Debra Webb - Dying To Play

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

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 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Bonus Features

A conversation with Debra Webb

Getting to know the Characters

Here’s a sneak peek…

Once the game is started it cannot be stopped. Not for anything. Not for anyone.

He had no choice.

Brad Matthews didn’t look like a murderer or even a man who would carry a weapon. His suit was Armani…his shoes Ferragamo. But his manner of dress had been more reflex than conscious thought. He’d had only one thing on his mind this morning.

Nothing else mattered anymore.

He no longer cared if he lived or died, but he couldn’t risk his wife…his children.

He wouldn’t risk them.

At 9:05 a.m., just as the Gamekeeper had instructed, Brad walked into the downtown Atlanta Commerce Bank. He strode straight to the private office of the bank’s president, an office where he’d done business many times.

His prey looked up and smiled, welcoming a trusted business associate of his beloved bank, but before he could rise from his leather executive chair, Brad drew the revolver he’d hidden beneath his jacket. He clenched his jaw and fired three shots into the president’s massive chest. The startled look that claimed the man’s face proved oddly calming to Brad.

He’d done it.

Screams and confusion erupted in the lobby beyond the glass wall that stood between him and the rest of those present inside the bank this Monday morning the first week of May…the last morning Brad would ever see.

The two security guards were sprinting in his direction, weapons drawn. Brad shot two more times, taking down one of the guards and sending the other one diving for cover. Then he turned the gun on himself.

Now it would end.

Picturing his wife and children one last time, he fired the final round.

This was one of those necessary little annoyances in life a woman could definitely do without, Elaine Jentzen thought glumly. And on such a perfectly beautiful day. She’d fallen in love with the day the moment she stepped out into the early-morning sunshine. The air was fresh and the sky looked bluer than she’d ever seen it before. The sun glittered like a sparkling Georgia peach climbing its way into the cloudless blanket of pure blue. The smell of spring was everywhere. But she’d had to leave her small, neat, Dunwoody home to drive across Atlanta to be here at nine sharp.

She supposed it could be worse, though; she could be having her period and stuck on an after-hours stakeout with her partner, Hank Henshaw. Her nose crinkled instantly as her mind conjured up the odor of stale cigars and cheap aftershave.

No, she decided as she flipped through a fairly recent issue of Working Woman, this was even worse than an after-hours stakeout.

Elaine sat in a stiff, upholstered chair in front of her gynecologist’s cluttered desk. She waited, her patience wearing thin, for him to come in and go over his findings with her. She never understood the need for this particular part since the results of the Pap test wouldn’t be back for days. What could he tell her? That she looked tired? Overworked? She already knew those things. She worked fourteen-hour shifts most days, even the occasional Sunday. She’d accrued enough leave time to take the whole summer off, but she couldn’t…or wouldn’t, of course. Her job always came first.

If she were at work now she wouldn’t have time to reflect on things she’d just as soon not think about. She sighed and tossed the magazine aside. She hated these appointments. That was the reason she’d waited over two years to come in for her annual exam.

One would think she’d committed a crime of the worst order. Not only had the receptionist who’d made today’s appointment tsked when she saw on the computer screen that Elaine hadn’t bothered to come in at all last year, the nurse had also firmly counseled Elaine as she led her to the exam room this morning. The you-know-better-than-that lecture had continued as Elaine stepped into the tiny dressing room and removed her clothing.

She was the deputy chief of detectives for the Atlanta Police Department, Homicide Division, for Pete’s sake. She wasn’t supposed to cow so easily to a gray-haired, rosy-cheeked nurse who looked old enough to be her grandmother. But there was something oddly intimidating about having to take her clothes off under orders from a woman who would have made the staunchest instructor at the police academy proud.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, then there was the humiliating experience of greeting the doctor while wearing a paper gown that opened down the front. Of course, Dr. Bramm could always be counted on for bedside humor, especially the kind that involved police work, like, “Captured your quota of bad guys already this week?”

Elaine had laughed, as expected, and gone on to answer his barrage of health questions in the most normal tone possible, considering her body was being plundered with cold, clinical objectivity.

She’d explained about the acute cramping and the increased nausea, which were the actual reasons she’d even bothered to come in. She was twenty-nine, the youngest detective, male or female, ever to make deputy chief. She didn’t have time to be sick—or to be at this appointment. But she’d said nothing of the sort to the good doctor. Any negative comment on her part would only serve as a catalyst to start him on a tirade about how people took better care of their cars than themselves. She vaguely remembered hearing that one, the last time she was here.

She’d thought at first that her ulcer might somehow be causing the new problems and had said as much to the doctor. Lord knew it was already the bane of her existence. To her way of thinking she should own stock in the Tums and Maalox companies by now. But Dr. Bramm had informed her pretty quickly that her current symptoms might not be related to her ulcer at all. Then he’d felt compelled to repeat the lecture she’d already heard from the militant nurse who stood by, smiling and nodding in punctuation of his every word.

A lengthy exam and ultrasound later, Elaine waited in the doctor’s office for his closing comments. He would lecture her some more, she presumed with a fair measure of certainty. She’d decided that, when he drew out the exam and insisted on the ultrasound. She couldn’t ever remember one of these visits taking so long or being so complicated and uncomfortable.

Let him have at it with the lecturing. She’d take it, feign humbleness and swear on her life that she would never miss another annual exam. And everyone would be happy again.

When Dr. Bramm at last entered the office and sat down behind his massive mahogany desk, rather than feeling relieved as she’d fully expected, Elaine went on instant alert. Between his rigid posture and the solemn expression on his face, the news couldn’t be good. If it was, the man needed to seriously rethink his bedside demeanor.

She resisted the urge to jump to conclusions. She absolutely would not even think about the “c” word. Other than the blasted ulcer she was young and healthy, surely it couldn’t be that bad.

He opened her chart and stared at it for one somber moment before looking up at her over the rim of his bifocals. “Elaine, are you familiar with the term endometriosis?”

A tiny burst of fear flared inside her. “I don’t think so,” she said slowly, searching her memory for recognition. She found none.