Deadly Magic (11 page)

“
You two have to eat. I’m sure he won’t mind you taking an early lunch while the power’s out.”

“
You’ve never met Franklin Straker have you?” Valerie asked.

Ethan
shook his head. Smiling, he said, “I can’t imagine he would care.”

Grace look
ed over towards the window. The rain was still coming down in sheets of water. Not feeling like hopping over puddles and looking like a drowned cat in the process, she said, “Let’s wait until the storm lets up, anyway.”

Ethan
turned away from the window and opened his phone. “The little sandwich shop around the corner delivers.” His handsome face grimaced when his phone call failed.

“
Cell phones don’t really work well here,” Valerie said. “You can usually get a signal downstairs.”

“
Sometimes in the hallway closet, too.” Grace snapped her fingers and turned to Valerie. “Maybe that’s what they were doing,” she said, still not convinced Belle and Kyle were using the coat closet as their personal hotel room.

“
Well, that’s okay. We can call from here. Can I use your phone?”

Valerie shook her head.
“The phones are connected through the internet. When the internet goes out, so do the phones.”

Grace sat in the chair next to Valerie’s desk.
“Occasionally, working here is like stepping through to another dimension. It’s best just to sit back and take it all in stride.”

Their heads glanc
ed up at the overhead brass chandelier as the lights flickered before finally stabilizing.

Straker
pushed open the connecting door between his and Valerie’s offices. His gaze bounced from Valerie to Grace before finally settling on Ethan. “Who are you?”

Ethan
held out his hand. “Ethan Martin.”

Straker glar
ed at him. “Do you work here?”

Ethan
dropped his hand. “No. I work across the street. I was going to take Grace and Valerie out to lunch.”

Straker purposely glanc
ed at his watch. “It’s 10:50.”

“
An early lunch?”

“
What do you do for a living?”

“
I’m an attorney.”

“
That explains it,” he said gruffly. “I don’t have lunch until noon. Come back then. I don’t want anything fancy. The deli across the street will be fine.”

“
Well, I. I . . .” Ethan stammered.

Grace hid a smile.

“Since you’re planning on taking half of my office out to lunch, I just assumed I was invited, too.” Straker smiled at Ethan’s shocked expression. “Twelve o’clock exactly. Don’t be late,” he said, slamming his office door behind him.

Still smiling, Grace point
ed to the office door. “That was Franklin Straker.”

♣ ♦ ♥ ♠

Grace laid her
History of Game Design
book on her desk and walked over to her large flip presentation board. She began writing character names on the board numbering one through eight. She got through the third character before stopping. The only names that were coming to her were the possible suspects in Lily’s murder.

Flipping over the paper, she began writing down her coworker’s names and possible motives. She was so engross
ed in writing out Louisa’s motives that she didn’t hear Kyle walk up behind her.

“
You can add gambling to your list.”

Grace jump
ed three feet in the air. Quickly, she brought the paper down, covering her list. “I’m sorry, Kyle, did you need something?”

“
I wanted to tell you that I color-coded and refiled all of your files, like you asked me to.”

“
Good. Thank you.”

He look
ed over her head at the board behind her. “You think Lily Straker was murdered too?”

“
It’s just a theory—”

“
Louisa has a gambling problem.”

“
How do you know that?”

He shrugg
ed. “They talk about all of you downstairs.”

“
They do? What do they say?”

“
They like you, but they think you’re kind of standoffish. Jackie is convinced that you’re sleeping with the boss.”

“
What?” she asked, her voice rising to a shrill pitch. “Where is this rumor coming from?”

“
That’s just the way Jackie is. She thinks everyone is sleeping with the boss. She was kind of suspicious of your sudden promotion after Mrs. Straker’s death.”

“
I’ve been here for ten years. I was due a promotion. Besides Allen was promoted along with me, does Jackie think he was sleeping with the boss too?” Grace crossed her arms and turned back to her board. “We really shouldn’t be paying any attention to such ridiculous rumors anyway.”

“
They can’t stand Allen.”

“
Really?” Grace pivoted around, pulled up her stool, and motioned for Kyle to take a seat. “What else do they say?”

“They say he is a stuck-up egomaniac with the intelligence of one of his toy muscle-man action figures and the emotional self-control of a thirteen year old girl.

“Hmm. I didn’t realize how perceptive they were down at the toy store. Well, except for Jackie,” she said quickly. “What else do they say about Allen?”

“
They call him Caligula behind his back.”

“
You’re kidding?” Unbidden, a vision of a debauched Roman orgy, with Allen in the center, flashed through her mind. She shuddered, quickly blocking out the image. “Never mind. I don’t think I want to know anymore.”

He start
ed to rise.

“
What else did they say about Louisa?”

“
Oh, not much. They kind of feel sorry for Louisa. Daniel’s been cheating on her for years. He was seeing Jackie on the side for a few months, but then dropped her three months ago for some new girl.”

“
Another girl at the toy store?”

He shook his head.
“No. No one knows who, but it’s not someone who works here.”

“
What do they think about Lily’s death?”

“
They think she killed herself.”

Grace lean
ed back against her design table, a bit disappointed. “Why do they think that?”

“
They said she left a note. I overheard a couple of the women say that they would have done the same if they had been married to Straker.” Kyle, nervously, ran a hand through his blond hair. “The real big rumor is that the company is going down. I hope not, I really need this job.”

“
Bourget was sort of hinting around about that.”

“
He thinks Louisa has gambled the profits away. Mr. Bourget went down to Atlantic City for his birthday last year. He saw Louisa there. According to him, he watched her lose over twenty thousand dollars in less than an hour. He tried to get her to go home, but she accused him of hitting on her. Security had to get involved.”

“
What about Lily? Did they have any good rumors on her?”

“
They thought she was going to divorce Mr. Straker because of his affair with you. Now they just think she hung herself because of your affair.”

Grace clos
ed and opened her mouth. Finally finding her voice she declared, “I am not, have not, will not ever have an affair with Straker. Where—what—how could anyone think—”

“
What are you yelling about?” Belle asked, pushing open the door and walking in.

“
I was just telling her about how her affair—”

Grace quickly interrupt
ed. So far, that rumor was just confined to the lower floors of the company. Hopefully, she could keep it from going any further. “We were just talking about our new board game.”

“
Oh, goodie.” Pulling up a chair next to Kyle, Belle began rattling off questions.

Grace held her hand
s up. “We just started going over the character names.”

Belle glanced at the presentation board.
“Felicia Fatale, Marcus Money, Penelope Fairplay,” she read. “Oh, that’s so cute. Is this for the mystery game?”

Grace nodd
ed. “Straker expressly mentioned a mystery game, so we’re going to start with this one first. I was thinking though, we may use your expertise on our next game, Belle.”

Belle sat up straighter.
“Really? How so?”

“
Well, I thought—” She closed her mouth, suddenly uncertain whether her idea of a magic game would be warmly accepted based on Belle’s declaration the day before.

“
What is it? Come on, you can tell me.”

“
Never mind. Let’s just stick with the mystery for now.”

“
No, please tell me. What were you going to say?”

“
It’s not important.” Grace waved her hand around. “I was just thinking we could design a trivia game and possibly a game around music,” she hedged.

Kyle raised his hand. “What about a zombie game—”

Grace shook her head.

“Zombies are in.”

“He’s right,” Belle said. “They’re very popular nowadays.”

Grace groaned. The last thing she wanted was to spend the next few months deep in zombie research.
She doubted Straker would approve such a game, but he was so contrary sometimes. “I’ll think about it. Do you have any other ideas?”

Kyle turn
ed to Belle. “Hey, you’re a magician, right? Why don’t you do something with that?”

Belle’s face lit up.
“That’s a great idea! I would love to do something that incorporates magic.”

Grace look
ed back at their eager faces. Well, I guess the prohibition against magic is over, Grace thought in amusement. “That’s a great idea.”

Belle lean
ed forward. “Could we do that next?”

“
We can work on it at the same time, if you like.”

“
I have a great idea. I’m going to go to my office and write down some ideas,” Belle said, jumping to her feet and walking to the door.

Kyle stood up as well and walk
ed to the board. “Where’s the detective’s name?”

Grace point
ed to Penelope Fairplay’s name.

“
Is she a private detective?”

“
I thought about it, but I think I’m going to make her a police officer. Maybe,” she said, picking up her pen and writing next to the character’s name, “a U.S. Marshal. How does that look? Marshal Penelope Fairplay.”

“
Is this a girl’s game?”

“
No. It’s for both boys and girls.”

He made a face.

“What? Don’t you like the name?”

“
Sure. I was just thinking the detective should have a stronger name. Especially, if you’re going to make her a U.S. Marshall. Marshal Penelope Fairplay just doesn’t sound like a name that would strike fear into the heart of a dangerous murderer. Penelope Fairplay is just a bit too cutesy.”

“
It’s for kids.”

“
It’s for teenagers. Big difference. If you want boys to play this, you need to toughen the characters up.”

“
Well, I’m open to suggestions.”

“
How about Senet Grant?”

“
Senet?”

“
Yeah, I’ve been doing some reading on board games. Senet was the name of the first board game.”

“
I don’t think—”

The lights began flickering.

Grace looked out the window, surprised to see that the rain clouds had finally passed by.

“
See, the ghost agrees with me.”

Grace did a double take.
“The ghost?”

Kyle look
ed around. “Didn’t you know? This place is haunted.”

Grace scoff
ed. “Who told you that?”

“
Jackie. She won’t even come up here anymore.”

“
Hmm. I think you should stop listening to Jackie. I’ve been here for ten years and I haven’t seen anything strange.”

They
both looked up as the lights flickered and then shattered, causing glass, and sparks to fly over the room.”

Kyle push
ed her head down and shielded her from most of the sparks. When the light fixture stopped sparking, he let go of her head and looked at her, one eyebrow carefully arched.

Undaunt
ed, she said, “Coincidence.”