Havok Publishing

Tag - amateur sleuth

A Red Sapphire Heart

“Off with her head!”
“First the sentencing, then the case,” chanted the courtiers.
Alice bobbed a quick curtsy as best she could while being held between two burly guards. “If you please, Your Majesty, might I know why I’m here?”
“Don’t play coy with me, child!” The Queen pursed her lips. A scowl highlighted

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Captain Camouflage

“Stay away from him, Miriel! He’s a killer! Can’t you smell other people’s blood on him?”
That’s what I tried to say. All that came out was a bunch of barks and growls. I smelled danger. The fur rose on my back, and I tried to warn Miriel to stay away, but I knew she

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Up for the Challenge

Miriel prided herself on noticing things others didn’t. Like the way the Grieves girl was concentrating more on a young man jogging through the park than on her chess match with the elderly gentleman in front of her. And the way the jogger, when he passed Greives by, gave a slight turn

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The Constant

“Are you kidding?” barked Reynolds, the editor of the Gazette as he looked up from the tablet. “I send you to get photos of the Flag Day ceremony, and you give me a conspiracy theory?”
Gavin shook his head. “Not theory. Fact. You see her?” He zoomed in on a short lady with

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Good Grieves

I pop in an earbud and settle into my rideshare from O’Hare. The latest episode of my favorite podcast, Good Grieves, just dropped. I press play. “Ethel Grieves keeps a low profile compared to her more flamboyant siblings. She’s known for taking legitimate jobs, always under her real name, and resigning before she’s charged

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False Note

I stormed through mahogany doors into our mansion’s library. Due to my limp, my sensible shoes’ wooden heels hammered an uneven beat on the hardwood floor. My older siblings flinched, looked up from their phones, and winced a bit as I scanned their faces. When we were kids, Milton used to call my current

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One Bounty at a Time

Zai rotated the pendant dangling from his neck, lost in thought. Clanking shackles roused him, and he glanced at Xander, the drug dealer he’d apprehended in the Ketz District. “Maddening, isn’t it?”
A tall man in a red capitol uniform marched past the cell, and Zai shot to his feet. He slammed his huntsman’s

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Killer In the Neitherness

People think we hide in the shadows, but they’re wrong. This is the space between light and dark. The Enemy said dark is light to him, but this is neither and no one reigns here.
I peered through the gossamer layer of light into the room, where the body lay, to watch chaos unfold.

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Employee of the Month

Joe Enza didn’t care where the giant hole had come from. He just wanted his parking spot back.
After twelve years of devoted service, he was finally MegaTech Temporal Conglomerate’s Employee of the Month. The distinction came with a meaningless certificate, a mention in the employee newsletter no one read, and a front row

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All Over the Map

In an oak-paneled conference room at First Freedom Fiduciary, I scowled from across the oblong table at slick-haired CEO Maurice Meltonshire, whom I blamed for Joe’s death, and a cadre of lackeys and attorneys.
Joe’s attorney, Allison Raymond, clicked a remote, and the video projection screen flickered on with the image of my late

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The Tutu Clue

I was indoors but surrounded by snowflakes, my heart pounding. Did a blizzard wreck the roof? No, I was in a theater and about to perform in The Burton School of Dance’s 1995 production of The Nutcracker.
My best friend Jasmine was the Snow Queen. “Snowflakes together!” she stage-whispered, pumping her fist.

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Code Name: Turkey

I hefted my dad’s old army binoculars back into position and scanned the yard for our target. No one wanted to acknowledge the truth, but the facts were undeniable.
“How long we gotta keep this up, Mikey? It’s cold up here, and we only got the one binoculars.” Calvin rubbed his mitten-covered hands together and scowled from behind the coils of his knitted scarf.

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