A Grim Game (A Rose Beckingham Murder Mystery Book 4) by Blythe Baker

Author:Blythe Baker [Baker, Blythe]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-01-31T16:00:00+00:00

12

Waking up was like having been thrown unexpectedly into ice cold water, and then breaking through the surface, mouth open, eyes watering, flailing for a life raft and gasping for air. Except I couldn’t flail because my arms were tied to the arms of a sturdy wooden chair and my ankles were tied to the chair legs. And I couldn’t see because I had a blindfold on. And I couldn’t scream because I was much too frightened to scream.

“You’re finally awake.”

I jumped at the man’s voice, and he chuckled. “I’m sorry to have frightened you.”

I could hear him moving in even, measured steps, as if walking to the beat of a drum I couldn’t hear. The footsteps grew louder, and I tipped back my head enough to catch a glimpse of his shoes as he walked towards me. Expensive leather shoes that immediately gave him away as a man of means. They were not the battered shoes or boots of a working man.

“I’m also sorry to have to bring you here under such circumstances, but sometimes there is no way around the inevitable.”

I tried to focus on the tone of his voice, the cultured accent with a hint of…something else. It was in the way his voice flattened over some of the vowels. I recognized the voice, though I couldn’t put my finger on who it belonged to.

“How do you know I wouldn’t have come to you on my own?” I asked. It felt bizarre to talk to someone I couldn’t see and didn’t know, but just sitting quietly in the chair was unbearable. I had to say something.

“Oh, no. That was not my concern, dear,” the man said, amusement in his voice. “I have no doubt you would have met me had I asked. The problem is that I can predict your actions only too well. You would have shown up with a plan. I needed this encounter to be unexpected.”

“It is certainly that,” I said.

He clapped once, the noise echoing through what sounded like an empty room and making me jump again. “See? You are so fun. I have been most amused by this game we’ve been playing together.”

From the moment I’d regained consciousness, I’d suspected that I had been abducted by the Chess Master, but it wasn’t until that moment that I was sure.

“The Somerset Adventure was a delight,” he said, as though he were talking about an enjoyable weekend of croquet and tea in the country rather than murder. “The moving parts to that plan made it thrilling even for me.”

“Moving parts? Do you mean people?” I asked, unable to bite my tongue. “A man was murdered because of you.”

“Ah-ah,” he said, chastising me as though I were a child. “A man was murdered because of your cousin. Edward Beckingham planned to kill Mr. Matcham whether I chose to provide him with a poison or not. What was I supposed to do? Lose his business? Do you have any idea how much money I would lose

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