Paws In Space: A Crystal Beach Paranormal Cozy Mystery (Book 5) (Crystal Beach Magic Mystery) by Karen McSpade

Author:Karen McSpade [McSpade, Karen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Newcastle Media
Published: 2023-02-27T16:00:00+00:00

If I wasn’t in fear for my life, I might have been quite impressed with myself for noticing that whoever had grabbed me from behind probably wasn’t the giant man I had heard described by Shirley Yao. Nor was it likely the bulk of a man I had seen talking to Judd at the Shifting Sands Retirement Center because this person seemed closer to my build. But whoever it was had a hold of me from behind, my windpipe tightly squeezed by the crook of their elbow. Something cold and hard pushed against the side of my temple.

“I want the envelope,” a gruff but unmistakably female voice demanded of me. “The one with the flash drive in it. Give it to me now, and I’ll let you live.”

I paused for a moment, my mind racing. There was something familiar about this voice. I had a strong sense that the roughness in it was put on, like a woman with no acting skill pretending to be a man.

“Come on!” she said. “Hand the drive over; I’m not messing around.” She gave a yank on her right arm, the one that was currently around my neck, in a poor attempt at a stranglehold. It was almost insulting, and if it hadn’t felt like I had a gun against the side of my head, I might even have been tempted to make a fight of things. Which, of course, would have been stupid, seeing as the envelope did not even have the actual drive with the ICARUS plans on it. Sometimes the red mist of anger just descends.

“Okay, okay,” I answered placatingly as I ground my teeth. I reached down to pull out the envelope from below the remaining sandwiches. “Just take it.”

The arm around my neck released me a little, so the black-gloved hand on the end of it could take the envelope. I could see enough of the arm now to feel like I recognized the shiny black tracksuit with a green pinstripe down the arm. It was familiar, for sure, and I wracked my brains, trying to think how I knew it.

“Right,” my assailant said, releasing her grip on me but keeping the weapon pressed against the back of my head. “I will need you to stay facing that way and count to twenty. Do not turn around or—”

She let the gruff voice almost entirely slip away, and the distinctive, clipped tones of someone I most certainly knew came through, just at the same time as I remembered where I had seen that tracksuit. “Shirley?” I asked, interrupting her instructions.

Whirr! There was a sudden, loud noise behind me that made me jump and let out a tiny shriek. It wasn’t, however, a gunshot. After a second or two to be sure that I wasn’t dead, I turned around to see Shirley Yao behind me, a portable electric screwdriver in her left hand, which she had been pretending was a pistol. “Oops,” she said, glancing at the screwdriver. “Itchy trigger finger.”

“Well then, I’m glad it wasn’t a gun,” I said, furious that she had just scared the heck out of me.

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