaring her shoulders, she made
her way across the lobby. She kept her gaze steady and her head high. She was
going to kill him…again.

~~~

Two hours later, with frustration
over Dick's latest demand fueling a headache, Abby popped open the aspirin
bottle she kept in her top desk drawer. She shook out two pills and washed them
down with the cold remains of her morning coffee.

"Carpenter!"
Norwell's trademark bark broke the silence, and her head snapped up with a
mental groan. "I want to see you and Billings
in my office in five minutes."

She glanced at her watch then back
to the man filling the doorway. "I've got a luncheon appointment in twenty
minutes. Would it be—
"

"Reschedule it. This is more
important." He left her staring at an empty hallway with her mouth
open—matter settled. Abby blew out a resigned sigh and reached for the phone.

"Hey,
Rach
,
lunch is off.  Norwell pulled rank on you."

"No problem. It's been crazy
here all morning anyway. I'll see you tonight at dinner. I've got something
important to tell you." Rachael hesitated. "You might not like it,
but I think you'd want to know."

Abby hung up the phone.
Rach
probably wanted to give her a heads-up about another
one of Dick's affairs before it made the next edition of
The Daily Dish
.
It didn't matter, Abby told herself; she wouldn't let it bother her the way she
had in the past.   

She stopped by Madeline's desk on
the way to the meeting and hitched her head toward Norwell's office. "You
know what's brewing?"

"Same old,
same old."
The secretary pursed her lips in an amazing likeness of
their boss. "Some big new account we
better get or heads will roll
."

Abby grinned. "You've really
got that perfected."

She made a quick stop in the
ladies' room in case the meeting turned into a long one. If the firm stood to
get a big account, she wanted it. It would give her resume some necessary
oomph. Product didn't matter. It could be edible chocolate jock straps for all
she cared.

Her biggest challenge would be
convincing Norwell to assign her and not Billings.
If they were about to get a major account, Billings would fight for it. She planned to
do the same. Unfortunately, she knew from experience
he'd
fight dirty.

~~~

When Abby got to Norwell's office Billings hadn't arrived
yet. She stepped through the doorway and cleared her throat. No sooner had she
opened her mouth for a shot at first dibs than Billings came up behind her. He sauntered
past and made an insulting clicking noise too low for Norwell's ears.
Pond
scum
, she thought.
No wonder you and Dick are such good friends
.

"We've got a chance to get the
new riverfront development account." Norwell sat forward, wasting no time.
"After working through some kinks with the Planning
Commission, the developer's getting ready to break ground."

Abby was vaguely familiar with the
proposed development. Dick bid on the job before they'd separated. When it was
awarded to an out of state bidder, he'd been so outraged she'd half expected
him to start punching things, her included. That was over a year ago. Why
hadn't Norwell asked one of them to research the project before this?

"Somehow Fitch and Lerner
found out a company named GFI got the bid a week before it went public and
stole the damn project out from under everyone's feet. I wouldn't be surprised
if the bastards bribed someone at City Hall."

Well, Abby thought, that explained
why they hadn't gone after the account before now.

"Serves them right,"
Norwell said with a harrumph. "Idiots screwed something up and GFI gave
them the boot. I called their CEO as soon as I got wind of it. He's agreed to
meet with us on Monday."

He narrowed his eyes until they
were mere slits through which his gaze shifted back and forth from her to Billings. "I'm
putting you both on this for now. Dig up everything you can find on the company
and their CEO, Gage Faraday."

Abby caught her breath on a sharp
intake. It couldn't be the same Gage Faraday she'd known as a teenager. She
slowly let her breath back out. It couldn't be, because
that Gage Faraday
she had humiliated herself over by acting like a complete dweeb.
That Gage
Faraday
her father had falsely accused of statutory rape. It couldn't be,
because if it was
that Gage Faraday
, she was in big trouble.

Norwell stood up. "I'll check
in with each of you during the week. Carpenter, I want you to put together a
Power Point presentation. If we do our homework, there's no reason we can't get
this contract—so you damn well better not screw up or heads will roll."

Several minutes later, Abby's head
was still spinning as she sat at her desk trying to absorb the shock. How would
she ever be able to face Gage? She could tell Norwell her plate was full and
hope he considered her for the next big account. Billings would probably get the assignment
anyway. And Norwell didn't know it, but there
was
a reason they might
not get the account—her. Maybe she should bow out before her past could
humiliate her again?

Wimp.
She squeezed her eyes shut. She'd be handing the account to Billings. And the creep would think she
didn't have the confidence to go after it. Forget that! She'd find some way to
deal with Gage Faraday.

~~~

That evening, Abby gazed out the
window of the Westville Café where she met Rachael for dinner every Tuesday.
Absently, she reached for the lead crystal goblet that held her favorite
cabernet, and sighed.

"What if he refuses to work
with me?" They'd known each other since kindergarten. If anyone understood
her angst, it would be
Rach
.