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.