Sequestered with the Murderers by Dr. Tanner (books for 8th graders TXT) 📕

out that soulful voice, with the husky quality, as Mary J. Blige. I began singing along with Be Without You. Thirty minutes later, I had sung along with several different genres of songs when the music abruptly came to a stop. I kept walking, waiting for it to return. It didn’t. I walked for another ten minutes, then got off the treadmill. The music had been a good motivator to keep me walking. There have been times when I wanted to give up exercising altogether, but I feared more losing my stamina to do the things I’ve had to do in the job that I love. Running up flights of stairs, enduring a stakeout in a cramped position, and crawling through small spaces are not for the faint of heart nor the unphysically fit.

I walked back up the stairs to my room. The hot shower felt extremely nice. I took my time dressing and packing. Before leaving the room, I called Gam to provide him with some morning cheer. At 8:15 am, I had checked out and was sitting at a table across from Sty in the small business center.

“Sty, you’ve been the ideal representative for this hotel. As such, I thank you for the wonderful service, and I want to provide you with more details on why I’m here.”

“You don’t have to do that. It’s my job to provide good customer service, but I’m glad you think my service was wonderful,” Sty said, smiling and nodding her head.

I gave her a brief overview of who I was and how I solve cases. When I was done, I said, “Jackson hired me to find out who murdered Duffy, and I was on the bus Friday night sequestered in that awful weather.”

“You were!” I had lit a spark. Sty pulled her chair closer to the table. Stunned, she froze as she let what I had said sink in.

“No one sequestered on the bus was hurt. I wanted to tell you this because you so freely shared information with me. If you eventually found out what I was really doing here, I didn’t want you to think I had lied to you by not being upfront with you.”

“I wouldn’t think that. I had no idea you were on the bus. Did you see anything? The murderer must have known Duffy’s routes, right?”

As soon as Sty ended her sentence, my body trembled, and I knew what was about to happen. A sinking feeling began to take over my stomach. A sense of foreboding quickly overcame me. I knew it was nothing to be afraid of and that the sensation would only last a few seconds. A revelation was coming through to me. A power beyond me directed me to pay close attention to what Sty just said. Of course, Sty didn’t know this. All she could understand and see was my body trembling and me clutching my stomach.

“Vett, what is it? Are you sick?” Sty asked.

When I didn’t answer, Sty stood and quickly walked to my side, “Vett, are you okay? Do you want me to go get help?”

I looked at her and shook my head. A few seconds later, I was able to speak. “I just had a revelation. I was directed to pay close attention to what you said. That’s all. I am all right now. When this happens to me, I am unable to speak for a few seconds. I think God is telling me to listen and not speak.”

Sty looked at me with fright written all over her face.

“I’m okay. Go ahead and sit down.”

“What did I say that caused this earthshattering reaction?”

“Oh, it wasn’t that bad. You said, ‘The murderer must have known Duffy’s route.’ This is a clue, a piece of the puzzle for me.”

“Do you get all your clues like this?”

“No. Sometimes, I get the foreboding sensation like I just had. It sometimes puts me in bereft of speech. At the same time, my stomach feels as if it will sink into the furthest depth of my body. But I am no longer afraid of it. At other times, my inner voice speaks to me, providing information, and sometimes people tell me things that are clues. I don’t know why my gift works this way. I don’t question it anymore.”

Five minutes later, I walked out of the hotel, pulling my overnight bag behind me. I was glad to be on my way. I didn’t enjoy my “gift” showing itself to strangers because I didn’t like having to explain it. The skeptical looks were a killjoy. But I had no control over when it appeared. It just appeared when it wanted to and how it wanted to.

CHAPTER 9

I got into the car and drove to the Hardee’s I had passed on my way to the hotel Sunday afternoon. I ordered a bacon, egg, and cheese biscuit and a cup of coffee. After gobbling down my breakfast, I used my rearview mirror to clean my face and reapply my lipstick. The directions to Nancy’s house were simple and straightforward. I arrived there at 8:58 am and parked across the street directly in front of the house.

I sat and scanned the house. It was not what I expected. The shabbiness of the small peeling white paint rancher surprised me. Duffy’s last pay raise notice put his salary at $29,500. Was that not enough to help with the upkeep of the outside of the house. The house sat about thirty feet from the street. No trees, or flowers, or shrubbery were in the yard. There was a cracked sidewalk that led from the curb to the house.

The impending doom feeling I had last night was back. I sensed that my meeting with Nancy was not going to go well. Perhaps, it was just the heads up Lemmonee gave me that made me feel this way. I expected Nancy to be distraught, not uncivil. On the other hand, losing a loved one is an emotional time, and