Bloodstone by Barbra Annino Page B

me at Chance’s place then hurried from the police station. I didn’t see anyone on my way out and when I searched the parking lot for Birdie, I discovered she hadn’t bothered to wait. That was okay by me, frankly. There were still unanswered questions floating around my mind. Like why had she rushed to the police station? Was Sayer animated when she first saw him? How often had she left the kitchen? But I feared she had a few questions for me too, and since I wasn’t ready to explain the lie about taking a trip, nor was I ready to explain Ivy and my missing mother, I decided it could wait.
    The sun was bright, melting the snow into muddy puddles as I walked to Chance’s house. My leg was beginning to throb from the wound—the wound courtesy of a crowbar-wielding maniac. Just when I was wishing I had a car, Derek Meyers, the photographer for the Amethyst Globe, pulled up alongside me.
    He rolled down the driver’s window and leaned his dark, unlined face out, the wind not altering his tight hair one bit.
    “You want a ride to the office?” he said.
    “I’m on leave, remember? Injured reporter here. But I will take a ride.” I hopped in the passenger seat and my leg thanked me by slowing the pain to a steady ache.
    Derek turned the car off, draped his arm over the seat and stared at me, both eyebrows raised. We hadn’t known each other that long, but our professional relationship and the newspaper business in general required a certain amount of mutual respect and a fully functioning bullshit detector. The look on his face told me Derek’s was cranked all the way up to ‘high’.
    Crap. He knew something. But what? Which absurd event that dropped in on me these past few days was he aware of?
    I read an Einstein quote once that said something like 'the only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once'. I’d bet a million dollars Einstein had never met a Geraghty because from my vantage point, everything was most certainly happening at the same time.
    When the lives of my loved ones or my own life is under direct threat of imminent danger, I’m usually fast-thinking and I have to admit, quick-witted. This was not one of those times.
    “What?” I said stupidly.
    “You gonna sit there with your big green eyes and try to make me think there isn’t a posse parked out by your granny’s house with a big ol’ meat wagon front and center?”
    “Really? I had no idea.” That was kind of true, actually. Those poor guests had no idea what they were in for when they signed up for the murder-mystery package. Probably they would never leave their homes again.
    I craned my neck as if I could see through the thirty houses that separated the block we were on from Birdie’s corner.
    With a snap of my fingers, I said, “You know there is that murder-mystery thing this weekend. That’s probably it. They’re making it look authentic. Can you drop me off on Ruby Lane?” I asked, not a hint of concern in my voice.
    “Not until you tell me who died.”
    I sighed. What was the use, he would find out soon enough anyway. “Look, all I know is he’s a guest at the inn and his last name is Sayer.”
    “Cause of death?”
    “Do I look like the coroner?” I was getting a little agitated. Of course I was going to work the story, but until I had more information there wasn’t much to report.
    “Well come on, woman, give me something. Was it at least suspicious? Did your granny poison his pancakes or something?”
    Anger took control of my mouth before my brain could gag it, mostly because I hated the word ‘granny’. “Drive the damn car, Derek!”
    Derek’s lower lip dropped a little bit. “I was kidding, Stacy, but don’t play with me. If there’s something going on, you gotta clue me in.”
    The problem was I didn’t even know what was going on at that point, but I suspected soon I would have to come up with something to bring to Shea Parker, my editor, and with the other ‘family’ problems