The Mystery Megapack

the beach and selected what appeared to be the most seaworthy kayak. I switched MM to battery power, then laid it carefully on the bottom of the boat. I plopped down on the sand, rolled up my pant legs, removed my shoes, and set them next to MM. When I was confident nobody was looking, I eased the kayak into the water, climbed aboard, and paddled to a spot about fifty feet off the end of the pier where I figured the water would be nice and deep. I balanced the paddle across the gunwales and lifted MM onto my lap, my thumbs hovering over her array of buttons.
    I had been half listening when Stephen showed me how to set a waypoint; I hoped I wouldn’t foul it up. Following his instructions as I remembered them, I punched the MARK button to capture my present location, somewhere in the middle of Calvert Creek. When MM asked me to, I used the rocker pad to scroll through the letters, carefully relabeling my new waypoint: “B&B Yachts” and obliterating the old one.
    When Stephen came home from Vegas on Friday it was all I could do to remain civil, wondering with whom he’d shared his king-sized bed at the Venetian, wondering who had been his lucky charm at the blackjack tables, wondering who had been his partner for the two-for-the-price-of-one buffet dinner special at The Mirage. I could hardly bear for Stephen to touch me, wondering as his fingers caressed my cheek exactly where those hands had been lately.
    Monday night, no surprise, Stephen called on his cell phone to say he wouldn’t be home for dinner.
    “Where are you now?” I asked.
    “Just leaving the gym and heading back to the office.”
    In the background, MM chimed in. In point three miles take ramp right.
    I paused, doing my own recalculation. Ramp right . From his gym to the office was a straight shot down Fairmont. No right ramps anywhere in that scenario. “I see,” I said, each word a frozen shard.
    “It’s tax season, Marjorie Ann. Need I remind you? I’m working late. I have a lot to do.”
    Drive one point three miles then exit left.
    Where had I seen an exit left recently? Ah, yes. On the way to whomever lived at “B&B Yachts.”
    Inside me, something snapped. “Lies, Stephen. All lies.”
    “What are you talking about, Marjorie Ann?”
    I held the receiver to my ear, silently seething, listening to Stephen pile excuse upon sorry excuse while in the background, turn by turn, MM was confirming what I already knew. In a few minutes, Stephen would be heading down a dark, dusty country road, where a beautiful blonde awaited him in a white clapboard rancher adjacent to a pier.
    “Marjorie Ann? You still there?”
    “As far as I’m concerned, Stephen, you can go straight to hell!”
    “You can’t …” Stephen began, followed by, “What the—?” and seconds later by the nearly simultaneous explosions of shattered glass and deploying airbags.
    And MM’s voice, softly reassuring. Arriving at destination.
    ABOUT THE AUTHOR
    Marcia Talley is the Agatha and Anthony award-winning author of All Things Undying and eight previous mystery novels featuring survivor and sleuth, Hannah Ives. A Quiet Death , next in the series, will be published in May.
    Marcia is author/editor of two star-studded collaborative novels, Naked Came The Phoenix and I’d Kill For That set in a fashionable health spa and an exclusive gated community, respectively. Her short stories appear in more than a dozen collections. A recent story, “Can You Hear Me Now?” is featured in Two Of The Deadliest: New Tales Of Lust, Greed And Murder From Outstanding Women Of Mystery , edited by New York Times best-selling author, Elizabeth George.
    Marcia is immediate past President of Sisters in Crime, serves on the board of the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of the Mystery Writers of America and is a member of the Authors’ Guild and the Crime Writers Association. She divides her time between Annapolis, Maryland and living aboard an antique sailboat in the Bahamas with a husband who loves to sail and a cat who doesn’t.

THE BLUE CROSS, by G.K. Chesterton
    Between the silver ribbon of morning and the green glittering ribbon of sea, the boat touched Harwich and let loose a swarm of folk like flies, among whom the man we must follow was by no means conspicuous—nor wished to be. There was nothing notable about him, except a slight contrast between the holiday gaiety of his clothes and the official gravity of his face. His clothes included a slight, pale grey jacket, a white waistcoat,