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

That's it. Tomorrow I was coming to the con as something hotter. Princessy. Showing some skin.

"So what time is dinner?" he asked.

I felt my stomach flutter. "Six."

"Cool."

I glanced over at him. I couldn't tell if he was actually cool with meeting my parents—scratch that, my mom and her sorta-maybe-dating-but-hopefully-not-serious guy—or if he was humoring me. Or just looking for a free meal.

"It's time," he said, cutting my assessment short.

I looked down at the readout on my phone. 4:40. Time for a potty break.

"Good luck," I told him with a grin as I took off toward the restroom sign.

"Thanks," he called to my retreating back. "I think I'll need it!"

As it turned out, the restrooms were around the corner and waaaaay down a long hallway. I walked quickly—playing the role of the model who had to go—down the echoing hall to a pair of restroom doors. I pushed open the one marked with the figure in a skirt and was immediately hit with a nauseating wave of strong lemon cleanser. Yay for the room being clean, but I had to take shallow breaths to avoid a contact high.

It wasn't super crowded, and there weren't any lines. I had no idea if that had been the case the day Connor had died, but I went with it. The room was divided into two rows of stalls, with four to each side. Three sinks stood to the right, and several women in complicated costumes were touching up makeup and re-taping various parts of themselves into their skimpy costumes.

Yeah, I definitely needed to rethink my outfit for tomorrow.

I moved to stand in front of an unoccupied sink and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. My makeup was fading, and now I looked more dirty than dystopian. I grabbed a paper towel from the silver dispenser on the wall and wiped my cheeks. Then I looked down at my phone. It was already 4:45. I'd give Sophia at least a few more minutes to do her business then a couple more to wash her hands and touch up her makeup—because what model wouldn't, right?

I watched a woman in a skintight black cat suit try to re-pin her tail to her behind. Then Wonder Woman came in and powdered her décolletage. Followed by a zombie in a tight miniskirt who was in tears talking to someone on her phone about what her boyfriend had said to Lara Croft at the pretzel stand.

Finally my phone hit 4:50. I had no idea how long Sophia had actually been in the restroom, but I didn't want to rush it. Chances were Sophia hadn't that day, right? I gave it one more agonizing minute, feeling antsy to do something, before I finally went back into the hallway where I could take a full breath.

I fought to keep my pace at a normal gait as I walked back down the long corridor, my footsteps echoing off the walls. I wanted to run, some weird urge to rush to the VizaSoft booth and save Chase coursing through me. Even though I knew this was all pretend, the idea of poor Sophia walking this path, totally unknowingly about to see her boyfriend bludgeoned to death, was making me feel on edge.

By the time I reached the corner where I turned and could see the VizaSoft sign, we were already at 4:56.

I saw Chase in the same spot I'd left him. I felt a strange sense of relief at seeing him standing there, totally unharmed. But more importantly than him being alive and well was that he was alone.

I picked up my pace, reaching him quickly. "Hey," I said as I approached. "So, are you dead yet?"

He grinned and shook his head. "No. You're the first one here."

I frowned, eyes surveying the room. "Really?"

He nodded. "I was starting to get lonely," he joked.

"What about Kyle?" I asked.

Chase shrugged, dialing Kyle's number. We only had to wait one ring before he picked up.

"Hey," he said.

"Hey," Chase responded. "Hartley's back. Which means my body has just been found. You make it to the Peak Games booth yet?"

"Negative, chief," Kyle told us. "I'm only at the World of Warcraft display."

"Okay, come on back, then," he told Kyle before hanging up.

"So Jason Pruit isn't our killer." I frowned. Darn. He'd been a great candidate.

"Unless he was sprinting through the crowd, it doesn't seem like he'd have had enough time." Chase's gaze roved the convention floor, as if looking out for our other suspects.

I stood next to him, leaning against the makeshift partition erected between us and the crime scene. A couple minutes later, Sam finally appeared, quickly rushing toward us. As soon as she saw me, her shoulders slumped.

"So, I'm not the killer, huh?" she said.

I shook my head, looking at my phone. "It took you twenty minutes?"

She nodded. "The guy checking passes at the front is hecka slow. We must have hit it at the right moment when we got here earlier. I had to wait forever in line just now."

I pursed my lips. So it was possible Phoebe had hit the line at the right time, but it would have been very tight.

I was about to voice that thought when Ellen's pointy ears came into view.

Her eyes went round when she saw Sam. "So Phoebe Lyons did it?"

I shook my head. "No. I got here first."

Ellen frowned. "I left the food court as soon as I saw the Mario dancing."

"Well, someone killed Connor," Sam said, throwing her hands up.

Chase nodded, his gaze going out across the crowd again as Kyle's top hat approached us. "That means only one thing," he decided.

"What's that?" Ellen asked.

"It means that either none of them did it," Chase said, his attention coming