He looked surprised. And then grinned. She grinned right back.

She knew that he was taking her bait.

* * *

LESLIE GAVE THE official start to the evening as soon as the last guests had arrived. With a little over two hundred people in the room, she was using a PA system and, in an impressively dramatic voice, informed everyone that just that afternoon, when they’d come to prepare for the evening’s entertainment, two bodies had been found on the premises—one in a bedroom and one elsewhere. She asked for everybody’s help in finding the murderer or murderers. She gave an official introduction to Chantel and Colin, the alleged heirs to the mansion, followed by a few guidelines that would rule the evening.

A reward was being offered to the first person or persons who solved the crime—an exotic vacation for two.

Over dinner, Colin and Chantel made their way around the room, leaning over to whisper things in their guests’ ears. Clues—some true, some completely bogus—for each one alone. It was up to them if they shared information among themselves. The evening would likely end sooner if they did, but she and Colin were careful to not give too many different clues to anyone sitting at the same table.

Since Julie and Leslie had been in charge of assigning seats based on who would be more likely to pair up, they were pretty safe in their dissemination. No two people got the same information.

Chantel had offered to take the Smyth table. She hit the commissioner up first. The secret she gave him was that she hoped he enjoyed his evening. She was a little nervous about the operation she was conducting that evening without his knowledge.

Moving around the table, she took more time with all of the men than she did with the ladies. And told David Smyth that she hoped she’d see him upstairs, alone, later.

She had a similar message for the other tables. That she’d like to see someone upstairs later. She told men at some tables, women at others.

Entrapment wasn’t going to be an out for Smyth. She was going to have him dead to rights, in front of everyone he knew. An entire society would have to turn a blind eye to his criminal activities this time.

She’d had a call from Wayne that afternoon. He was busy trying to track down other Smyth victims, talking to people who worked in the emergency room and researching known associates for anything that raised a flag. They had no idea who Max’s informant was and had no warrant to otherwise access emergency room information, and so far he’d had no luck but she was confident that once Smyth got caught, others would come forward.

Her stomach was in knots as she and Colin helped the caterers deliver dessert trays to each of the thirty-four tables. As soon as the guests rose to start their sleuthing around the mansion, she had to head upstairs. Her murder was going to be one of the first things on the agenda. They couldn’t take a chance that someone would solve the mystery before the night’s events had a chance to play out.

Nor did they want everyone dispersed before Leslie could make the announcement that there’d been another death upstairs, telling everyone they might want to view that crime scene, as well. She wasn’t going to say who’d been killed. There’d been some changes to her original plan, but she was still satisfied that it would work.

This was at Chantel’s insistence, with Wayne’s input, to avoid any hint of entrapment.

Colin was bound to hear about it—as guests visited him in the study with the safe. Which was why he’d been told that there was a surprise twist to the evening.

Confident that the plan was going to work, that they’d thought of and arranged for every eventuality, Chantel made her way upstairs as soon as she’d delivered her last dessert tray.

She’d chosen the room with care. It was far enough away from the night’s events, from any other clues, to give Smyth the feeling of safety. Yet had an old antique air duct and heating register that would allow her voice to travel, and be heard, when she screamed. The room was empty—as were most of the upstairs rooms. Pulling her gun from her thigh holster, cocking it to put a bullet in the chamber so it was ready to go, she put it back.

She was overreacting. She knew that. Smyth’s only violence happened when his victims were nearly comatose. He was a coward. She could take him hand-to-hand.

But she was a cop on assignment. And always had a gun with her.

Even in the hotel room with Colin. And at his house. Tucked away in a compartment at the bottom of her cosmetic bag when she couldn’t wear it on her person.

The room was good. The camera in place. The gun was good.

Pulling up her skirt a little, she lay down and opened her mouth.

And then remembered that she’d forgotten to pop the packet of fake blood Leslie had brought for her with the rest of the props from the community college theater department.

Tags: Tara Taylor Quinn Billionaire Romance
Source: readsnovelonline.net