Dead and Dusted by Lily Webb (most recommended books .TXT) 📗

of the room escorted by Brady and another of his guards. Wow, so he couldn’t even go to the bathroom alone in a completely secured location. What exactly was he afraid would happen? Did he think someone might jump him in the men’s room or something?

Jadis turned to us with an incredulous smile. “Wow, this is a complicated group.”

“Right? I can’t keep track of all the bad blood, but it seems like they all have problems with each other.”

Thorn laughed. “You don’t get to be the three most powerful people in Starfall Valley without stepping on each other’s toes.”

“And Lilith knows they have,” Blair added. “They’ve all worked with each other at some point.”

“Then no wonder this is contentious,” I said.

“Oh, I don’t think we’ve seen the worst of it yet,” Blair said with a grimace. “If half of what I’ve heard about the three of them is true, then things could get downright cutthroat before it’s over.”

“Now I know why there’s a photographer here,” I said and leaned around Blair to look at the table. Kade and Evie were talking and laughing while he showed her some of the pictures he’d taken already, and I got the sense that Kade might’ve been flirting with her. Meanwhile, Mayor Nash and Zadie sat completely silent and not looking at each other, despite how close they were.

Several minutes passed without Leland’s return, and Evie seemed to get more and more uncomfortable while she waited — and less interested in whatever Kade had to say. I lost count of the number of times she looked over her shoulder for Leland, and though I’d assumed she just had new job jitters, as time stretched on without an appearance from Leland, I worried too.

What could have been in the letter Evie brought Leland that would take so much of his time? I understood he was busy and important, but for a deal that allegedly meant so much to him, it seemed strange to leave his peers waiting for so long.

So, when Brady charged back into the room looking like he was choking on a marble, my stomach dropped. He hurried toward Blair, nearly knocking over one of our carts on his way, and she ran to meet him.

“Mr. Payne? What’s wrong?” she asked with a hand over her mouth like she already knew the answer. Brady hesitated, seemingly unable to form words. He massaged his bald scalp and chewed his lip.

Finally, he found the words. “It’s Mr. Marth… He, um, he’s… I don’t have a clue how it happened, but he’s dead,” he muttered, and my knees buckled.

Chapter 4

Evie’s chair clattered against the floor as she jumped from it. “What?!” she shouted, her face a mixture of horror and confusion. “How could this have happened? He was in the bathroom alone!”

Mayor Nash hurried around the table to rest his hand on Evie’s shoulder. Though she didn’t seem terribly cooperative, he lifted her chair upright and convinced Evie to sit back down. The mayor pulled his chair around next to hers and sat down beside her to comfort her.

Though it looked like it took every bit of Brady’s will not to roll his eyes at Evie’s reaction, he kept his gaze locked on Blair. “We had the same question. I swept the room before Mr. Marth went inside. I saw nothing suspicious, and no one else followed him.”

Blair chewed her lower lip as she stared off at a spot on the wall behind Brady. “I don’t know how else to ask this, so I’ll just ask: Do you think he could’ve hurt himself?”

Brady looked like Blair had slapped him. “What? No, definitely not. There weren’t any marks on his body, but I saw some sort of substance on the floor surrounding him.”

Blair raised an eyebrow. “What kind of substance?”

“It’s hard to say for sure. Obviously, I didn’t want to touch it to confirm, just to be on the safe side, but it looks an awful lot like fairy dust. Here, I took a picture. See for yourself,” Brady said and pulled out his phone. I held my breath while he tapped a few times on the screen then turned it to Blair and me.

Slowly, I let out my breath. Thankfully, the picture only showed a closeup of the dust Brady had mentioned. It was gold and sparkly, so much so that it looked like glitter made for crafting. I’d seen nothing like it before, but I hadn’t seen fairy dust either, so I couldn’t immediately discount Brady’s theory.

Blair zoomed in on the photo by pinching her fingers outward on the screen and her face scrunched as she stared at the glitter. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen fairy dust, but yes, I think you might be right,” she said and resumed chewing on her lip. “But there aren’t any fairies around here — there haven’t been for centuries thanks to the climate.”

“Well, if this really is fairy dust, then it had to have come from a fairy somewhere, and not necessarily from Starfall. Judging from the looks of Mr. Marth, I’d guess he had a reaction to it,” Brady said, and I could barely believe my ears. The day just kept getting weirder. First there were rockets and space magic, and now the CEO of Starforce Technologies lay dead in our bathroom covered in what looked to be a fatal dose of fairy dust.

“But how did it end up here? It certainly didn’t come from any of my staff,” Blair said, watching Brady’s face for a reaction. When he said nothing, she glanced around him at the other guards. “Were you or the other guard who accompanied him ever in the restroom with Mr. Marth?”

Anger flushed Brady’s face. “Your implication is absurd. Our job is to follow Mr. Marth everywhere, but he’s still entitled to some level of privacy. Jorah and I were waiting for him at the door, but when he didn’t come out after several minutes, I called