Wicked Games (Hartley Grace Featherstone Mysteries Book 3) by Gemma Halliday (books for students to read TXT) 📕

"What time was what?" Phoebe asked, her tone defensive.

"That you two argued."

"I never said we argued—"

"What time exactly did you leave the convention that day?" Sam asked.

"I-I don't know." Phoebe took a step back, as if our verbal assault was having a physical effect. "I didn't log my every move."

"You just told us that you weren't at the convention when Connor died. Sounds like you were keeping track then."

Phoebe scoffed. "Look, I don't know who you think you are, but I had nothing to do with Connor's death. Connor and I…" She paused. She licked her lips. She took a deep, deliberate breath. "I would never have hurt him," she said, her voice calm but sounding like it was taking a lot of effort to keep it that way.

"You were suing him," Sam pointed out.

"Only for what was legally mine!" she blurted out, giving up on the calm thing. She shook her head. "Look, I've got to go. Print whatever you want," she said. Then she gave me a pointed look. "But just know my lawyer will slap a slander suit on you so fast it will make your little blonde head spin."

And with that, she stalked off, her sneakers squeaking with every step as she made her way across the lobby.

CHAPTER TEN

"So, what do we think of the partner?" I asked as we walked back down the block to the convention center.

"I think she's bitter as all heck," Sam decided.

Chase nodded. "She has good reason to be, though."

"If Connor did, in fact, create Athena's Quest while he was still working at Peak Games," I pointed out. "And, just because she had good reason to be angry at Connor, that doesn't mean she wasn't the one to kill him."

Chase frowned. "I don't know. I mean, what does killing him achieve?"

"Revenge?" Sam tried. "Or, maybe it wasn't planned. Maybe she served him the papers, they argued, and she just lost it and hit him."

Chase shrugged. "I guess it's possible."

"I think it's more than possible," I said. "I think it's likely at this point. She already lied about her alibi—"

"Or we misunderstood her," Chase cut in.

But I ignored him, forging ahead. "She's suing Connor, and we have a witness who put her near the VizaSoft booth."

"While Connor was alive," Chase countered.

I put my hands on my hips as we approached the convention center. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you're defending her."

Chase frowned. "I'm not defending her."

"Sure," Sam said, heavy on the sarcasm. "Just like you weren't flirting with her at the intern interview."

"Right?" I agreed.

"I wasn't flirting!"

"Good," I said as we jumped in line to get our passes scanned. "'Cause it could be hazardous to your health to flirt with a murderer."

Chase shook his head. "Whatever. Look, this whole theory of yours with Phoebe rests on one thing."

"How short Phoebe's fuse is?" I offered.

"If Connor really did violate his Peak Games contract."

I bit my lip. He was right. That was still an if.

"When we were at her offices, didn't Phoebe say she was looking for a summer intern to work directly under her?" Sam asked.

I nodded. "Yeah. And I think she had an idea who she wanted under her too." I shot a look at Chase.

He shook his head, half a smile on his full lips. "You have a vivid imagination, Featherstone."

He had no idea…

But I shook that thought out of my head as Sam continued.

"Well, maybe Connor had one too," Sam offered. "An intern that is, not an imagination. I mean, didn't Phoebe say he started acting funny last summer?"

"Right!" I nodded, liking where she was going with this. "Maybe his intern would know if he had been working on Athena's Quest."

"Don't you think Connor would have been doing it a bit more on the sly?" Chase reasoned. "I mean, if he was planning to leave Peak with it, he wouldn't have wanted anyone to know what he was working on?"

"Well, maybe the intern saw something before Connor thought about leaving? Something that didn't clue him in right away but in hindsight would make sense?" I grasped. "At the very least, an interview with him—"

"Or her," Sam pointed out.

"Or her would make a great addition to the story."

Chase thought about it a minute, but he couldn't argue that last point. "Okay, so how do we find out who was interning with Peak Games last summer?"

"They said they'd be posting the list on Facebook once they chose," I said, remembering what Clipboards had told us at the booth. "Maybe they did the same thing last year?"

Chase shrugged, pulling his phone out of his jeans pocket and opening the app. A minute later he was on the Peak Games official page and was scrolling through posts.

Lots of scrolling. Apparently they relied heavily on social media marketing, as there were several posts a day. Sometimes several an hour.

"This is going to take forever," Sam moaned.

Actually it took slightly less than forever, but by the time Chase was finally getting to posts from August of last year, we were back inside the main hall, sitting on a bench outside of the Sega booth, where a Sonic the Hedgehog with weird teeth was dancing to game music played nonstop from the speakers.

"Look." Chase pointed at his screen. "Here's a picture of the interns' last day last summer."

Six people looking in their late teens to early twenties stood arm in arm in front of the backdrop of monitors we'd seen in the Peak lobby, smiling for the camera. My gaze roved over each face, but none were tagged to say who they were.

Chase scrolled back some more, going through several posts about summer sales, a new game release, lots of press