Category: Mystery

The Red Path to the Gray Cabin

The back of the closet seemed to lead onto a dirt road with a very much open sky above, a sky that looked overcast. Simone felt a chill coming from that direction, but that could be explained by an air conditioning vent.

Simone put her sneakers back on—Evie had insisted she take her shoes off before entering the house. Then she stepped forward and kicked at road, sending out a spray of dirt and tiny pebbles. Some of the reddish dust stuck the front of her sneakers.

Evie stood behind her. “This is like that wardrobe in—”

“Don’t say it.”

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The Serpent and the Succulent

“I can pick it up?” Marcella asked, gazing down at the little statue standing directly on the clean bench top.

Leo smiled and straightened his back. “Go ahead.” As his sister gently picked up the stone-carved statue of a snake wrapped around and resting in the thick leaves of a succulent, he explained. “This is one of the flawed replicas, so Doctor Valdez talked someone into letting us have it—or at least borrow it. They probably won’t use it in the exhibit.”

Marcella held the statue up and peered into the snake’s glassy blue eyes. She slowly turned it one way and then the other, studying the shapes and details of the painted leaves. She no doubt was wondering what species of snake it was, and what variety of succulent. One of the leaves still had thorns and little bulb-like protrusions along the edge. But most of those delicate details had fallen off the original carvings.

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The Strange Radiant Death

“How does the rain affect your…thing that you do?”

The new potential client, Sadie, turned around, rubbing the knuckles of one hand as if she were applying lotion.

Veronica smiled. “Sometimes it amplifies things. Sometimes dampens. It depends on what I’m looking at and looking for.” Her answer, both vague and accurate at the same time, didn’t seem to register with the woman.

Sadie paced toward the chair she’d been offered, leaving behind the afterimage of jittering yellow waves in the space she moved through. Not a bright happy yellow. But the sickly yellow of anxiety.

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The Case of the Absent Triplet

Kat stood at the edge of the pristine high-piled white rug in her sister’s corner office, gaping at the facedown body of a man in a steel-gray suit with a knife handle protruding from his back.

“What have you done, Trish?” Kat said, unable to pull her gaze away from bright puddle of blood under the man’s left armpit.

She pulled her phone from her pocket and started entering numbers.

“Whoa! He’s not dead,” Trish said.

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Mystery of the Murderous Mug

“Someone in this room is a murderer,” the grandmother declared, pointing her finger out and sweeping it across the room. “They’ve put a strong sedative in one mug, a fast-acting poison in another, and a slow-acting poison in a third. Now, I put it to the Hero to solve one murder, prevent another, and wake the sleeper. But as the Hero is herself the sleeper, it falls to the Sidekick to save.”

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The Fool With the Clever Eyes

Hands in pockets, inhaling sharply, and exhaling a sigh, Freddie glanced around the room that was not an escape room. He was standing in front of a typical-looking door smoothly painted in a pleasant shade of beige. He adjusted his glasses and peered at the textures on the door’s surface. His friends murmuring amongst themselves behind him. They weren’t trying to get out of the room. They were trying to get into the next room.

That was the objective of the game. Because the room they were trying to get into was filled with treasure. And that “treasure” could have been anything from a book of gift certificates to a brand new car.

Freddie felt and heard the rumble in his stomach. He sighed again, turned his head around, and said a single word.

“Legerdemain.”

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Three Girls With Fangs

“Why aren’t we talking about what happened last night?” She glanced around the room. “To Robin.”

Chairs squeaked, and breaths were exhaled. But no one responded. They looked to the front of the room.

“Because we don’t know what happened,” Sarita said. “All we have right now are rumors and gossip. Is that going to help anyone?” She swept her dark gaze over the dozen girls in the room.

“He’s in a coma,” Jolene said. “After studying all night.”

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