Chapter One
The old man seemed happy. Giddy, even. Well, as giddy as someone with terminal cancer could be, anyway. Breathing had become a full-time job.
I watched him from the doorway to his bedroom until he noticed me.
“Is everything ready?” he asked from behind his oxygen mask, raising a pale hand to catch my eye. His blue veins shone through his thin skin.
“Almost,” I said.
There was one thing left to do.
“Tell me the answers,” I said, approaching the bed.
His brow knit. “Hm?”
“Tell me the answers. Tell me how to win.”
He laughed—a horrible, sputtering sound.
“Nice try,” he said, wiping the spittle from his chin. “I couldn’t tell you if I wanted to.”
My head cocked.
It wasn’t the answer I’d expected.
“What do you mean? It’s your game.”
He nodded. “Yes, and I planned most of it. Heck, it took me years to put this together, but I had help, including three lawyers. No one person on the planet knows the correct path, and the winner will be required to show their work, so to speak.”
He chuckled as I shook my head, no doubt amused by my expression of horror.
“Don’t look so surprised,” he said. “Believe me, if you’d hosted a game show for as many years as I did, you wouldn’t trust anyone either. You’d be shocked to know the things people offered to do for me—to do to me—over the years.”
He winked, and I fought back my revulsion.
“But, how can someone win?” I asked.
His boney shoulders bounced. “The way they’re supposed to. They’ll play the game and either solve the puzzle or not.”
“Or not? There has to be a winner, right? Or whoever gets closest?”
He shook his head, sending his oxygen line dancing.
“Nope. If no one wins, it’s all going to charity.”
Again, my jaw fell.
“How could you do that to your family?”
A rattle snapped in his throat—another attempt at laughter. He was having a wonderful time.
“If my family were such wonderful people, I would have doled out the money like a normal dying man.”
He leaned toward me and lowered his voice to a whisper. He said something. I couldn’t hear him.
“I can’t hear you,” I said.
He pulled down the oxygen mask with a shaking hand to repeat himself.
“I said, between you and me, I’m hoping no one wins.”
I swallowed.
This wasn’t how I’d planned it.
When I gamed the possibilities, I’d never considered he was this much of a jerk.
Time for plan B.
“So you can’t tell me how to win?”
“Nope.”
“Not even if you wanted to?”
He grinned, flashing a lower row of yellowed natural teeth and an upper row of shockingly white implants. With his sunken features, those teeth made him look like a horse.
“Nope. Couldn’t tell you if I wanted to,” he said.
I sighed.
That answers that.
“Then what good are you?” I asked.
Before he could respond, I whipped the pillow from beneath his head. His gray, speckled head bounced on the mattress beneath it.
“Hey, what’s wrong with you?” he snapped, his milky eyes glaring at me.
“Sorry,” I said.
I don’t know why I said it.
I wasn’t.
Adrenaline coursing through my veins, I shoved the pillow against his stupid face.
He struggled, but it was like crushing a sparrow. He had no strength. He clawed at the pillow, the air, my arm—all with yellow nails that needed a clipping. When he stopped struggling, I held the pillow a few moments longer, just to be sure.
When it was over, I turned off his oxygen machine. The room fell quiet but for the ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner. The one with the carved monkies on top.
I had no idea how he’d slept for decades with that thing banging away. Once I won the house, the first thing I’d do is throw that thing out the window.
Done.
I flopped into the cushioned chair beside his bed and took a moment to think. My backup plan needed a little more work. I glanced at my watch.
I had time.
My attention drifted to the old man.
What to do with him?
No reason anyone should enter his room, but I couldn’t chance it. I couldn’t leave him in bed.
I had plenty of strength to hold him down, but I didn’t relish dragging him around the house.
My gaze pulled to the large, ornate wardrobe in the corner.
For once, the old man’s stupid antiques would come in handy.
I stood and steeled myself before rolling him off the bed. I let him drop to the floor with a thud. Next, I dragged his body to the wardrobe.
He was heavier than he looked, and he smelled terrible. I realized he’d soiled himself and took a moment to dry heave.
Careful to avoid the messy bits, I stuffed him into the wardrobe, folding his limbs at awkward angles to make him fit. Mission accomplished, I closed the doors, my breathing heavy.
Whew.
Killing the crazy old bastard hadn’t been as difficult as I’d feared. I hid any doubts behind closed doors in my heart—just like the old man’s lifeless body in the wardrobe.
His death took a minute. Maybe two. I didn’t even break a sweat.
After serving as his nurse for months, there wasn’t a man on the planet I wanted dead more than the legendary Xander Flummox.
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