Murder By Muffin (Lucy McGuffin, Psychic Amateur Detective 3)
“About this case?”
“No, it’s more of a personal nature. You see … ” I press my damp palms against my wobbly knees. “You want to know how I was able to solve Abby Delgado’s murder?”
“Is this about Paco again? About him being some kind of ghost whisperer?”
“Paco only led me to her body. Although he’s really smart, so he’s helped in other ways too, but no, this isn’t about Paco. It’s about me.”
He waits for me to continue.
“Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve been able to tell when someone is lying.”
Travis leans back in his chair and studies me a moment. “Okay, so you have a knack for reading people. I figured that out within a few minutes of meeting you.”
“It’s more than that. I’m like a … human lie detector.”
His expression is completely unreadable.
How annoying.
“Okay, I believe you.”
I snort. “Give me some credit here. Let me prove it to you. Tell me something I couldn’t possibly know. Something that only you would know if it’s true or not.”
“You sure you want do this?” he asks.
I nod.
He glances up at the ceiling like he’s thinking. Then he smiles like he’s got me. “When I was ten, I got a blue bike for Christmas. True or false?”
The little hairs on my neck practically laugh in his face. “False.”
“Nope. Ask my dad. I got a bike that year.”
“Okay, but something in your statement isn’t true. The bike wasn’t blue.”
“That was too easy.”
He proceeds to shoot off a series of boring questions that I answer without breaking a sweat.
Yes, he went to college.
No, it wasn’t the University of Texas.
Yes, he played baseball in high school.
Yes, he was his class valedictorian.
Wait. Travis was his high school valedictorian? “Wow. That’s kind of impressive,” I say.
“What? You didn’t think I was smart? Just because you were able to get all that right doesn’t prove anything, Lucy.”
“You are the most stubborn—how do you think I was able to figure out who El Tigre was when the FBI couldn’t?”
For the first time, Travis looks uncertain. “Who else knows about this so-called gift of yours?”
“My family. And Will. And your dad. I told him, and he believed me.”
He takes a minute to absorb it all. I know he’s thinking about all those times I told him someone was lying but I couldn’t tell him how I knew it exactly. Maybe it’s finally all coming together.