The Name of the Game is Murder (A Clarissa Spencer Cozy Mystery Book 6) Read online

  THE NAME OF THE GAME IS MURDER

  Alaine Allister

  Copyright © 2016 A. Allister

  This is a work of fiction. All characters and events depicted are products of the author’s imagination. The cover is for illustrative purposes only. All rights reserved.

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  Sun, fun, family...and a bingo hall murder?

  Clarissa Spencer’s love life is heating up. And that means it’s time to introduce her boyfriend to her parents. Will they approve of him? Will their special brand of crazy scare him away? Poor Clarissa is a bundle of nerves.

  A suspicious death provides the perfect distraction. Who killed Bobby the bingo caller? The list of suspects is long but if anyone can narrow it down, it’s Clarissa.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Chapter 01

  Chapter 02

  Chapter 03

  Chapter 04

  Chapter 05

  Chapter 06

  Chapter 07

  Chapter 08

  Chapter 09

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 01

  “Look out!” Clarissa Spencer screamed as her life flashed before her eyes.

  A gigantic, wood-panelled burgundy Cadillac had crossed into the wrong lane for seemingly no reason. There had been no warning. One second everything had been fine. The next, disaster was about to strike.

  Clarissa was sitting in the passenger seat. Her boyfriend, Parker Tweed, was behind the wheel. His eyes widened when he saw the Cadillac headed right for them. He had an excellent driving record, and he was always extra-careful when she was in the car with him. But when another vehicle suddenly veered past the center line, there wasn’t much he could do.

  He couldn’t even take the ditch, as there was a swamp-like lagoon alongside the road. There were no options. A head-on collision seemed inevitable. Clarissa had to fight her panic back. It wasn’t the time to freak out. She needed to be level-headed and calm if she wanted to survive.

  Thinking fast, Clarissa summoned all her strength. She squeezed her eyes shut in concentration and began to whisper a spell under her breath. She prayed she had memorized it correctly. Otherwise, she and Parker were goners!

  Clarissa heard the squealing of tires.

  She felt the flashy, expensive rental car Parker was driving come to an abrupt, sharp stop. Her seatbelt cut into her as her body was thrown forward. Her torso slammed against the seat, her back cushioned by the soft leather. It didn’t hurt, but it was enough to momentarily daze her.

  After the initial jolt, everything came to a standstill.

  For a moment, Clarissa didn’t dare peek. She just sat there with her eyes closed and hoped she wasn’t dead. She took a few deep, calming breaths. She reminded herself that dead people didn’t breathe, which meant she must be alive. Then she cautiously cracked an eye open, hoping she wouldn’t be confronted by brimstone and fire.

  The rental car had skidded a short distance, leaving tire marks on the pavement. But somehow, Parker had managed to keep it out of the lagoon. That was a very good thing, because there were probably alligators in there!

  “Whoa. That was a close call,” Parker said, shakily unfastening his seatbelt. He turned to look at Clarissa, his stunning blue eyes full of concern. “You’re not hurt, are you?” he asked. Somehow he managed to look handsome even after a near-death experience.

  “I’m fine,” Clarissa said, still a bit stunned.

  “Okay, well I’m going to go check on the other driver,” Parker told her.

  Clarissa glanced over at the burgundy Cadillac. It was parked on the other side of the road, its engine idling. A petite white-haired lady sat in the driver’s seat.

  Before Clarissa and Parker could move, the woman emerged from her car. She walked over and motioned for Parker to roll down his window. Then she gave an apologetic smile, flashing a mouth full of pearly white dentures.

  “Sorry about that!” she chirped brightly. “I couldn’t find my glasses this morning. I looked everywhere for them, but they were nowhere to be found. And I couldn’t just sit at home all day – not when it’s seniors’ day at the nail salon! I get a ten percent discount, you know.”

  “You were driving without your glasses?” Parker asked in disbelief.

  “Yes. I guess I should stop doing that, hmm?” the woman said sheepishly. “Ah well, I’ve gotta run. I have an appointment for a pedicure at three thirty and dinner reservations at four o’clock! Buh-bye, kids!”

  There were no words. All Clarissa and Parker could do was gawk. Was the woman for real?

  A small gust of wind ruffled the woman’s tightly curled white perm. She reached up to fix it and her eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Oh! Oh my! My glasses were on top of my head the entire time!” she exclaimed.

  Clarissa and Parker exchanged an incredulous look.

  The woman giggled as though the gravity of the situation was completely lost on her. “I’m so silly, aren’t I? I feel very foolish! My husband says I would probably lose my own head if it wasn’t attached!”

  Then, completely oblivious the narrowly avoided disaster, she hustled back to her car.

  She got in, put on her glasses and drove off with a screech.

  “That was…” Clarissa trailed off mid-sentence. She didn’t even know what to say.

  “Jeez. Drivers in small-town Florida are almost as bad as drivers in Sugarcomb Lake!” Parker exclaimed with a shake of his head. He shot Clarissa a playful look. “I’m not naming names or anything, but I have a feeling Sugarcomb Lake is short one bad driver this week.”

  “Shush!” Clarissa laughed. But she couldn’t argue. She really was a terrible driver.

  Suddenly a puzzled look came over Parker’s handsome face.

  “What is it?”

  “I wonder if I need to get my eyes checked. Or maybe I’m just cracking up,” he said.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Well…this is going to sound insane,” he cautioned, looking embarrassed. “The Cadillac looked like it became airborne! It must have been an optical illusion or something, I guess. Did you see it? It was the strangest thing. It was seconds away from crashing into us, then it seemed to lift up and change course.”

  “No, I didn’t see it,” Clarissa answered truthfully. “My eyes were shut.”

  What she didn’t tell her boyfriend was that she had caused the car to become airborne and change course. Parker had no idea Clarissa had supernatural powers. In fact, Clarissa herself hadn’t discovered her abilities until she was in her late twenties.

  While Clarissa couldn’t outwardly take credit, inside she was rather pleased. Witchcraft wasn’t a skill that came easily to her. Surprisingly, it required a lot of practice and hard work to execute spells properly. She’d certainly had a lot of failed attempts…but not this time.

  This time Clarissa’s magic had saved the day – and their lives!

  She just hoped she wouldn’t pay for it too much later. She had been shocked to discover that magic came with consequences. She thought of it as a supernatural hangover. The bigger the spell she cast, the more side effects she suffered later on.


  Annoyingly, Clarissa never quite knew what sort of side effects she would suffer. Sometimes she itched all over. Sometimes she sneezed uncontrollably. Once, after casting a particularly complex spell, she’d had hiccups for an entire day!

  She crossed her fingers that this time she’d get off easy.

  “Good news!” Parker announced suddenly. “The GPS says we’re almost at your parents’ place. I think that’s their street right over there, actually,” he said, pointing.

  Clarissa swallowed hard at her boyfriend’s cheerful words. Then she began to toy with her long, dark hair in a feeble attempt to calm her nerves. Her blue-green eyes were full of anxiety as she fretted over what would happen next.

  She was a long way from Minnesota.

  She was, in fact, in Florida. Her parents had moved there from Minnesota after retiring. Clarissa had been meaning to visit for a long time. But despite her good intentions, she had never made the trek before. She had begun to think it may never happen!

  It was still difficult to believe she was actually there.

  Singlehandedly running her own small town newspaper meant it was tough for Clarissa to get away for a vacation. It was next to impossible, really. But lately things had been looking up. She had hired a new employee to help manage some of simple the day-to-day tasks. She had also worked a ton of overtime in the weeks prior to her time off.

  Now here she was, in the land of sunshine and pensioners for exactly one week.

  But lounging on the beach wasn’t in the cards. Clarissa wasn’t on that sort of holiday. No, she was using her time off to visit her parents at their new retirement villa. They had been bugging her to visit for ages.

  And it was high time she introduced them to her boyfriend. Things were getting serious between them, after all. They had even said “I love you” to one another. If that wasn’t serious, Clarissa didn’t know what was!

  She wanted her parents to meet Parker, but she also felt sick about it. She didn’t know quite what to expect. Would her parents like her boyfriend, or hate him the way they had hated her ex? And what would Parker think of her parents, who most definitely had their quirks?

  She prayed the visit would go well, but she couldn’t shake the feeling of dread in her stomach.

  Chapter 02

  “Clarissa?” Parker was looking at her expectantly.

  “Huh?”

  “I asked what the house number is,” Parker repeated himself patiently. “I didn’t enter the exact address into the GPS because I couldn’t remember it. Right now it’s directing us to a funeral home. I’m pretty sure your parents don’t live in a funeral home, right?”

  “Oh. Oh!” Clarissa had a brief moment of panic as she wondered if her parents had done something insane, like convert a funeral home into a house. Then she remembered she had seen photos of the house – and it looked like a normal house. She sternly told herself to calm down.

  Clarissa glanced at the houses in the gated retirement community they had driven into. It was a lovely little place where the wide streets were dotted with trees and park benches. She didn’t really understand the point of a gated community when the gate was wide open, but that was another matter entirely.

  Despite the apparently lax security, Clarissa had to admit her parents had chosen a picturesque little neighborhood to call home. As she gazed around at the cookie cutter homes, pristine front gardens and quaint, sunny verandas stared back at her.

  It was all very tidy and welcoming.

  Or it would have been welcoming had she not felt sick to her stomach! Clutching her belly, Clarissa wondered if nerves were getting the best of her or if she was already suffering side effects of her spell. She took a deep breath and tried to ignore the rumblings in her gut.

  She squinted as she took a closer look at the houses. Then she spotted her parents’ place.

  It was a tidy white bungalow with a cute little veranda at the front.

  It reminded Clarissa of the covered front porch back home.

  Well, it did and it didn’t. There was something decidedly less charming about this one. Maybe it was too brilliant a shade of white or too well-maintained. The entire house looked pristine and new, like something out of a magazine. That was nice, sure…but the house didn’t look lived in. It didn’t look like a home.

  “Give it a chance,” Clarissa whispered to herself.

  She still couldn’t shake her immediate dislike of the place.

  Her entire life, Clarissa’s parent had lived in the quaint craftsman style house at the edge of Sugarcomb Forest. Clarissa had grown up with fond memories of it. In fact, when her parents had announced they were moving to Florida, she had bought the house from them rather than see it go to some stranger.

  It was still strange to think that her parents were living someplace new – and out of state.

  It didn’t help that most of the houses on the street looked the same. Most of the homes were cookie cutter bungalows, save for a couple duplexes down at the end of the street. It made sense that everything looked the same, given that it was a gated retirement community.

  But the lack of distinguishing features was kind of ho hum, in Clarissa’s opinion.

  Her parents’ house was the unit with the biggest, lushest garden on the block. That was unsurprising, since Clarissa’s mother loved flowers. It was a modern, nice looking place, if you didn’t mind the lack of character.

  The sporty little purple convertible her parents had purchased on a whim after retiring sat in the driveway. Sometimes Clarissa secretly wondered if they were having a delayed midlife crisis. Comfortable looking white wicker furniture adorned the wrap around veranda. And hanging from the veranda was a welcome sign.

  “That’s my parents’ house,” Clarissa announced, pointing it out to her boyfriend.

  “Ah, perfect. Look at this place! It has everything – I think I even spotted a swimming pool down by the rec center when we first drove in. And look, there’s visitor parking right by your parents’ place! That’s handy!” Parker said, sounding pleased.

  Clarissa was less pleased. Truthfully, she was too nervous to be pleased. She loved her family. And she loved her boyfriend. But until now, she had kept the two very separate. It was all about to change. Two worlds were going to collide and she didn’t know what to expect.

  “It will be fine,” Clarissa whispered, even as she braced herself for the worst.

  “Thanks,” Parker said, mistakenly thinking she was talking to him. “I know it will be fine, but it’s still good to hear it from you. I didn’t want to admit it, but I’m pretty nervous about meeting your folks. I just want them to like me, you know? I hope they like me.”

  “I hope so too,” Clarissa replied. Then she realized how bad that sounded. It wasn’t the reassurance Parker was so desperately seeking. She quickly backpedaled. “I mean, they will! They totally will! What’s not to like?”

  It was true. Her boyfriend was the total package. He was tall, with the blondest of blonde hair and twinkling blue eyes. He was highly educated, witty and effortlessly athletic. He came from money and would someday inherit his rich father’s media empire.

  But most importantly, Parker was nice.

  He was, in fact, the kindest, funniest, sweetest guy Clarissa had ever met.

  Of course her parents would love him…wouldn’t they?

  Clarissa knew she was being silly. Parker was polite, respectful and easy to talk to. She was pretty sure her parents were going to love him. In fact, they might decide they liked him better than they liked her! Everything was going to be fine.

  Clarissa repeated that mantra in her head until she felt herself relax.

  Then a new worry popped into her head.

  What was Parker going to think of her parents? They could be…well…all families had their quirks. Parker had already met Clarissa’s crazy aunt. That had gone off without a hitch; he had actually been remarkably accepting of her eccentricities.

  But this was different.

 
These were Clarissa’s parents.

  Her dad could be very set in his ways, which might put Parker off. And her mom was a total chatterbox and a chronic over-sharer. Clarissa desperately hoped she wouldn’t tell any embarrassing stories or, worse yet, bring out the family photo albums!

  Parker climbed out of the rental car and checked on Clarissa’s cat. The fluffy, black-furred critter was in a carrier in the backseat. “Hey buddy, how are you doing?” he asked as he leaned into the car.

  Normally the cat adored Parker. Normally it was inexplicably obsessed with him.

  But this time, it just glowered at him.

  “Whoa. Somebody doesn’t look happy,” Parker remarked.

  Clarissa bent down and peered into the carrier.

  The cat was glaring at her as though it wanted her dead.

  “Aww, that was a long drive from the airport, wasn’t it? I bet you’re ready to stretch your legs, aren’t you? Well good news! We’re here!” She reached down and opened the carrier up.

  The cat apparently saw an opportunity for freedom and seized it, sprinting from the car.

  “Hey, come back here!” Clarissa called as the cat charged into her mother’s garden.

  The cat, of course, ignored her.

  Clarissa shrugged and decided to let the temperamental little beast cool off.

  She had never really been a cat person. She just didn’t understand them. She especially didn’t understand this one. It was a stray that had, for some odd reason, adopted her. It had then invaded her home and taken over her life. What had begun as an inconvenience had slowly morphed into a truce.

  Clarissa and the cat still didn’t always see eye-to-eye. For one thing, the cat thought it owned Clarissa. For another, it was a total and complete brat and seemed to derive pleasure from destroying her house. But the companionship was still rather nice.

  She turned her attention back to Parker, who had begun to unpack their luggage. He looked laid back yet stylish in his casual khaki shorts and white t-shirt. He certainly looked more put together than she did in her rumpled mauve blouse and creased black capris. How come his clothes never got wrinkles in them?