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  “Something to do with the victim? Have they identified her?”

  “No. How can they? All that’s left is bits of bone and a jewel stone and that stupid die. Why would he throw a die in my kiln? Kill, I mean.”

  Die. Kill.

  The words hung in the air. Staring at Phyllis, Judith breathed, “Oh, my God.”

  “What?”

  Judith whispered, “Nothing.” She darted a panicked glance around her. Dick and Doug sat two tables away in utter silence, heads bowed, intent on an epic Scrabble contest. Other players, less serious, chatted over their games. But Judith did not see the member she was looking for. The one who gloated. The one who showed off. The one who always wore lots of jewelry, including, Judith seemed to remember, a large oval aquamarine. She hissed at Phyllis, “Where’s Eloise?”

  “Huh.” Phyllis glanced around, mildly curious. “I don’t see her. You’d think she would have been here last week, too, bragging about her trophy.”

  Without even excusing herself, Judith staggered up and ran to look for a phone. The church office was locked, but way down a dark hallway by the boiler room she found a pay phone on the wall.

  “Yeah?” a barking voice answered her at the township police station.

  Yes, the big-nosed detective was there, as she expected. The paper had said the police were working around the clock on this one, and even though the guy was a potato-faced misogynist, Judith could not wait to talk with him, help him out, get herself off the hook.

  Standing in the darkest corner of the church basement, she told him eagerly, “I think I know who the victim was. A woman named Eloise Hamilton.”

  But instead of asking her why she thought this, the detective said in a chilly drawl, “Well, isn’t that interesting. That’s what we think too.”

  “But—but how did you find out?” Too late, Judith realized how bad that sounded.

  “Traced the stone. Jewelers keep records, you know.” The detective’s voice turned frostier yet. “How did you know Eloise Hamilton?”

  His tone made Judith grab at the wall-mounted phone for support, yet she found herself babbling, “I’m—I was—in Scrabble Club with her.”

  “Is that right? I understand she was quite an obnoxious person.”

  “Yes, she was.” Shut up, Judith told herself, almost crying, yet she kept going. She had to make this stupid cop get a clue. Had to. “Look, whoever killed her was a word freak. ‘Kill,’ that’s why he put her in my kiln, because of the pun, don’t you see? And ‘die,’ that thing he put in with her was a die. He couldn’t stand it that she—”

  A heavy hand clamped over her mouth from behind, choking her off. Another hand wrested the phone receiver away from her and hung it up. Judith struggled, clawed at the fingers bruising her face, tried to bite, tried to scream, but already she knew she was dead. He was very strong. Unexpectedly strong, for such a nerd.

  *

  “Good thing we had you under surveillance,” the elephant-eared, potato-nosed detective said.

  In the hospital emergency room being treated for bruises and shock, Judith found it difficult to reply politely, so she did not answer at all.

  He tried again. “Good thing I had two of my best men right there in the church parking lot.”

  Judith said nothing.

  “When they got to you,” said the detective, “he had you in the boiler room, with your face on the concrete and his knee in the middle of your back, and he was tinkering with the gauges.”

  Judith shuddered. That part she didn’t remember. All she remembered was heavy hands choking her, then nothing. Until she found herself being picked up, brushed off, and watching them take Doug away in handcuffs.

  “Are you okay?” the detective asked. “Say something.”

  Judith cleared her throat and tried out her voice. “He killed Eloise,” she said unsteadily.

  “So it is alleged, yes.”

  Judith had a handle on this kettle of fish now. “He kilned her,” she declared, as crisp as bisque, “but he should have never said ‘die.’ He Doug his own grave.”

  Edgar Award–winning author Nancy Springer,

  well known for her science fiction, fantasy, and young adult novels,

  has written a gripping psychological thriller—smart, chilling, and unrelenting…

  DARK LIE

  available in paperback and e-book in November 2012

  from New American Library

  Dorrie and Sam White are not the ordinary Midwestern couple they seem. For plain, hard-working Sam hides a deep passion for his wife. And Dorrie is secretly following the sixteen-year-old daughter, Juliet, she gave up for adoption long ago. Then one day at the mall, Dorrie watches horror-stricken as Juliet is forced into a van that drives away. Instinctively, Dorrie sends her own car speeding after it—an act of reckless courage that puts her on a collision course with a depraved killer…and draws Sam into a desperate search to save his wife. And as mother and daughter unite in a terrifying struggle to survive, Dorrie must confront her own dark, tormented past.

  “A darkly riveting read...compelling.”

  —Wendy Corsi Staub, national bestselling author of Nightwatcher and Sleepwalker

  “A fast-paced, edge-of-your-seat thriller that will have you reading late into the night and cheering for the novel's unlikely but steadfast heroine.”

  —Heather Gudenkauf, New York Times best-selling author of The Weight of Silence and These Things Hidden

  Learn more about all of Nancy’s titles at her website, www.nancyspringer.com.