Grave Mistake (Codex Blair Book 1) Read online

  Grave Mistake

  First of the Codex Blair Series

  Izzy Shows

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Mailing List

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2017 Izzy Shows

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Cover Design by James T. Egan of Bookfly Design LLC

  BookflyDesign.com

  ISBN: 1541277856

  ISBN-13: 978-1541277854

  For my father, who never once questioned my dreams and always believed in me. My mother, who taught me the freedom found in creative pursuits. For Josh, my boyfriend, my biggest cheerleader, and my most devout fan. I couldn’t have gotten here without any of you.

  1

  THE BAR SMELLED OF BEER, SWEAT, and desperation. So, you know, like every other bar you’ve ever been in.

  I was curled over a pool table, sizing up my target, with a smirk decorating my lips. I’d been playing pool for most of my life, it wasn’t a challenge for me. Well, there was this time. I was trying not to play my best, didn’t want the enemy to know that I was hustling him.

  I scratched. Huffing out a disappointed sigh, I stood up with shoulders slumped.

  “Damn.” I shook my head. “Can’t believe I mucked that up.”

  “I can." He rolled his eyes, scoffing at me. “Everyone knows girls can’t play.”

  I bit the inside of my cheek, glaring down at the floor. Idiot. I could play circles around him.

  I watched as he landed two balls before missing the third.

  My turn.

  I couldn’t help myself, I sunk my remaining balls with my normal ease. Show him what girls could do. Maybe I rile too easily, but I’d been subjected to this kind of derision from various foster fathers most of my life. When they hadn’t been ignoring or beating me, that is.

  Funny though, it was much easier to take a punch to the gut than one to the psyche.

  “What the fuck!” My opponent shouted. “How the fuck?—you hustled me!”

  Oh, yeah. I was doing that. Oops.

  I shrugged. “Time to pay the piper. Not my fault you can’t play for shit.” I held out my hand and gestured for him to pay up.

  He advanced on me instead. I took a step back, eyes narrowed as I sized him up.

  This was always a risk in a situation like this, that the person would refuse to pay up. I had a hunch that he wouldn’t have paid me even if I’d ‘miraculously’ pulled off a win while playing like shit.

  “I ain’t paying you," he growled, swinging his cue stick at me.

  I ducked the blow, relying purely on instinct to bring me far enough down to avoid the hit. I brought my own up in an arc and caught him on his chin. It sucked that I wasn’t going to get paid—I hadn’t earned enough this month to pay my rent, I really needed the money. Tomorrow, I was out of time and this had been my fall-back.

  He charged, knocking me into the wall behind me with his bulky mass. I lost my pool cue in the process. It’s pretty much impossible to avoid someone that large in such small quarters. Probably should have picked a better bar, but ya know. Didn’t have a lot of options.

  He pulled back with a balled fist, aiming for my face, but I managed to avoid again, bringing up my own fist to deliver a gut punch even as I was wheezing in the air that he’d knocked out of me.

  I was rewarded with a good ear boxing. Any hearing I’d had over the din of the bar was lost, replaced with a ringing sound that was not provided by reality.

  Ugh.

  I snapped my knee up to his groin, connected my elbow with his chin, and followed up with a kick to his gut to get him off me. Dancing to the side, I regained my pool cue. I balanced on the balls of my feet, debating between continuing the fight and fleeing the scene.

  On the one hand, I could probably get the money from him if I managed to keep him down. On the other, his friends were starting to form a circle and the odds of me being beaten to a pulp were going up.

  I looked around at the group of burly men, arms crossed over thick chests as they eyed me. It was probably an odd sight, scruffy looking girl standing with a large man groaning on the ground clutching his groin; enough for them to pause, but not enough to dissuade them from attacking.

  I should probably disappear while I still could.

  I sidestepped, jumping up to slide across the faded wood on the side of the pool table and find myself safely outside the circle of men.

  “Get…her,” my attacker groaned from the floor.

  The men started to walk toward me—why do they always move slowly? Is it supposed to intimidate me?

  I ducked out of the bar, racing down the street to put as much distance between me and them as was possible.

  So much for rent money.

  I slowed down after I’d made it a couple of hundred yards, reaching into the pockets of my jeans to grab my pack of cigarettes. I lit one and breathed in the nicotine, letting it wash over me and calm the adrenaline that had carried me to this point.

  I only made it another fifty yards to the next corner before the anxiety returned, the cigarette no longer dulling me to relaxation. I felt the tension between my shoulder blades, like someone was watching me. Had one of the men followed me even after all that running? It didn’t quite make sense—I was fast. I had been good at athletics in school. Like pool, I had reached a point where I’d slowed myself down just to keep things interesting. It had become a competition with myself rather than with the other runners, and that had been a different kind of fun.

  I wasn’t having fun right now, and the memory didn’t do much to change that. I glanced over my shoulder but didn’t see anyone suspicious.

  None of the men from the bar. I shrugged my shoulders to try and relieve the tension and kept walking.

  The feeling didn’t go away, and I felt myself becoming annoyed. I glanced nervously down an alley as I passed by, and was surprised by a pair of red eyes staring out at me from the dimness of the backstreet. I jumped forward, away from the sight, and took a long drag on my cigarette to get my heart rate down. />
  What the fuck was that?

  I craned my neck around to look down the alley again.

  Nothing there.

  Well, fuck, that didn’t make me feel any better.

  I started walking again, faster this time, hurrying to get back to my flat but never losing the feeling that something…weird was following close behind me. I found myself glancing over my shoulder repeatedly, but didn’t catch sight of anything abnormal again.

  Probably just the alcohol I’d put away.

  Maybe it was time to quit drinking!

  Yeah right. I smiled as I entered my building.

  That’s what I’d keep telling myself.

  2

  MY LANDLADY KNOWS NOTHING AT ALL about empathy. Mind you, I suppose almost everyone who works in the property world could be described as such. Not a lot of people have the stomach for it, and rightly so.

  Mrs. Daugherty peered at me over the rims of her horn-rimmed glasses, eyebrows slightly narrowed, lips pursed, nose wrinkled. I squirmed in my seat, touching a hand to the mess of long platinum blonde hair there, my eyes darting around the room to look anywhere but at her as I chewed on the inside of my cheek.

  She made me feel pathetic—well, perhaps that wasn’t all her. I hadn’t bothered much with my wardrobe this morning, as I hadn’t entirely realised I’d be speaking with my landlady today. There was once a time when I dressed with care, but now my normal was to throw a simple old t-shirt and ratty jeans onto my slight frame—I had been fashionably thin, with naturally defined muscles.

  Now I looked like an advertisement for malnourishment. I didn’t eat well these days, for the same reason I was sitting in this office right now.

  I was late on my rent, again.

  I had been renting from Mrs. Daugherty for about four months now, and had been late three out of those four months. Always got it to her eventually, but never on time. I understood why she didn’t appreciate that, but I felt like getting her the money was the more important part of the deal. I was lucky she had rented to me in the first place—I had no references, no stable employment to provide any assurance I’d be able to pay, and had barely scrounged up a prior utility bill for proof of residency. I paid cash whenever I scraped it together. Mrs. Daugherty didn’t exactly run the most above board operation. I had to be grateful for that.

  “How many times are we going to have this conversation, Blair? I’m running a business, not a charity. And you’re all out of second chances," she said, tone as cold as ice.

  Bloody hell, I could not believe she had used that line. Well, I mean, I could. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard it. Still, rather cliché.

  “Listen, I swear I’m going to pay you. I just need a little more time…” I pleaded, just barely managing to stop myself from twisting my hair around a finger. A nervous little self-soothing anxiety tactic that only served to make me look more incompetent when speaking to those of Mrs. Daugherty’s calibre.

  “There is no more time for me to give you," she snapped. “If you don’t pay your rent by the end of the month, I’m going to have to evict you.” She closed her bloodshot eyes and shook her head. “I don’t want to do this to you, Blair, but you haven’t exactly given me much to work with.” Her voice softened a bit then, the worst possible thing that could have happened.

  I have no problem handling jerks and arseholes and what have you, mean people suck but that’s just life. Pity, though? Painful.

  I hate it.

  It breaks me.

  Tears burned my eyes, I blinked rapidly to fight them from spilling over onto my cheeks. I didn’t want to be weak. I nodded quickly, staring daggers down at my hands clasped in my lap.

  I stood up abruptly, aware that there was nothing further to say—and more to the point, I simply couldn’t talk to her, not without breaking down.

  End of the month. I had a bit more than a weekend to get my rent money together or I was going to have to find a new place to live. Again.

  I heaved out a heavy sigh. Why was nothing ever easy?

  To say that I didn’t know what I was going to do was an understatement. I didn’t have a regular job, never been good at holding one down. Something always goes wrong at some point or another. I think I’ve managed a waitressing gig or two for about a week each. I like to call myself a freelancer—sounds nice and almost professional—but I didn’t exactly have a specific profession to freelance in. My most regular work to date was writing essays for rich university students that didn’t want to do the work themselves; but it wasn’t exam season. I hated doing that though, it felt like disrespecting a system that I had always desperately wanted to be a part of. I’d kill to be in university, but it would never work out for me. I learn things quickly, have a knack for picking up most things. I couldn’t afford it, though, and even if I could…things go wrong around me. Street lights go out, lifts stop working, fancy computers fuse out…never really understood why, but I wouldn’t want to screw up someone’s dissertation. I couldn’t stay focussed at a simple waitress job, I wouldn’t make it a week in a university. At least the essays gave me a taste of what it could have been like.

  I stood in front of the expanse of wall that spanned the distance between the lift and the door to the stairs, wavering for a moment as to whether I would take my chances with the lift. Sometimes it worked out. Most times it ended with a fireman having to rescue me…every cloud has a silver lining!

  I huffed out a breath and reached for the door to the stairs.

  My pocket buzzed.

  I frowned down at my tattered jeans for a moment, hand still outstretched, only a little puzzled. I didn’t really get a lot of phone calls. No huge circle of friends, almost no circle of friends at all. I deliberated for three more vibrations before I decided I should at least answer. Sate my curiosity. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the cheap flip phone.

  “Sheach," I said, exhaustion creeping into my tone. It wasn’t even noon and it had already been a long day.

  “Oh, yes, um, hi." The voice on the other end came out a bit breathy, rapid, maybe raspy. Perhaps the caller had been crying recently, but they sounded anxious. “You, uh, you’re Blair, right? Blair Sheach? You helped Ginny Honeycutt catch her boyfriend when he was cheating on her…”

  One eyebrow arched up on my forehead, and I managed not to chuckle. “One and the same. What does that matter, though?” Ginny had been convinced her boyfriend was in trouble, in an absolute panic and barely managed to get her story out between all the crying. She’d responded to an ad I’d put up calling myself a Private Investigator. Finn wasn’t too fond of that deception.

  “I was…I was hoping you could help me. My husband’s cheating on me," she blurted out.

  I rolled my eyes. Not this again. “Have you tried talking to him?” I couldn’t help the bite in my voice; a cheating spouse was not something I wanted to get involved in again. Ginny’s boyfriend had made his displeasure known once I’d outed him.

  “I can’t! He’s gone. Please, you’ve got to help me. I’ll pay you!”

  Bingo. I glanced over my shoulder at the rental office, chewing at the inside of my cheek for a second while I contemplated the situation. I couldn’t exactly afford to be choosey right now.

  “Yeah, all right. Let’s meet, I’ll listen to the details you have, and let you know if it’s something I can help you with. Deal?”

  “Yes, of course, oh thank you so much! Espresso Room? Fifteen minutes?” she breathed, relieved, but still so desperate.

  I felt a bit bad, taking advantage of her like that. I wasn’t a real PI. If it was something serious, though, I’d just direct her to the police department.

  “Done," I closed the flip phone and stared at it for a second.

  It wasn’t perfect, but money is money.

  3

  THE COFFEE SHOP WAS RATHER CROWDED, but that made it a good place for having conversations you’d prefer not to have overheard. Unlikely that this would be a super secretive meeting, and I did
n’t know the details yet, but I felt it was safe to say no one wants to have their dirty washing heard by everyone around. That, and I hadn’t exactly chosen the location.

  I sat across from The Client—she had yet to give me a name to even call her by—at a table towards the back of the shop, pen and notepad flipped open on the table between us.

  “I’m going to need your name," I repeated for the third time, sounding a little exasperated.

  Her eyes darted to the side, she opened her mouth and then paused for a moment. “Mary.”

  Lying, I thought to myself.

  “OK, Mary.” I rolled my eyes, emphasising her name so that she knew I didn’t believe her for a moment. She looked away, cheeks flaming. “Why come to me for a missing, possibly cheating, husband?” I think it probably sounded like a good opening to the conversation, possibly professional and all that. I didn’t exactly look the part—knock off a mark for ‘I had not dressed for this morning’, and a splash of ‘twenty-four is too young for this job’—I had to compensate for it.

  She sniffed and played with her coffee cup for a moment or two. “Ginny said you listened when the police wouldn’t. Looked where they wouldn’t. Knew things that didn’t make sense.”

  My eyebrows jumped up, what did that mean? I thought about asking, but decided against it. Bad idea to interrupt a client once they get started.

  “My husband is in love with a ghost. There, I said it. But you must believe me, the police are never going to take this seriously, and I need someone who will investigate the things that matter. And from what Ginny said…you might be able to help me.” She sounded calm, though she’d blurted it out so quickly it didn’t sink in at first.

  When it did, I leaned back in my chair and shook my head. Managing not to laugh or anything else I might have wanted to do, I kept my composure. Odds were, she was insane, but she was right about one thing—the police were not going to investigate anything like that. Not that I was any more likely to, on a normal day.