Текст книги "Foul Play"

Автор книги: Jeff Shelby

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Foul Play

By Jeff Shelby

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

FOUL PLAY

All rights reserved.

Copyright ©2015

 

This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork herein is prohibited without the expressed written consent of the author.

 

Books by Jeff Shelby

The Joe Tyler Novels

THREAD OF HOPE

THREAD OF SUSPICION

THREAD OF BETRAYAL

THREAD OF INNOCENCE

THREAD OF FEAR

The Noah Braddock Novels

KILLER SWELL

WICKED BREAK

LIQUID SMOKE

DRIFT AWAY

The Moose River Mysteries

THE MURDER PIT

LAST RESORT

ALIBI HIGH

FOUL PLAY

 

 

The Deuce Winters Novels (Under the pseudonym Jeffrey Allen)

STAY AT HOME DEAD

POPPED OFF

FATHERS KNOWS DEATH

Short Story Collections

OUT OF TIME

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ONE

“Snow White is missing!” Grace yelled, bursting through the door. “This is my big break!”

I was sitting at the dining room table with two of her siblings, having been coerced into playing a game with Will and Emily. We were in the middle of a hotly contested round of Taboo.

“Did you tell them?” Sophie asked, spilling in the door behind Grace. “Did you tell them about Snow White?”

“Yes!” Grace yelled, kicking off her shoes. “I'm so going to be a star!”

“No one cares about Snow White,” Will growled at her without looking up from the card in his hand. “Emily, your turn.”

Emily smiled at her brother, whom she was currently beating the pants off of. “Are you sure you don't want to listen?” she asked, twirling the end of her long ponytail. “You could probably use the break and maybe get back in the game.”

“It's your turn!” he yelled, his eyes narrowing. “Just go.”

Sophie sidled up to the table. She pushed at her glasses, squinting at the makeshift score sheet in front of us. Then she looked at Will and laughed. “Your face is like a tomato. You look like you're gonna have a heart attack.”

“Oh my God!” he growled again. “Both of you, shut up!”

She and Emily giggled, and then high-fived one another.

I focused on Grace. Her braids had loosened and her bangs hung in front of her eyes. “Why are you going to be a star? And what do you mean Snow White is missing?”

She climbed into my lap and I winced when an elbow connected with my ribcage. “No clue where she is,” Grace said. “But I know all the lines, so I'll be a perfect fit to take her place.”

“You mean she wasn't there tonight?”

Grace shook her head and one braid hit my cheek. “Nope. Snooze you lose.”

“Was she home sick or something?” I asked.

Sophie shrugged. “We don't know. No one knew, not even Mrs. Bandersand.” She lifted her eyebrows. “And she was maaaaaad.”

Mrs. Bandersand. Eleanor Bandersand, the director of the Moose River Community Theater and the director of the Snow White adaptation the girls were in. I wasn't much of a theater person, but the girls had brought home a flier from the grocery store one afternoon when they'd gone shopping with Jake and begged to sign up. Jake had immediately balked, remembering our experience with another theater company and The Wizard of Oz, but I knew how much the girls wanted to do it. The fees were reasonable, the time commitment wasn't ridiculous and the rehearsals and performances were at Moose River High School, so we'd gone ahead and signed them up. They'd been going to rehearsals for three weeks now, but apparently they were experiencing problems.

Like a missing Snow White.

“Maybe she was sick,” I offered.

“Who is sick?” Emily asked.

Grace frowned at her. “Did you not just hear what we've been talking about?”

“No.”

“Why not?” Grace demanded. “You were right here!”

“I dunno. I didn't care enough to listen,” Emily answered with her perfectly honed fifteen year old’s sense of honesty.

Will cleared his throat loudly. “Is anyone gonna play? Because if not, I quit.”

“If you quit, you still lose,” Emily said, grinning at him.

Sophia made an L-shape with her thumb and forefinger. “Lose.”

“LOSER!” Grace chimed in. She tried making an ‘L’, too, but with her right hand.

“L is for Lame. Which all of you are!” he said, shoving himself away from the table and stomping up the stairs toward his room.

The girls high-fived again and I shot them a disapproving look. And stifled a smile. As much as I knew the kids really did love one another, I also knew they would use every opportunity they could find to get on each other’s nerves.

Jake shut the kitchen door and stepped over the girls' shoes. “Who is lame?” he asked, catching Will’s words before he’d stormed away from the table.

“The girls,” I said. “I don't think he meant me.”

“You're definitely not lame,” Jake said. He kissed my cheek and slid into the seat previously occupied by Will. His dark hair was hidden under a baseball cap and a day's worth of stubble lined his cheeks and chin. “Did you hear about Snow White?”

“The girls were just informing me of her absence,” I said.

Emily began tossing cards and game pieces back into the box. “What are you even talking about?”

“Were you not here for the last five minutes?” I asked. I understood Grace’s exasperation with her older sister.

She shrugged. “I was more interested in torturing Will.”

“Snow White wasn't at practice,” Sophie informed her. Her long hair was clipped back with a barrette, her huge blue eyes wide with excitement. “She's kind of the most important person in the play.”

Emily's hand froze over the game box and she looked at Grace. “Wait. You guys are in Snow White?”

“Oh my God!” Grace leaped off my lap. “Where do you think we've been going for the last three weeks? India?”

“Do you even know where India is?” Jake wondered out loud. It was a valid question. We studied geography a lot during our homeschool time, but we hadn’t quite made it to Asia.

“Yes,” Grace said stubbornly.

“So you know it's not a day trip destination from Minnesota, right?” Jake asked, eyebrows raised in amusement.

Grace opened her mouth to answer but her older sister interrupted her. “The one at Moose River High?” Emily asked, looking at me. Her blue eyes were wide and looked almost exactly like Sophie’s, which always amazed me, considering they weren’t blood-related. “The theater company?”

“Uh, yeah.” I picked up my glass of water and took a sip. “For the last three weeks, as your sister just told you. And now why are you so interested?”

“No reason,” she said quickly. She smashed the lid on the game box and sprinted to her room, slamming the door behind her.

“'No reason' usually means there's totally a reason,” Jake correctly observed. There was a bowl of popcorn on the table and he grabbed a handful.

“Maybe she knows where Snow White is,” Sophie offered helpfully.

“No!” Grace yelled, a scowl on her face. “I'm going to be Snow White!”

“I think you might be a little young to play Snow White,” I reminded her.

“Why does it matter? I know all her lines!”

“Because you’re nine, honey.” I pressed my lips together to hide my smile. “And I'm sure Snow White will return soon with a good excuse.”

If any of the kids had a proclivity for the dramatic, it was definitely Grace. She was expressive, effusive and loud. She also had an uncanny knack for turning the tiniest things into monumental victories... or tragedies, depending on the circumstances. The previous week, she'd lost a shoe and had run around the house, crying and screaming about how she was never going to find the shoe, and it was her favorite shoe, and she'd never wear another pair of shoes again out of deference to the lost shoe.

Sophie found it five minutes later, shoved behind the couch.

Still, I didn't think the youngest kid in the play would be able to step into Snow White's shoes if needed.

Grace folded her arms across her little chest and frowned. “Stupid Snow White.”

“Come on, Grace,” Sophie said, tugging on her shoulder. “Let's go work on our songs.”

“I already know them!” Grace said. She popped a piece of popcorn in her mouth and grudgingly followed her sister. “And I know all of Snow White's lines, too!”

They scampered up the stairs to their bedroom, singing the first lines of “Heigh Ho.”

I looked at Jake and reached for my own handful of popcorn. “Wild night at the theater?”

He rolled his eyes. “That Bandersand woman is three kinds of insane. She spent twenty minutes trying to find Snow White, then totally melted down when she called the kid's house and no one answered. Yelled and screamed like a lunatic.”

“And no one knew where she was?” I asked.

Jake shrugged. “I don't know. I put my earbuds in after that so I wouldn't have to listen to that woman screaming her head off.”

“Kind of weird that the girl doesn't show up for rehearsal, isn't it?” I asked.

He shrugged again, then yawned. “I don't know. Maybe she was sick, like you said. Maybe they got stuck in traffic and their phones were dead. Who knows? She didn't need to freak out about it. The kid'll show up.”

I nodded. We'd already witnessed a little of Eleanor Bandersand's act and it wasn't always pretty. Lots of screaming and yelling and making herself the center of attention. Her credentials listed a pretty good number of productions that she'd overseen, so we were fairly certain she knew what she was doing. But after the first full week of rehearsals, both Jake and I had already decided that we were a little tired of her… dramatics.

“Grace really could play Snow White,” Jake said, lowering his voice. “She was saying all of the lines on the way home. I think she does have them memorized.”

“Isn't the girl in the role, like, seventeen?”

“I'm just saying,” Jake said. “And if she's decided to abandon the role and it's up for grabs...”

“Oh, stop,” I said to him, shaking my head. “Just stop. Grace isn't going to be Snow White.”

He chuckled to himself. “I know. Just the thought of it is amusing, though.”

It was amusing, thinking of Grace, the tiniest person in the cast, playing out the biggest role. She would've been smaller than all of the dwarfs. But I was fairly certain it was all a misunderstanding and there was nothing to worry about.

Someone would find Snow White.

TWO

“The show will go on,” Eleanor Bandersand announced from her perch on the stage. “The show must go on.”

It was the next night and I'd drawn rehearsal duty, as Jake was doing some work from home. I'd gotten the girls to the high school and they'd disappeared backstage while I found a seat in the semi-dark theater, prepared to read while the girls did their thing.

Except Eleanor had appeared, screaming for the kids to move to the hallway and that the adults needed to stay in the room so she could speak with us.

Eleanor Bandersand was quite the sight. Early sixties, with curly brown hair and bulging gray eyes, she wore her black stretch pants pulled up nearly to her breasts, which, combined with her bloated stomach, made her look an awful lot like an overgrown Oompa Loompa. She pranced around the theater and stage with her chin lifted in the air, as if she was literally looking down her nose at everyone in the room. Her voice never dropped below the decibel level of a jet engine, and even when it was nearly silent in the auditorium, she would scream “QUIET!” – perhaps just to make sure we were all awake.

And now she was standing before us on the stage, telling us that the show would go on. Which was odd, because I didn't know that it hadn't ever not been going on.

“As you may have heard,” Eleanor began, striding slowly back and forth across the stage, “Amanda Pendleton was not at rehearsal last evening, nor is she here this evening. While I am not entirely privy to the reasons for this, I have made the determination to remove her from the lead role of Snow White.”

Whispers floated around the dark theater.

“QUIET!” she screamed, her eyes bulging beneath the stage lights.

The whispers died.

When she was sure she had our attention, she began pacing again. “Now, as you can imagine, this is an immense burden for the director of this production, which just happens to be me.” She paused for effect. “But I assure you, I am up for the task and I will make certain this production does not fail. I am well-versed in rehearsal chaos and I am able to handle it.”

If she did say so herself.

“Beginning this evening, I will be reopening the auditions for Snow White,” she continued. “I have spoken privately with several of our cast members and there is, of course, some interest in filling the role. But I wanted you, our parents, to be aware of the situation and also to remind you that this is a commitment that should not be taken lightly. Opening night is getting close and whoever fills this role will need to learn their lines quickly. Also, remember that we expect your children to be here for all rehearsals. Each and every night. If you are unable to commit to that, then perhaps the theater is not for you.”

Her shrill voice was wearing on me and I wished I'd brought along Jake's ear buds.

“Now, before I bring the children back in, are there any questions?” she asked, squinting out into the darkened seats.

I hesitated, then raised my hand.

Her eyes finally landed on me. “Yes. You there. Mrs....?”

“Savage,” I said. “Grace and Sophie are my girls.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” she said, nodding. “What is your question?”

“The girl who was playing Snow White?” I asked. “Amanda, I think you said her name was? Did she quit or did she—”

“Mrs. Savage, I am unable to share that information with you at this time,” she said, cutting me off, her voice booming across the room. She definitely had vocal projection down, no problem. “I have not heard from her or her family and this production cannot be held up any longer. The theater waits for no one! So we will press forward and this will be but a small obstacle on our way to opening night!”

I sank down in my chair, thoroughly chastised.

There were no more questions and Eleanor Bandersand turned her attention away from us, summoning one of her cronies to fetch the children.

“I wanted to ask the same question,” Annabelle Kingston whispered to me. She was seated in the row in front of me. “But I knew she'd go off.”

Annabelle was a fellow homeschool mom and a member of our 4-H group. Her eldest son, Josiah, had been cast as Bashful.

“I just can't believe she's changing the role this late,” I whispered back. “I mean, maybe Amanda is sick, or there was a death in her family or something?”

Annabelle's face clouded with worry. “Well, I'm not sure. I think it's more than that.”

“More?” I asked. “What do you mean?”

She looked around nervously. “The neighbor girl came home from school today. She knows Josiah is in the play and she said that some of the other kids in school said Amanda was actually missing.”

“Neighbor girl?”

Annabelle nodded. “She helps me out around the house a couple of days a week. You know, with the boys...”

Annabelle had four boys under the age of ten and she walked around as if motherhood had permanently shell-shocked her. I had four kids and I knew how demanding they could be, but Annabelle seemed to struggle more than the other homeschool moms I knew. I was happy to hear she'd found someone to help her out.

“She's missing from school?” I asked. “Amanda?”

She shook her head. “No. Well, yes, she wasn't there. But I mean missing. As in, no one knows where she is.”

Two teen boys carrying large pieces of plywood shuffled down the aisle, heading toward the stage area. Set design. I was glad I hadn’t been selected for that volunteer job.

“Like ran away?” I asked once they passed by. I raised my eyebrows. “Or...?”

“I don't know,” Annabelle answered. She wrung her hands nervously. “We didn't really talk much about it. I...I only had a couple of hours.”

I opened my mouth to respond that a couple of hours would have been plenty of time to talk to her about it, but then I realized what she was saying. She'd only had a couple of hours to herself, a couple of hours that the neighbor girl would be there to help.

So I just smiled and nodded and made a mental note to ask the younger girls if they'd want a playdate with the Kingston boys any time soon. I was pretty sure Annabelle wouldn't object.

The side entrance to the theater opened and kids spilled in, single file, ready to march back on stage. Grace and Sophie waved at me. I waved back, but my mind was focused on one thing.

Snow White really was missing.

THREE

“Was she back?” Emily asked as soon as we walked in the door from rehearsal.

Her sisters ignored her, kicking off their shoes and stripping out of their jackets before scurrying past her, headed for the stairs. We’d had to leave for rehearsal right as a Barbie wedding was commencing and they were eager to resume the nuptials.

“Who? Snow White?” I asked, struggling to get my own shoes off. I’d worn boots and the laces were double-knotted, making it impossible to just slip them off. “No. And she's apparently no longer in the play.”

Emily leaned against her doorframe, her mouth hanging open. “She's out of the play?”

I nodded. “That's what we were told. Which I guess I understand if they can't find her.”

“Well, no one knows where she is,” Emily said.

“And how do you know?” I asked before turning my attention to the sink full of dinner dishes I’d left behind.

She followed me into the kitchen and grabbed a blueberry muffin from a Ziploc bag on the counter. “I just...heard about it.”

“From who?”

“No one.”

I blasted hot water into the sink and poured in dish soap. “So, what?” I glanced at her. “You were just talking to the sky and the sky responded?”

She rolled her eyes. “No. Duh. I just mean that people are, like, talking about it.”

“She doesn't even go to your school,” I pointed out.

She shifted her attention to the paper wrapper on the muffin. “Well, yeah, but I know people who go to Moose River High. I talk to them and stuff.”

Will bounded into the kitchen and tried to grab the muffin out of her hand. She swatted him away and gave him a death glare. He just laughed.

“Who do you talk to at Moose River?” I asked. “Since when?”

“I just know kids there, Mom.” She sighed, like she couldn’t believe she had to explain something so simple. “Like from Instagram and Twitter and stuff.”

Will ripped a bag of chips down from the top of the fridge.

“Didn’t we all just eat dinner like two hours ago?” I asked, looking at both of them.

Will shrugged. “Yeah, but I’m hungry.” He stuffed a potato chip in his mouth. “And she talks to Andy…”

Emily's face immediately shaded crimson. “Shut up, Will.”

He popped another chip in his mouth and chuckled, happy to have gotten a reaction from her. “She talks to Andy a lot.”

“Who's Andy?” I asked.

“Probably her boyfriend,” he said, grinning.

Emily made a lunge for him. “Shut up!”

I wedged my arm between them, nearly clotheslining her, and stopping her forward progress. “Ignore him.”

“Andy knows people in the play,” Will told me. “That's probably how she knows stuff.”

“I'm going to kill you,” she whispered. “And how do you know?”

Will shrugged and munched on another chip. At the rate he was shoveling them in, he’d devour the entire bag within minutes. “I follow you on Twitter and Instagram.”

“No you don’t. I have you blocked.”

“Blocked?” I raised my eyebrows. “What?”

“He’s annoying,” she said. “I don’t want him seeing my stuff. Which is why I blocked him.” She stared at him, her mind working. Then her eyes widened. “Oh my god. Did you hack my accounts?”

Will smiled.

“Oh my god! Mom! You can’t let him keep doing that computer stuff!”

I turned my attention to Will. “Did you hack into her accounts?”

“No,” he said.

But I wasn’t convinced. I frowned at him and waited.

“I might have tried out a couple of passwords…”

“I knew it!” Emily wailed.

“Will,” I began.

“Look, we’re always telling her to make strong passwords. I was just… testing some out. To see. Call it a free security check…”

“You and I will talk about this later,” I said to him. I shifted my attention back to Emily. “What have you heard?” What I really wanted to do was ask for more details about her so-called boyfriend, but the story about the missing girl had me curious. “Anything specific about Amanda?”

She gave her brother one more stare full of daggers before shifting her eyes to me. “Just that no one knows where she is.”

“Like, not even her family?”

“I don't know,” she said. “I don't know her. I just know of her.”

“Because she's Andy's ex-girlfriend,” Will chimed in.

Emily's face went red again and she charged into my arm, determined to rip the arms off of her brother and beat him to death with them. I caught her and wrapped her up and walked her back into her room, abandoning the dirty dishes and shutting the door behind us.

“Don't let him get your goat,” I warned her. “He likes to push buttons. You know that. And he knows your buttons. All he wants is for you to react. If you ignore him, he'll shut up.”

“He's a troll,” Emily said, sitting down on her bed, frowning. “I'm gonna kill him.”

“No, you're not. Because I might,” I said. I sat down on the edge of her bed and pasted on what I hoped was a neutral, nonchalant, I don’t-really-care smile. “Sooo, does Andy go to Moose River?”

Now her face was more pink than red. “Mom.”

“I’m just asking a simple question.”

She snorted. “Ha. A simple question that will lead to a million other questions…”

“Just tell me. Or I'll badger you to no end. You know I'll do it.”

“Whatever.” She sighed, her shoulders slumping. “No, he goes to Prism with me.”

Prism. Her charter high school that I’d spent too much time at recently, getting entangled in the theft of their school computers.

I decided to cut to the chase. “And is he your boyfriend?”

“No,” she said quickly. “We're just...I don't know. Friends.”

“Do you like him?”

“Mom.” She rolled her eyes. “Stop.”

Emily hardly ever talked to me about her friends or boys. She played everything close to the vest and was reluctant to divulge anything, despite my constant prying. Actually, the only time she ever really told me anything was when someone else, usually a friend, made a casual comment that I happened to pick up on. This was as much information as I'd gotten in recent weeks and, even though I would never admit it, I was secretly pleased that her brother had done some button pushing and Internet trolling. I just wished he’d been a little less abrasive. And hadn’t hacked into her accounts. Because there would definitely need to be some consequences for that.

I shifted the topic slightly to take the pressure off. “He and Amanda were dating?”

She hesitated. “Yeah. For like six months.”

“But not anymore?”

She shook her head. “Nope.”

“You don't sound upset about that.”

She shrugged, but I thought I saw a hint of a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “Not really any of my business.”

“Sort of seems like you’re making it your business.”

She sighed again. “Mom. Seriously. I don’t want to talk about this.”

“Clearly. And you don’t know anything about her being gone? And to be clear, I’m not asking to be nosy. I’m asking because it affects your sisters and the play.”

Emily shook her head. “I really don’t. I swear. I just know everyone’s talking about it, but I have no clue where she is.”

“Does Andy?” I asked.

Her face colored again. “I don’t think so, no.”

“You don’t think so?”

“Mom, jeez,” she said, completely exasperated. “I don’t know where she is. Andy hasn’t said anything to me about her, and I’m pretty sure if he knew where she was, he’d tell someone.” She paused. “He’s...he’s a good guy. He wouldn’t lie to anyone.”

“He’s a teen-aged boy,” I told her. “They all lie to someone.”