Shots in the Dark Read Free

that seemed to point to another location, a local church. By the time we realized our mistake and I headed for the market, time had run out.
    Even though it was too late to save Gary, I desperately wanted to get my hands on the next clue. Over the past two days I’d been thinking about how to go about this task, and I knew I needed to start with the market vendors. I had no way of knowing if any of them were the target the letter writer had singled out, but based on past experience with the clues and the fact that the vendors were the one constant during the window of time I’d been given in the letter, I assumed one of them would prove to be key. Several specific vendors had been referenced in the clues, and I figured I’d start with them first. Duncan’s surreptitious analysis of those clues using the police lab had uncovered some flower pollen mixed in with the cinnamon, something that might have been intentional or accidental. If it was intentional, it meant the florist shop was referenced more than the other shops, so I decided to start there. Granted, it was little more than a hunch, but I had to start somewhere, and it made as much sense as anything else.
    The florist shop was located near the spice store, so my olfactory senses were working overtime as I approached. A white-haired, grandmotherly type woman was standing behind the counter, and she smiled warmly at me as I hobbled up.
    â€œYou look like you could use a little something to brighten up your day,” she said, no doubt in preparation for her sales pitch. Her voice triggered a citrusy taste in my mouth.
    I smiled back and gave her a half nod of agreement. I had a backstory I’d used when I’d approached others about the clues, and since it had worked before, I decided to stick to it. “I do need something, but I’m not sure exactly where it is, and I may be too late. There’s this scavenger hunt game I participate in online. Well, you sign up for it online, but the hunt part is in the real world. Anyway, you get these clues that are delivered to people and places out and about, and you have to decipher the clues in a limited amount of time in order to get the next clue. My last clue led me here, but on the way I was hit by another car, which ran a stop sign, and I ended up with this.” I waved a hand toward my leg. “Because of that, I missed my deadline, but I’m hoping someone might still have my next clue. Any chance you had a package delivered here to your shop with instructions to give it to someone who looked like me or to someone with the name Mackenzie Dalton?”
    The woman gave me a bemused smile. “Are you saying someone bought you flowers that you’re supposed to pick up here?”
    â€œNo. I don’t think so. It would be an envelope of some sort.” I wasn’t certain of this, but that was the format used with the previous connections, so I was inclined to believe this one would be the same.
    â€œSorry, honey, but I don’t have anything like that.”
    â€œYou didn’t receive a package or an envelope of some sort with instructions to destroy it if it wasn’t picked up by a certain time?”
    Her smile never wavered, but there was a wary look in her eye, which told me she was beginning to think I might not be firing on all cylinders. “Sorry,” she said with an apologetic smile and a shrug.
    One of the perks of my synesthesia—though some might call it a quirk—is that I can often tell if people are lying. My synesthetic reaction to the sound of their voice changes in some way. But in order to use it, I have to have a baseline lie for comparison, something I know is an untruth. I thought about asking the woman to lie to me on purpose, but I couldn’t think of a way to broach the subject without her thinking I was a lunatic. Momentarily stymied, I decided to let it pass for now and to come back to her later if I struck out with the