Page 68 of The Game Is Afoot

He nods, and I catch movement at his side, his thumb circling his pinkie. I’ve made him nervous.Good.

I take off through the grass, with no plan for where I’m going, except away from Corey. Really, that’s the extent of my plan. But if you keep walking through Brady Park, past the open fields and the basketball courts, well, eventually you’re going to reach the other side. Where the playground and Dom’s shed are located. And so…that’s where I happen to end up. Unintentionally.

Except I want so badly to think about anything else other than Corey, and as annoying as it was, that interview I walked into between Dad, Bert, and Leon gave me some new clues tochase. Plus, it looks like…yep, Dom’s new padlock is just hanging there, undone. That’s basically a sign from the universe to come right on in. It can’t hurt to take a quick look around and make sure there’s not a burner phone in there, just to rule him out for sure. Who knows how long it’ll take the detectives to do the same, with all the red tape of warrants and probable cause, and honestly I’m helping Dom, doing this before he has to suffer the embarrassment of all that…

I reach for the doorknob, noticing too late the shift of someone else’s shadow on the door, next to mine.

“I wouldn’t try that again, ma’am.”

Nineteen

I know it’s Dom beforeI even turn around, so I take a second to make my face look extra lost and innocent.

“Sorry? Is this the bathroom?”

Dom is tall and broad-shouldered, with dark hair, sun-weathered skin, and a scruffy beard. Wraparound sunglasses sit on top of his battered baseball cap, and he’s wearing a tan Beachwood Parks and Rec utility shirt with matching pants. He’s got thick, Jack McCoy–level eyebrows, and he raises one of them now at my half-assed bathroom excuse.

“I know why you’re here,” he says, fists on his hips. “And I know you’ve been here before.”

“I, um…don’t know what you’re talking about. I really was just looking for the bathroom. And yeah, I’ve…gotta go find it now.” My hands fall behind me, all on their own.

“I caught you on camera. There are several set up in there.” He nods toward the shed.

My body stills and my cheeks burn because he’s caught me, clearly, and also—did I just grab my own ass like a toddler whohas to go potty? This is not my best work. I need to get it together.

“How do you know it wasn’t…someone else? You could be confusing me with another Black woman?” I realize that’s low, gaslighting him—and also acknowledging that I’m Black at all, because it, pretty reliably, makes most white people take off running. But…desperate times. “And there’s a lot of Black women here in Beachwood. Not as much as there were, like, five years ago, with all these new people moving in, changing the neighborhood, building Erewhons—”

“You left this,” he says, interrupting the lecture I’m apparently giving on gentrification. And there, in his calloused hand, is my Project Window ID card. I took the picture three years ago, but it’s unmistakably me. And if there was any confusion, there’s my name right there in bold Comic Sans (because Rose thoughtthatwas a good idea):Mavis Miller.

“Huh. Yeah. Well…would you look at that.” And I don’t know what to say, so I just stare at him. And he just stares back. So we end up just standing there, staring, way past the point of awkward, with only the muffled sounds of kids shrieking in delight or distress at the nearby playground.

He’s the first one to break. “So.Whywere you in my office?”

“I mean, it doesn’t look like an office. So I wasn’t really sure what this place was, and I was just curiously, um…seeing the sights—”

His bushy brows jump in disbelief again. “Again, cameras, ma’am. I saw you going through the papers on my desk. Now, can you be honest with me here? Or do I need to bring in someone more official?”

I don’t want that. If Detective De La Rosa thinks I’m a nuisance now, that’s not going to get any better if he gets moreinsight into my methods. Also…I guess I broke a law? Technically.

“Okay, so I’m kinda looking into what happened to Coach Cole? The soccer coach who died here a few weeks ago,” I explain, even though I knowhe knowswho I’m talking about. “I’m trying to figure out who actually killed him because at first it sorta seemed like they thought my ex-husband did it? And I’msomad at my ex-husband right now, but that doesn’t mean I want him to go to jail, you know? He’s a good person. A person who doesn’t poison people’s Capri-Suns,for sure, so even if he makes meso mad, I had to, like, look into this.”

He holds up a hand, stopping my explanation that is not going as well as I’d hoped. “I’m having trouble following. Are you…a cop?”

“No. This is just…kinda my thing.” Yeah, that soundsreallegit, Mavis. No wonder Leon’s treating my investigation the same as my dad’s podcast. “I have experience. Honestly, probably more experience than Detective De La Rosa, at least, because he just got promoted and how many murder cases could there possibly have been in Beachwood since October? Anyway, when they mentioned the sodium nitrate, I think they thought Corey’s gardening was suspicious but my mind immediately went to you—no offense. So, I only took a quick peek around your shed—I mean,office. But I didn’t take anything. Well, just pictures…”

Yeah, I’m really not making this any better. Maybe the detectives will be a little nicer to me if I just call them on myself?

Dom’s face scrunches up. “No, it wasn’t nitrate, it wasnitrite. Sodiumnitrite.”

“Um, I’m pretty sure it was sodium nitrate. I’ve googled it about a million times at this point. Sodiumnitrateis the one used for fertilizer…or something like that. Though honestly,a lot of it went over my head—I almost failed high school chemistry. But I swear it was nitra—Wait. How do you know that?”

My body tenses, every nerve ending immediately standing at attention. I take one giant step back and collide with the shed door, trapped.

“First of all, I don’t use sodium nitrate here at the park. That wouldn’t even make any sense. There’s just grass—I’m not running a farm.”

“Nitrate, nitrite—whatever! Same thing! How did you know that was the murder weapon?” Should I run? I should run. At least there are witnesses nearby, if he does lunge at me. That guy in the Hawaiian shirt and glittery crocs, pushing his daughter on the swings, looks like he’ll give a goodDatelineinterview, so at least I have that.

“Well, actually, they’re very different, even though only one oxygen atom sets them apart.” I’m really about to be the next victim of awell, actuallyguy. How did I let this happen? “Our bodies convert nitrates into nitrites, so sodium nitrate naturally occurs but sodium nitrite is synthetically made. That’s why it’s used in a lot of cured and processed meats.” I feel my eyes involuntarily glazing over just like they did in tenth-grade chem and, oh my god, this is not the time for that! I need to be planning my exit strategy. The fields are just out of eyesight, but if Dom chases me, I’m pretty sure the guy in the glittery crocs would step in and take him down. “Bacon, beef jerky, prosciutto, hot dogs—that’s why they’re that pink color—” He cuts himself off suddenly as he takes in my deer-in-the-headlights stance. “Wait. No, hold on! I don’t know about the sodium nitrite because Ikilledhim!”

---