The Armstrong Assignment (A Janet Markham Bennett Cozy Thriller Book 1) by Diana Xarissa (books for 10th graders TXT) 📕

“Did anything else happen after that?”

He nodded. “I was poisoned.”

“Poisoned?” Janet echoed.

“I was at a party. Everyone was drinking and eating and having a good time. I started to feel unwell after a few hours. When I started vomiting, Dixie insisted that I go to the hospital. They pumped my stomach and ran some tests,” he told her.

“And what did they find?” she asked when he fell silent.

“Rat poison,” Bobby replied. “Somehow I’d ingested rat poison.”

“I assume whatever you’d been eating and drinking was also tested,” Janet said.

“The glass of wine and the plate of food that I’d been eating from when I first started to feel unwell were both tested. They were absolutely fine. It would have been far too expensive for the police to test every scrap of food that was left, so they chose a few items at random for testing. Nothing was found,” he told her.

Janet frowned. “And no one else at the party fell ill?”

“No one. I was clearly targeted, but it was done very cleverly,” he said.

“Or someone was very lucky,” Janet suggested. “I hope that was the last incident.”

“The night before we were supposed to leave for Paris, the hotel where I was staying in New York City had a fire,” Bobby told her. “It started right outside my door and, for a short while, I was trapped inside my room.”

“My goodness,” Janet exclaimed. “That must have been scary.”

“I had a large balcony, so I was able to go outside and get away from the smoke,” he replied. “I sat out there and simply waited for the fire department to get things under control.”

“I assume the fire was started deliberately,” Janet said.

“The investigation is still ongoing, but I’ve been told that it most likely was,” Bobby replied.

“What does your investigator think?” Janet wondered.

“That I might not have been the target,” Bobby said with a sigh. “I’ll be the first to admit that I have enemies. Right now, there’s a large environmental group that would be more than happy if I were to die suddenly. My company will continue with my plans, even if that were to happen, but they may not be aware of that. The investigator that I hired seems convinced that the previous attempts on my life were all coming from members of that group or others like them, people who want to protect a small piece of land from development, even if they have to kill people in order to do so.”

Janet frowned. “But he didn’t think they were behind the hotel fire?”

“He’d worked hard to infiltrate the group. He was with most of the membership in Texas at a protest on the other side of the country when the hotel fire started,” Bobby explained.

“So maybe one or two members decided to do something on their own,” Janet speculated.

“The owner of the hotel has his own set of enemies,” Bobby added. “It’s possible that someone was trying to hurt his business, rather than targeting me.”

Janet sighed. “I’d no idea such things even happen.”

Bobby shrugged. “They don’t happen every day. This is the first time in my life that someone has tried to kill me.”

“Was the fire the last thing that happened before today?” Janet asked after a moment.

“On our flight to London, someone tried to stab me,” he told her.

Janet made her jaw drop, hoping she looked suitably surprised. “Someone tried to stab you,” she repeated.

He shrugged. “I was wearing a bulletproof vest and several layers of clothing, and I was covered in a blanket. The knife didn’t penetrate very far and then it got stuck in the vest. Whoever was holding it ended up leaving it where it was when they left.”

“On the plane? How does that even happen?” Janet wondered.

“It was a private plane. Each passenger had his or her own small compartment with a large chair that folds flat for sleeping and curtains that go from floor to ceiling,” he explained. “There’s a central aisle in case anyone needs to go to the bathroom during the flight.”

“How could you possibly have slept through someone coming into your compartment?” Janet asked.

“I hate flying. I take sleeping pills before the plane takes off and then I recline my seat and I don’t wake up until we land. I was more than a little surprised to find a knife in my chest when we reached London,” he told her.

“You didn’t have any security with you on the flight?” was Janet’s next question.

“I didn’t think I needed any security on the flight,” he told her. “I was travelling with the men and women that I trust the most. Before that flight, it had never crossed my mind that one of them might be behind the attempts on my life.”

“What about the men and women who were working on the plane?” Janet asked. “Surely someone noticed who went into and out of your compartment.”

“The pilot and copilot never left the cockpit. There were two flight attendants, but from what I was told, they spent most of the flight sitting in the back of the plane or sleeping themselves,” he replied.

“So neither of them saw anything suspicious,” Janet concluded.

“Apparently everyone on the flight, aside from me, made the trip to the restroom at least once,” he told her. “Each compartment had its own small refrigerator with drinks and a cupboard full of snacks. There wasn’t much for the flight attendants to do, although I believe Lucy had one mix her drinks for her.”

Janet nearly rolled her eyes. “And no else noticed anyone going into or out of your compartment?” she asked.

“Dixie admitted to having walked into my compartment early in the flight,” he told her. “She went