“You have one hour to escape.”
The girl hosting our adventure clutched a dangling earbud, ready to resume her private concert once she locked us in. Since I’d invited my family to this escape room outing, the girl’s obvious boredom reflected badly on me.
We weren’t a close family—my stepaunt, Janet; my stepbrother, Hubert; my stepcousin, Delphine; and me. Despite that we all lived within a thirty-minute drive of each other—and Delphine and I even went to the same college—we hadn’t all been in the same room since last year, when we buried my stepfather and his sister, Delphine’s mother, who’d died together in a car crash. Nonetheless, I wanted them to have a good time.
“What if we don’t find our way out?” Delphine asked Earbud Girl. Though chunky limbs on her tall, lean body made her look like a half-finished clay person, Delphine always wore T-shirts and shorts to soak up the outdoors. She didn’t care what people thought of her. She even let Hubert’s mean comments roll off her back.
“People usually figure out the code. But if you don’t”—the girl waved the earbud for emphasis—“we’ll let you out.”
Hubert stopped stroking his thin mustache to say “How suspenseful,” drawling his sarcasm, stretching each syllable to yield maximum condescension. “I’m trembling. As usual, David has come up with such a wonderful idea.”
“Hush, Hubert,” Delphine slapped his arm. “David said escape rooms are fun. Let’s give it a try.”
“Fine,” Hubert said. “But it’s an hour of my life I’ll never get back.”
I struggled to not roll my eyes at how pretentious he was. You’d think a guy nearing thirty would stop trying to impress people. Not Hubert. He rolled his words around the back of his throat to sound French and insisted on pronouncing his name with a French accent, Ooh Bear, which wasn’t even how the French said it. Then again, the closest he’d ever been to France was a snooty restaurant downtown.
“It’s just a game,” I said. “The whole point is to kill an hour. Grandma won’t be finished with her procedure for another hour at least.”
“Procedure” was a bland term for giving Grandma enough morphine to blunt the pain from pancreatic cancer for the few days she had left.
Until recently, Aunt Janet and I were the only relatives who visited Grandma regularly. But with her death near, Hubert had begun showing up, clearly hoping for a fat inheritance to launch the wine import business he loved to talk about. Delphine had started visiting Grandma too, probably out of duty, considering she always brought a friend with her for company. Today she’d invited her roommate, Felicia, and Felicia’s boyfriend, Cody, to join us, both at the hospital and here in the escape room. As usual, Felicia slumped against a wall, as if her skeleton was napping. Cody slouched too, like an athlete leaving the field after a losing game. Cody kept eyeing Delphine. She seemed not to notice, but Felicia sure did. Man, that guy was such a tool.
Felicia grabbed Cody’s hand in a possessive way and said, “So what’s an escape room anyway?”
Earbud Girl started to open her mouth, but I cut in. This was my idea, and I needed to make it sound exciting. “It’s like a scavenger hunt. You’re locked in a room, and you have one hour to search it. You need to look for hidden keys or for things in a series that tell you the numbers to punch into a combination lock in a door somewhere and then escape. But not the door we came in. Another door we’ll have to find.”
“Scintillating,” Hubert said.
“This room looks like a library,” Cody said. “Are we supposed to read books for clues?” He grinned at Delphine. “Delphine’s a big reader. She can spot the clues for us.”
Felicia glared at him.
I shook my head. “Escape rooms have themes. This one has an Agatha Christie mystery theme.” Grandma loved Agatha Christie novels. I’d read a ton of them to her last summer, after my first year at college, when her eyesight shrank to a pinhole. I knew she’d enjoy hearing about our mystery escape room outing. I looked forward to seeing if she figured out the clues. She probably would.
“Why don’t we listen to the rules?” Aunt Janet startled me, though she spoke softly. I’d forgotten she was there. It was easy to do. She never said much or made a fuss. Even her clothes were in neutral colors, usually tan or gray or blue, though still stylish for an older woman. Her jewelry was expensive but not flashy.
Earbud Girl recited the scenario in a monotone. “You have been called in to solve a murder. The Styles family woke this morning to find Lucius Styles stabbed to death in the library. No knife was found in the room. The library doors were locked and will open with a code known only to the family. Lucius Styles was wealthy, and his death leaves a sizeable estate to his relatives, some of whom are greedy, some of whom have money troubles, and some of whom fall into both categories.”
I muttered to Aunt Janet, “That hit a little close to home.” Grandma was stinking rich and Hubert, who always had money troubles, was eagerly awaiting his inheritance. He’d have to share it with Aunt Janet and Delphine. Since I was a step-grandson, I was out of the picture inheritance-wise. Grandma had no problem giving me love, but when it came to money, she said she felt compelled to leave things to her blood relatives.
“Human nature is the same everywhere, dear,” Aunt Janet whispered back.
She squeezed my shoulders briefly. Aunt Janet reminded me of Grandma, who poured more affection on me than my own parents ever had.
Earbud Girl was still talking. I’d probably missed key information.
“Despite the police’s suspicions, the Styles family is certain an outsider killed Lucius, and they’ve hired you to find the killer’s escape route before the police return in one hour.”
At least no one would kill Grandma. Cancer was handling that one.
“All the clues you need are in the room.” The girl pointed to a television high on the wall. “Time remaining will display on the screen, and we’ll also post some hints, so keep an eye on the monitor. Any questions?”
We were all quiet a moment. Then Aunt Janet said, “What time of year did the murder take place?”
The girl gawked at Aunt Janet as if she’d asked whether aliens were green or blue. “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter.”
“There are ashes in the fireplace.” Aunt Janet pointed at gray crumbles and charred paper in the tiny hearth. “Normal for December, unusual for July.” Like Grandma, Aunt Janet was quiet, but with an underlying strength that could surprise you.
“Whatever.” The girl stepped into the hall and started to close the door. “Are you ready?”
I scanned the room. It had all the elements of a mansion library, but with less substance, like a poor relation trying to blend in. The teetering bookshelf threatened to vomit dusty books onto the scuffed floor, and the coat rack in the corner sported a giant splinter. Dirt clods collected at the corners, and a musty smell filled the air. Unlike the families in Agatha Christie’s novels, the Styles family apparently hadn’t employed domestic help.
“Time starts now.” The door closed and the clock on the screen started counting down. Already only fifty-nine minutes and miscellaneous seconds left.
“Let’s examine the room for clues and compare notes,” Delphine said.
The room was dark, all browns and grays, with only a few lamps to fight the gloom, and no windows to reveal that we were on the third floor of an office building. The fireplace wall had imitation wood paneling, while two other walls had a wallpapered image of stacked stones. The bookshelf on the fourth wall held peeling books. A battered antique desk in the center of the room held a green-shaded lamp and brass paperweights. A toppled chair lay on an Oriental rug next to the taped outline of a sprawled body.
“I think we should have a plan.” Aunt Janet’s pale-blue eyes glinted. She was enjoying this.
“I have no idea where to start,” Delphine said. “David, you’ve done escape rooms before. What do we do?”
“We should especially look for anything to do with numbers,” I told her. “So we can use them to open combination locks.” I knew by now to avoid interesting objects that turned out not to have anything to do with the solution. In a Harry Potter escape room, I’d gotten all caught up with a note gripped in the beak of a stuffed owl, and missed the real clues.
Delphine spun a stained globe near the bookshelf. “Maybe there’s a misspelled country that will give us a clue.” I rolled my lips together to stop a smile. Escape room clues weren’t that subtle. The clues tended to be physical, not intellectual.
“I will look for zee clues.” Hubert ruffled the spines of some decaying books before twirling a stray hair on his mustache. “I am the great detective Hercule Poirot, and I will find the…qu’est-ce que c’est? Evidence.”
“You know Poirot was Belgian, right?” I said. “Not French.”
“Is not important. The little gray cells, they are what count.” He tapped his squarish head. I fought the temptation to tell him Poirot’s head was egg-shaped.
“Fine, Hubert, how do we get out of here?” Delphine planted sturdy fists on her narrow hips. “Only fifty-five minutes to go. Tick tock.”
Had five minutes passed already? “Let’s divide the room and each look for keys, and for things in rows or series,” I said.
Hubert pointed to a fake stone wall with a few small tables holding various objects. “I’ll take that side.”
“Hey, Delphine,” Cody said. “Let’s check out the bookshelves.”
Felicia’s mouth twisted into a grimace as the three of them shuffled to the bookshelf.
We explored the room at varying paces. I checked the coat rack near where we’d come in. Delphine and her friends ruffled through books at random. Hubert picked up small objects and peered at them. Aunt Janet poked through the ashes in the fireplace.
After shaking out the coats on the rack, I concentrated on the desk. I picked up a brass dog on the desk and put it right back. Clearly a red herring. I opened each drawer. Most were empty, but one held a magnifying glass. “Delphine, maybe we can use this later to read a clue.” We’d used a black light in the Harry Potter escape room.
“We found some mismatched bookends.” Delphine fiddled with a snarling plaster tiger, while Cody held up a plastic lion. “Maybe that’s a clue?”
Or maybe mismatched bookends were just less expensive.
“This painting is revealing.” Hubert gazed at the oil painting above the mantel. The tips of his loafers nearly collided with Aunt Janet’s knees as she moved a log in the fireplace.
I trotted over to take a look. The rural landscape was free of everything but rolling hills, lush trees, and a twisty river. Not even a grazing animal. “What clue do you see there, Hubert?”
“Just working ze little gray cells.”
In other words, he had nothing. Hubert could never own up to a mistake. The closest he’d ever come was admitting that a bottle of wine had gone bad.
Delphine pointed at the TV. “Look, David!” The screen read, “A scrap of wisdom is worth more than rubies. Time left: thirty-eight minutes.”
“A scrap of wisdom?” I crouched next to Aunt Janet, who cupped charred scraps of paper in her palm. They had handwriting on them. I helped her gather the pieces and spread them on the desk. Delphine and I pieced them together, with Hubert slowing us down by moving scraps after we’d positioned them. Finally, we had a complete page, revealing two scrawled sayings: “Clothes make the man” and “Search the corners of the world.”
“What does it mean?” Delphine prodded a stray scrap into place.
Hubert dipped one hand, like a conductor leading an orchestra. “Lucius Styles must have been a well-dressed, well-traveled man. That may be a clue to his murder.”
Aunt Janet coughed. “I think this refers to the coat hanging in the corner.”
Hubert raced to the coat rack and picked at the faded brown coat hanging there.
“I already checked it,” I said.
He whipped a small book from one pocket. “A clue,” he announced.
I felt like an idiot. I’d checked the coat but missed a pocket. At least Hubert wasn’t rubbing it in.
We huddled around Hubert and a paperback copy of Agatha Christie’s The ABC Murders. “Those are letters, not numbers,” I said. “We’re likely looking for a combination lock, remember? And they work with numbers.”
“Letters correspond to numbers, A being one, B being two, and so on.” Aunt Janet came up behind me and laid a warm hand on my spine.
“So ABC would be one two three,” I said, kicking myself for not seeing it right away. Another stupid oversight. Grandma’s cancer was upsetting me more than I’d realized.
“That’s one way of looking at it.” Aunt Janet watched the pages as Hubert flipped them. “But I wonder—”
“How many numbers do we need?” Delphine asked.
“We can’t tell until we find the lock we’re supposed to open, which will be on a hidden door,” I said.
The wood-paneled wall was the most likely to hide a door. Thirty minutes left. I pressed each panel. One was loose. I pressed harder. A square block popped open, revealing a combination lock with four numbers.
“Voila!” Hubert exclaimed, as if he’d been the one to find it. He tossed the book onto the desk, knocked me aside, and entered numbers furiously. Since we’d already figured out three of the numbers, it wouldn’t take him long to find the fourth. But he entered number after number, with no luck.
“Obviously a red herring,” he said.
“Perhaps not,” Aunt Janet said. “The hints wouldn’t steer us to the coat if it weren’t important.”
“Let me look at the book again.” I began to leaf through it, but Aunt Janet stopped my hand on the title page. A diagonal line was slashed across it.
“This line must mean something. See?” I showed Delphine. “But I can’t figure out what. Aunt Janet?”
Aunt Janet’s smile felt like a warm blanket around cold knees. “I’m not clever like you, David.” She leaned over to whisper, “And you are clever.” She straightened again. “But I do have an idea. I think that we’re meant to look at the books on the shelf, and arrange them in a similar diagonal line.”
“Of course!” I ran to the bookshelf, with Delphine and Hubert so close behind, I could feel breath on my neck. Several numbered volumes in a series stood on the middle shelf, each with a slashed line on its spine. We rearranged them so the slashes lined up in a downward slope. Now, the numbers read six-four-one-three.
“I solved the mystery!” Hubert waved his arms. “With more than twenty minutes to spare.”
I was used to him always stealing the credit, but it still annoyed me. Then again, he hadn’t pointed out my overlooking the coat pocket. I kept quiet.
Hubert ran to the combination lock and entered the sequence. The door creaked open. We piled through the narrow opening into a butler’s pantry, long and narrow with a small door at the opposite end. A dusty counter and white cabinets ran the length of the space. A serving tray with two glasses and a half-filled carafe sat on the counter.
“I don’t think you solved the mystery yet, Hubert.” I opened a rickety drawer—empty but for dust that floated up, causing Hubert to sneeze.
“Mon ami, we must trust the room to give up its secrets. I am like the little dog who stays on the scent.” He’d quoted Poirot nearly word for word.
“How do you know Agatha Christie?” I asked him.
“My dear fellow, I read one of her stories to Grandmama just last month.”
Of course he had. He’d started paying a lot of attention to her once he knew she was dying.
Hubert flung open a drawer, peered in, and pulled out a set of coasters with playing card images. “More numbers.” He fanned the coasters on the counter. A king, an eight, a four, and a two. Not a great hand.
We ransacked the room, swishing and thunking as cabinets and drawers opened and closed. One drawer nearly fell out, and I wasted precious seconds jamming it back into place.
With fifteen minutes to go, Felicia had unearthed a locked briefcase, Aunt Janet had found a paisley handkerchief, and we also had Hubert’s coasters.
“The coasters have to be the clue,” Delphine said. “They’re the only items with numbers.”
Cody sidled up to Delphine to inspect the coasters. Felicia grabbed his arm and pulled him away from Delphine.
While Felicia and Cody were squabbling and Delphine was focused on the coasters, I noticed a door in a dark corner, behind a chair that I pushed aside. I hurried to it.
“This door doesn’t have a combination lock,” I said. “It doesn’t even have a keyhole, just this metal plate.”
Aunt Janet bent to inspect the strip of metal.
I picked up the briefcase. “This has a lock, though.”
Hubert yanked the briefcase from my hand. Not wanting to argue with him, I went to examine the coasters while Aunt Janet inspected the handkerchief. “Three coasters have numbers—eight, four, and two—but I can’t tell what order they should be in,” I said.
Hubert spun the briefcase dial and entered the three numbers. No luck. He tried them again in a different order. The briefcase sprang open, revealing a stiletto letter opener and more dust.
As Hubert sneezed again, Delphine laughed. “A letter opener as a clue? That’s a first.”
“No, dear,” Aunt Janet said, picking up the opener. “But maybe a means to an end.” She examined it in the light before setting it and the handkerchief back down. “I think,” she said, “it’s a magnet. To open the door.”
Hubert sniffled and snatched the handkerchief to dab his nose.
“Gross,” Felicia said. “I can imagine where that thing’s been.”
Hubert lifted his chin and stared at her contemptuously before using the handkerchief to lift the letter opener. “Of course! This is something a servant would use to open the family’s mail, and servants were often the culprits in Christie novels. Young women, especially. They were greedy and never smart enough to cover their tracks.” He smirked at Delphine as he dangled the handkerchief-wrapped opener.
“You think you’re so smart, Hubert.” Delphine snatched the opener, dropping the handkerchief in the process. “You got to open the last door. My turn.”
She held the letter opener next to the metal plate and pulled. The door swung open, revealing a drawing room with thick curtains. Threadbare wing chairs faced each other across a fireplace with a large clock above it. On the mantel stood a miniature sculpture of Rodin’s the Thinker. We’d studied it in art history. Next to the sculpture were four parrots, each in a different color, probably a reference to that series of mysteries with birds in the titles. Then again, those weren’t Agatha Christie mysteries. Four parrots in a row had to be a clue, something about the order of the colors. I just didn’t know yet what it meant.
Between the two wingback chairs sat a small table, with a tattered copy of Christie’s Hickory Dickory Dock and two pieces of folded paper. A door with a combination lock taunted us from the far corner, under a television screen.
I glanced at the screen. “Only eleven minutes left.”
Aunt Janet hurried to the table to look at the book.
“I will examine the clues.” Hubert strode to the table, elbowed himself in beside Aunt Janet, and unfolded the papers.
“Hubert, you need to learn some manners.” She pushed him away.
It was nice to see someone else as annoyed at Hubert as I was.
Hubert discarded one piece of paper and held up the other. “Voila! A train schedule. The numbers probably reveal the exit code.” The armchair grunted as he plopped into it and began poring over the timetable.
Aunt Janet studied the tattered book. I inspected the parrots, but without anything to match them to, it was no use. The paper Hubert had discarded drifted to the floor near my shoe. I picked it up. It was a wedding invitation for the Styles daughter. That hinted at a motive, since a common Christie theme was the rich family patriarch barring a child’s unsuitable marriage. But escape rooms weren’t about motives, they were about numbers. I almost tossed the invitation away until I noticed the list at the bottom.
I said to Aunt Janet, “The RSVP options are color-coded.” We peered at the list of options:
To accept, check here (red box)
In case of regrets, check here (yellow box)
Maybe, maybe not, check here (blue box)
Expect an answer later, check here (green box)
The colored parrots on the mantel were in the exact same order. But what did that tell us? As Aunt Janet took the invitation from my hand, I glanced at Hubert. He was still in the armchair, peering at the timetable. By now, I’d expected Delphine to interrupt him.
I looked around. Delphine sat slumped against the far wall. I raced over and crouched next to her. Her skin looked pasty white and her eyelids were sliding shut. What was wrong with her? What had happened?
“Delphine!” I yelled as she toppled over.
I thrust my hands out to stop her head from hitting the floor. Her head felt heavy in my palms. This wasn’t the cheery, smiling Delphine I knew. Her eyes were half-closed. She was really sick!
I leaned her against the wall as Aunt Janet yelled up at the TV screen, “Call nine-one-one! Something’s wrong. She needs a doctor!”
Aunt Janet raced to the door and tapped in four numbers. The door sprung open, and Earbud Girl ran in, hoisting her phone. “They’re on their way,” she said.
Fortunately, the paramedics and police didn’t take long to get there. The paramedics whisked a barely conscious Delphine to the hospital. We all wanted to go to the hospital with her, but after Aunt Janet told the EMTs that Delphine had no allergies or medical conditions and hadn’t been sick, one of the officers eyed us suspiciously and made us stay put.
Just like in the Christie novels, all the players were assembled in a drawing room, and soon a wiry detective strolled in. He stared at each of us in turn, before focusing on Aunt Janet. “How are all of you connected? And how did you come to be here today?”
Aunt Janet lifted her chin. She looked younger somehow. “I’m Janet Nethercott. My mother, Sylvia, is in the hospital. They asked us to leave while they perform a procedure to keep her comfortable, but she’s…she’s dying of cancer.” A lump in her throat bobbed. “My niece, Delphine, as you know, was just taken to the hospital. As to the rest of us”—Janet nodded at each person in turn—“Hubert and David are my nephews. Delphine’s cousins. And Felicia and Cody are friends of Delphine. We came here to pass the time until we can see my mother again.” The lump bobbed again. “She doesn’t have much time left.”
“I’m sorry,” the detective said automatically. “I understand Delphine took ill suddenly, in this room, correct?”
“Correct,” Aunt Janet said.
“And I’m told she has no reason to have collapsed. She hasn’t been sick? She has no heart condition? Anything like that?”
“No.”
“Could she be on drugs?”
Aunt Janet shook her head. “No.” She looked toward Felicia. “Right?”
“Right,” she said.
“And you’re all here today on a break from the hospital, playing this game, while your mother is dying?” the detective said. “Do I have that right?”
It sounded harsh the way he said it, but it was the truth.
“That was my idea,” I said. “I just wanted to take our minds off…everything…while we waited to see her again.”
The detective asked Aunt Janet, “Is your mother a rich woman?”
“Very, I’m afraid,” Aunt Janet said.
“Why does that make you afraid?” The detective tilted his head, inviting her to elaborate.
Aunt Janet let out a long, whistling sigh. “Because it presents a motive for murder. My mother will be gone soon, and Delphine is one of her heirs.”
“Is that what you think happened? Did someone try to kill her?” the detective asked.
Aunt Janet gazed hard at Hubert.
Murder? Was she accusing Hubert of hurting Delphine?
“Don’t look at me.” Hubert splayed his fingers. “I was examining the train timetable when she collapsed.”
“But not when she was poisoned.”
“I have no idea when she was poisoned.”
“She was poisoned?” I asked.
Aunt Janet turned toward me, her gaze gentle, then looked at the detective. “That’s the typical reaction, isn’t it? When someone becomes ill suddenly, we don’t assume poison. We do as David did and question it.” She swiveled toward Hubert. “But you didn’t question it being poison.”
“Neither did Felicia or Cody,” he retorted.
I turned to stare at Felicia. Her arms were wrapped around Cody, and her head leaned against his chest. She clearly resented Cody’s interest in Delphine. Would she go so far as to poison her own roommate over it?
Aunt Janet faced the detective again. “If Delphine dies, Hubert will be my mother’s only surviving grandchild. David is a step-grandchild and isn’t in the will. Anything my mother bequeaths to her grandchildren will be Hubert’s entirely.”
“You’ll inherit, too,” Hubert said. “You could have wanted Delphine dead.”
“I’m quite well off already, thanks to your grandfather. I don’t need Mother’s money.”
“Hard to prove,” Hubert mumbled.
“Not really,” Aunt Janet said. “My mother is still alive. She can tell the policemen herself.”
Hubert’s eyes widened.
Aunt Janet stepped toward the detective. “Hubert poisoned Delphine, and I know how he did it.”
How could she say that? If anyone had a motive to hurt Delphine, it was Felicia. Hubert was greedy and condescending, but I didn’t see him as evil. He could even be nice at times. He’d taught me how to order wine, though he’d done it mainly to defy the underage drinking law, which he deemed provincial.
“How did he do it?” the detective said.
“With the letter opener,” Aunt Janet said. “He rubbed poison on it. My guess is he planned to poison Delphine somewhere else and adjusted his plans once you suggested the escape room, David. He used the handkerchief to smear poison on the letter opener without touching it himself. Then he baited Delphine to grab it by saying young women were often the culprits in Christie novels, and they got caught because they were too dumb to cover their tracks.” Aunt Janet pointed across the room. “The opener is still lying where Delphine dropped it. The police can test it for poison.” Aunt Janet gestured at Hubert. “Better yet, check the right pocket of Hubert’s trousers. I saw him put his hand in that pocket after he handled the letter opener.”
“You’re nuts,” Hubert said.
“Really?” the detective said. “If that’s true, you’ll have no problem emptying your pockets.”
Looking trapped, Hubert reached into his pockets. His eyes widened as pulled out a small clear vial of liquid. “This isn’t mine,” he said.
The detective placed it in a clear plastic bag, read the label closely, and put Hubert under arrest. I could hardly believe it.
After Hubert was led away, Felicia and Cody quickly followed, and Aunt Janet and I were left nearly alone in the drawing room, except for one police officer who was bagging the evidence.
Aunt Janet said softly, “Are you ready to leave for the hospital?”
“You bet.” I needed to know if Delphine was all right. I swallowed hard. I didn’t want to talk about it yet. I glanced at the open door. “Wait a minute. Aunt Janet, you figured out the escape code. You opened the door.”
“Yes, I did.” She gave a tiny smile of satisfaction.
“How?”
She pointed to the clock above the mantel. “Hickory Dickory Dock. The book suggested it, as did the RSVP clues, with the first letters of each response spelling out T-I-M-E. The clues all directed us to the clock. Eleven fifteen.”
I stared up at the clock, my mind in a whirl.
She put an arm around me. “I know this is all so distressing, David.”
I turned and buried my head on her shoulder, breathing in her floral perfume, which she always ordered from Paris. When the urge to cry tickled too strongly, I lifted my head. “I never would have guessed you’d be such a good detective, Aunt Janet.”
She stepped back. “I can’t see why not, David, with you reading all those Agatha Christie novels.” Her smile was warm. “After all, Miss Marple was always her best detective.”
I smiled as her hands squeezed mine. Something sharp pressed into my palm and I pulled them away to reveal a sapphire ring I hadn’t noticed before. “That’s beautiful,” I said.
“Thanks,” she said. “You can never have too many nice things.”
As she picked up her purse, a gold bracelet slid down her arm. I hadn’t noticed that before either. I turned, taking in the room, going over what had happened. Yes, Hubert had held the letter opener with the handkerchief, I remembered, but Aunt Janet had held it first. And then he’d crowded her by the table, meaning her hand was conveniently near his pocket.
If Delphine died and Hubert went to prison, the only one left to inherit Grandma’s money would be Aunt Janet—and maybe me, if Grandma had a change of heart. Aunt Janet didn’t need Grandma’s money, but greed was human nature. She’d practically said so herself.
“You ready to go?” she asked.
I nodded. “After you.”
I might be giving Aunt Janet a wide berth from now on. Maybe it was a good thing our family rarely saw each other.
Leone Ciporin’s short stories have appeared in Woman’s World, Flash Bang Mysteries, and several mystery anthologies. This is her third appearance in the Chesapeake Crimes series, with a story inspired by escape-room experiences on two continents, as well as her admiration for Agatha Christie. When she’s not writing mysteries, Leone works as a manager in the law department of an insurance company, which is more interesting than it sounds. Leone lives in Charlottesville, Virginia. http://leoneciporin.com