Mystery Walk Read online

  MYSTERY

  WALK

  Book 16 of the Lacey Fitzpatrick and Sam Firecloud Mystery Series

  Melissa Bowersock

  Copyright © 2019 by Melissa Bowersock

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publishers, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in an online review or one printed in a newspaper, magazine or journal.

  First Printing

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Cover image by coversbydesign.net.

  ISBN: 9781792147272

  Books by Melissa Bowersock

  The Appaloosa Connection

  The Blue Crystal

  Burning Through

  The Field Where I Died

  Finding Travis

  (No Time for Travis Series Book 1)

  Being Travis

  (No Time for Travis Series Book 2)

  Fleischerhaus

  Ghost Walk

  (Lacey Fitzpatrick and Sam Firecloud

  Mystery Book 1)

  Skin Walk

  (Lacey Fitzpatrick and Sam Firecloud

  Mystery Book 2)

  Star Walk

  (Lacey Fitzpatrick and Sam Firecloud

  Mystery Book 3)

  Dream Walk

  (Lacey Fitzpatrick and Sam Firecloud

  Mystery Book 4)

  Dragon Walk

  (Lacey Fitzpatrick and Sam Firecloud

  Mystery Book 5)

  Demon Walk

  (Lacey Fitzpatrick and Sam Firecloud

  Mystery Book 6)

  Soul Walk

  (Lacey Fitzpatrick and Sam Firecloud

  Mystery Book 7)

  Death Walk

  (Lacey Fitzpatrick and Sam Firecloud

  Mystery Book 8)

  Castle Walk

  (Lacey Fitzpatrick and Sam Firecloud

  Mystery Book 9)

  Murder Walk

  (Lacey Fitzpatrick and Sam Firecloud

  Mystery Book 10)

  Spirit Walk

  (Lacey Fitzpatrick and Sam Firecloud

  Mystery Book 11)

  Fire Walk

  (Lacey Fitzpatrick and Sam Firecloud

  Mystery Book 12)

  Revenge Walk

  (Lacey Fitzpatrick and Sam Firecloud

  Mystery Book 13)

  Gangster Walk

  (Lacey Fitzpatrick and Sam Firecloud

  Mystery Book 14)

  Karma Walk

  (Lacey Fitzpatrick and Sam Firecloud

  Mystery Book 15)

  Mystery Walk

  (Lacey Fitzpatrick and Sam Firecloud

  Mystery Book 16)

  Goddess Rising

  Lightning Strikes

  Love’s Savage Armpit by Amber Flame

  (Originally published as

  The Pits of Passion)

  The Man in the Black Hat

  Marcia Gates: Angel of Bataan

  Queen’s Gold

  The Rare Breed

  Remember Me

  Sonnets for Heidi

  Stone’s Ghost

  Superstition Gold

  Acknowledgments

  My readers are the best in the world. Not only do they appreciate Sam and Lacey as much as I do, but they give me great suggestions. I’ve had several readers reach out to me through email or Facebook with plot ideas for future books. One of those was the inspiration for this book. I want to thank Lorraine Kraft for her idea and her input along the way.

  When I first started thinking about this story line, I planned it in the same vein as the other books in the series, i.e. very serious with a bit of humor here or there. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized this could be a really fun departure from the normal tragedy Sam and Lacey usually encounter. This could be a lot of fun—for me, for Sam and Lacey and for you, the reader.

  With that in mind, I hope my readers will get on board and take a ride on the fun train. You might be very surprised by what you encounter!

  MYSTERY

  WALK

  Melissa Bowersock

  ONE

  “Damn it!”

  Lacey hissed in a breath and grabbed a kitchen towel to blot the hot oil that had spattered on her arm. Had she gotten the oil too hot? The flat round of fry bread dough simmered happily in the frying pan, only occasionally spitting out drops of hot oil. She’d never attempted Navajo fry bread before, although Roxanne, her sister-in-law, had said it was easy. Funny; the recipe hadn’t called for elbow-length oven mitts or a welding helmet. Next time she’d make sure she was properly attired.

  The front door opened and closed, but she was fishing the fry bread out of the oil with tongs and couldn’t look away.

  “Something smells good,” Sam said behind her. He came to look over her shoulder just as she deposited the fry bread on a plate lined with paper towels. The paper towels immediately sucked up the excess oil and the fry bread looked surprisingly like it was supposed to: puffy and golden.

  Lacey put the tongs down and turned for a proper hello kiss from her husband. “Do you think it’s okay?” she asked about the fry bread. She’d watched Roxanne make some when they were out on the Navajo reservation, and it had looked easy enough. Now she wasn’t so sure.

  “Looks great,” Sam said, poking the still hot bread with one careful finger. “Navajo tacos?”

  “I hope so,” Lacey muttered, turning back to the bowl of dough and the hot oil in the frying pan. “Everything else is ready. I just need to finish these.”

  “I’ll set the table,” Sam offered.

  “Thanks.” She scooped out another fistful of dough and patted it flat, then slid it carefully into the hot oil. It sputtered like mad and she stepped back out of range.

  “Got a call from Christine today,” Sam said as he put out plates and silverware.

  “Oh? Kids okay?” Christine, Sam’s ex, didn’t normally call unless there was an issue with their kids. Daniel at fourteen and Kenzie, ten, were good kids but had their share of upsets.

  “Yeah, fine.” He retrieved napkins from a drawer, then got out glasses for iced tea. “She wanted to know if we want to double date one weekend.”

  Lacey almost dropped the fry bread she’d just pulled from the oil. Luckily she kept her grip long enough to get the bread halfway to the plate, only losing it at the end so it flopped onto the kitchen counter. Quickly she regripped with the tongs and pulled it onto the plate.

  “Okay, say that again.” She wiped the counter with the towel. She was going to have to give the whole kitchen a scrub-down after this dinner.

  “You and me, Christine and Ed,” he explained.

  Lacey frowned as she slid another flat round of dough into the oil. “What, like a movie or something?” In all the time she and Sam had been together—almost two years now—they had never done anything social with Christine and Ed. It wasn’t as if they avoided it; it just never came up.

  When Sam didn’t answer right away, Lacey poked the floating fry bread out into the middle of the big frying pan, then looked to her husband. He stood staring back at her, a goofy grin on his face.

  “What?” she asked insistently.

  “A murder mystery weekend.”

  She was glad she wasn’t trying to transfer another round of fry bread, because she probably would have dropped it. She grabbed the tongs and very deliberately set them around the bread, watching for slippage as she moved the dripping round over to the plate.

  She snapped off the burner and set the pan aside to cool, then brought the plate of hot fry bread to the table.

&nb
sp; “Okay, let’s try this again,” she said. “They want to what?”

  Sam chuckled. “They want to do a murder mystery weekend. You know, where there’s a ‘murder’”—he used air quotes—“and everyone’s a suspect? And you all have to try to figure out who done it.”

  Lacey pulled the first round of fry bread from the bottom of the stack. It was still warm, but not hot. Then she passed the plate to Sam.

  “Do you mean a dinner thing? I know a few places do a dinner like that.”

  Sam took a fry bread and smeared it with beans and taco meat. “Nope. This is a whole weekend, Friday evening to Sunday morning.”

  “Really?” Lacey loaded her fry bread with taco toppings—a smaller version of what Sam was constructing—and tasted it. Not bad. “Where? When?”

  “Two weeks,” he said. “It’s at some mansion up on Mulholland, now a bed and breakfast. Sounds like fun, don’t you think?”

  “I guess.” She’d actually never thought about such a thing at all. She and Sam usually had plenty of real murders to try to figure out, much less doing it for fun.

  “So… you don’t want to?” he asked.

  Lacey realized trying to keep the fry bread flat while she nibbled around the edges as the toppings tumbled off was a losing proposition, so finally just folded it like a regular taco. Her toppings still fell out the end, but not as readily.

  “No, that’s fine,” she said. “I’m just… surprised, that’s all.”

  “I know. We’ve never done anything like this. I think it’ll be fun.”

  “Okay.” Ever practical, Lacey considered the peripheral issues. “What about the kids? If we’re all gone, where do they go?”

  “Christine’s already made arrangements. Daniel will stay with his buddy Mark, and Kenzie will stay with Emily.”

  “She’s got it all figured out, huh?” Lacey chased an escaping hunk of tomato across her plate and resettled it inside her taco. “So how does it work? What do we do?”

  “I’m not entirely sure,” Sam admitted. “She said we have to register online, then we’ll be assigned our characters to play.”

  “Characters?” Lacey repeated. “So we don’t just go as ourselves?”

  “Nope. Remember, someone gets murdered, and one of us will be the killer. The way I understand it, we’ll all have motives and opportunities. If we can figure out who done it, we get a prize or something.”

  Lacey had a sudden thought. “You know what? We should have a distinct advantage.” She grinned at him. “We’re professionals. We do this stuff all the time.”

  Sam chuckled. “So we do. What do you think? Want to go?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “That does sound like fun.”

  “Cool,” he said. “I’ll call her back after dinner and get the details.”

  ~~~

  Lacey listened to Sam’s side of the conversation as she did the dishes.

  “How do we…? Okay, what’s the website?” Sam jotted notes as he talked. “And we pay online? Oh, we just download the information…. Got it. That’ll explain it all? Okay, sounds easy enough… Yeah. We’ll do it tonight… ‘Kay, bye.”

  He ended the call and laid his phone aside, then read over his notes. It took all Lacey’s willpower to finish rinsing the last plate before joining him. She set the plate in the dishwasher, loaded the silverware and tossed her scrubber aside. Wiping her hands on a towel, she crossed to the table and peered over his shoulder.

  “So we do what?” she asked.

  He tapped the paper. “We go to this website and register. We put in these dates, and then we can download our packets. They’ll tell us everything we need to know.”

  “You want to do that now?”

  “Sure.”

  Lacey opened up her laptop and let Sam type in the web address. The splash screen for the site popped up, a large two-story mansion shrouded in fog, every window lit with a yellow glow and each containing a silhouetted act of mayhem.

  “Fog up on Mulholland?” Lacey smirked. “Why do I think the place doesn’t really look like that?”

  Sam had no reply, too busy navigating to the registration page. Lacey watched him input his name, email address, date of engagement and payment information. When he hit the “submit” button, they both waited impatiently for the computer to chew on it. After several long seconds that felt like minutes, the screen proclaimed success.

  “So where’s your stuff?” Lacey asked. She was hoping to see Sam’s assigned character splashed onto the screen.

  “They’ll send me an email,” he said.

  “Aren’t you going to check it?”

  “I’ll do that later.” Sam vacated the chair so Lacey could register next.

  She gaped at him. “But… don’t you want to see who you’re going to be? Let’s look at it.”

  Sam angled a wry smile down at his wife. “Lacey, we’re not supposed to share. We’re all suspects, and we’re all sleuths. We’ve all got secrets to keep… from everyone.”

  Lacey resisted the urge to poke a finger in her ear to make sure she was hearing correctly. “But… but…”

  Sam chuckled. “Lacey, it’s not a case. It’s a game. You remember games, don’t you? You play by a set of rules. You know, to have fun?”

  Lacey snapped her mouth shut. She heard the words, heard Sam’s gentle taunting, and tried to match that to the frustration rising inside.

  It didn’t work.

  “Yes, I remember games. But I just thought, since we’re partners, a married couple, we could put our heads together, help each other out. Like we always do.”

  Sam crossed his arms over his chest. “Not this time. It’s every person for himself. Or herself.”

  She stared at the crossed arms, the rigid stance, the set jaw. Only his eyes gleamed at her with sadistic glee.

  She calculated her options. She knew his password. She could read his email. Download his packet…

  “Don’t even,” Sam warned.

  Lacey’s pale, freckled face bloomed hot.

  “I wasn’t,” she lied. Damn. She’d never been good at masking her thoughts. Not from him.

  He uncrossed his arms and picked up his phone, preparing to leave the kitchen. “Promise me,” he said in a low tone.

  Lacey feigned innocence, canting her head sideways. “What?”

  “Promise me you won’t look.” He brushed past her. “After all, what if you’re the murderer? You’d share that with me and the whole game’s shot.” He looked back from the doorway. “Let’s play the game, okay? Please?”

  Lacey huffed out a breath. “Of course,” she said with a pained look. “I can play a game as well as anyone.” She pulled out the chair and sat down in front of her laptop, dismissing the subject entirely.

  Sam, still chuckling, walked out.

  ~~~

  TWO

  She wasn’t the murderer.

  She was Maggie Phelps Unrue, a young widow whose husband had left her very well off. He’d died of a complication during surgery to remove a brain tumor. Maggie, the grieving widow, was now in a relationship with the surgeon, a brilliant man named Vasan Chowdhury.

  The setting for the weekend, she read, was Hollywood of 1924, the height of the halcyon days of money, fame, sex and illegal drugs and alcohol. Scandal was rampant.

  Their hosts were Mason and Irene Dunhill, and Mason was also the murder victim. He’d be murdered sometime Friday evening, and the rest of the weekend would be devoted to finding the killer.

  Lacey had to admit, this did look like fun. She propped her elbows on the table and read more of her packet.

  Mason was the pivotal figure. He was the one who had assembled this group, and he had a personal history with each character. He also knew a dark secret about each and every one.

  And he’d announced he was planning to make a startling revelation at the party.

  Ah, Lacey thought. Now we get to the motives.

  Mason, she read, was a wealthy business man and a known philanthrop
ist. He used his money as both passkey and bludgeon, helping some people and destroying others. He was awed and respected for the power he wielded, hated for the casual way he eviscerated lives.

  Lacey thought she understood. Mason, as this heavy-handed “godfather,” had helped each character in some way, so they were indebted to him, and he also held a dark secret over every one of them, secrets no one wanted revealed.

  The plot thickens, Lacey thought. What was her secret? What dastardly thing had Maggie done?

  When Leighton Unrue had died on the operating table, Maggie had found herself in a peculiar position. As a rich widow, she commanded some respect in the circles of movers and shakers, but as “new money,” she drew the disdain of established dynasties. She would find both allies and enemies among the other party-goers.

  Lacey tapped her chin with one finger and imagined the possibilities. Some of the people would be willing to help her; others would try to thwart her. It would be up to her to determine who was who, and to gain as much assistance as possible as she puzzled out the clues.

  The packet explained the options. Each participant would get $5000 in play money. They were free to use that money in whatever ways benefitted them most—bribes, gifts, payoffs. It was up to each of them to wrangle as much information from the others as possible.

  What a hoot, Lacey thought. She read further.

  In order to immerse themselves in their roles, participants were encouraged to rent or buy costumes of the period. There was a list of costume stores around LA, some, apparently, that catered specifically to murder mystery events like this.

  Who knew? Lacey thought. But then again, this was a year-round opportunity, not the once-a-year deal that hobbled Halloween costume stores. When a need arose, obviously many were willing to provide.

  She grabbed her notebook and scribbled down a couple of the addresses that were close by. She’d go tomorrow and see what she could find. Nineteen twenty-four: flappers, Prohibition, bathtub gin. She chortled.