The Murder Game by Beverly Barton Page A

in her neighborhood and the one adjoining it. Two miles. And she worked out at the gym three days a week.
    Once dressed and fully awake, she headed out the back door. It was barely daylight and already humid. She could feel the heavy moisture in the air. Early morning was the best time to walk, run, or jog in the summertime. In her twenties, she had jogged, but a knee injury had forced her to take her doctor’s advice and change to brisk walking. Better on the knee joints.
    As she set her pace and headed up the street, her body went on automatic pilot. Her route never varied. Although she might speak to a fellow walker or jogger, she never lingered to talk to anyone and really didn’t know her neighbors beyond her own block.
    For the past thirty-six hours, her thoughts had centered on one thing: somewhere out there a woman was going to be abducted this morning and there was nothing she could do to stop it from happening. It didn’t help that she and Griff had figured out three of the four clues. They knew that a blonde would be kidnapped this morning and in all likelihood she was either a basketball player or a golfer. How many women fit that description? Too many.
    Nic rounded the corner of the second block, picking up speed, pushing herself, as her mind replayed the final clue. Rubies and lemon drops. She had driven herself crazy trying to figure out what the hell that meant. Griff had half his staff at Powell’s trying to come up with something.
    Griff. She’d spoken to him once since they’d parted company early yesterday morning. He had called her shortly after eight last night. He was back at Griffin’s Rest and doing what she was doing—waiting for the inevitable. And hoping beyond hope that they could figure out who the next victim might be.
    Before it was too late.
    There would be no way to get Griff out of her life now. If the killer continued to phone them both with clues, they would have to compare notes on a regular basis. And, as Griff had told her, he would stay either one step ahead of or one step behind the authorities on every case.
    She had talked to Doug again. “I think the killer wants me heading up this case. Why else would he choose a victim from Alexandria, in my territory? I think he picked me just like he picked his victims.”
    “Isn’t that reason enough not to play along?” Doug had asked her.
    “I have to do this. He knows that. Talk to Ace Warren. Persuade him to use his influence to see that I’m put in charge. Make us the office of origin on this case and the others the AOs. After all, our killer is talking personally to me and not to any other agent.”
    “He’s also talking to Griffin Powell,” Doug had reminded her. “Want me to put him in charge, too?”
    “Very funny.”
    “I’ll talk to Ace.”
    “Thanks.”
    Nic had spent more than four years of her career tracking down the BQ Killer and when Cary Maygarden had been unveiled as the murderer, that should have put an end to it. Unfortunately, one small but significant clue had kept her from writing “The End” to the story that everyone else had said was concluded. Two bullets had been found in Maygarden’s body. One bullet had come from Powell’s sharpshooter Holt Keinan’s rifle and the other from an unknown source. Although the bureau and the local authorities in Knoxville had looked into the matter, nothing had ever come of it. Dead end. Only she and Griff had been convinced that there had been a second BQ Killer, one who had ended the deadly game—the dying game—by shooting his partner.
    The second killer had laid low for a whole year, killing again almost a year from the day that Cary Maygarden had died. Coincidence? No way.
    As Nic power-walked block after block, her mind moving as quickly as her feet, her brain jumped from thought to thought. But she finally realized that it all came back down to that final, perplexing clue—rubies and lemon drops.
    By the time she had come full circle and returned