Wren Winters is thrilled when her gaming group is invited to join the town’s new superstar streamer Noelle Williams for a live demo—after all, a little publicity could put Wren’s board game shop, the Cardboard Sheep, on the map. But moments before they go live, Noelle collapses on camera, and by the time Wren arrives at her house, Noelle is dead and the police are swarming.
Detective Greene, who still remembers last summer’s murder at Wren’s shop, is back with questions—and suspicions. As Wren and her friends reel from the shock, secrets about Noelle’s life emerge: relentless online harassment, jealous exes, and a sister desperate to pull her offline. Then another member of the group falls ill with similar symptoms.
With danger closing in and a game board full of suspects, Wren refuses to sit on the sidelines. She’s determined to solve the puzzle before her friend’s game is over for good.
Chapter One
“Are you sure we’re not lost?” Charlie Reynolds moaned from the backseat. Looking out the car window, they removed their earbuds and shook their head. “Didn’t we pass this same spot a few minutes ago?”
Wren Winters laughed as she eyed Charlie in the rearview mirror. She braked at a stop sign and searched for the road names posted at the intersection. Though she’d lived in Hollow’s Way since her college days, she wasn’t very familiar with this particular neighborhood, which was tucked out of the way along the hillside far beyond the college campus. “Don’t look at me. I’m just the driver.” Easing through the intersection, she veered toward the edge of the road and parked along the street, waiting for further instructions.
“Oh fearless navigator, are you awake? Esther?” Jo Martin called from the passenger seat, twisting around to address the others. Instead of her normal nursing scrubs, this morning she rocked a burgundy button-down cardigan and gold hoop earrings that complemented her olive complexion.
Esther Chambers stared out the window, her eyes glassy and far away. She seemed to barely notice that the car had come to a stop.
Charlie gently nudged her with their knee, and Esther startled, jolting to attention.
“I wasn’t asleep,” Esther insisted, her face reddening. “I was merely . . .” She paused, straightening her mussed pink hair. “Meditating.”
“Of course.” Jo turned back in her seat with a smirk. “Well, could you meditate on where we are and if we’re going in the right direction?”
“What’s Noelle’s address?” Wren asked, turning off the radio so she could hear better.
“And tell us again how you know Noelle,” Charlie added, tapping idly on the car door. “You must know her better than just following her on social media if we’re invited to be on her show.”
Esther’s friend, Noelle Williams, was an up-and-coming livestreamer who regularly recorded sessions of role-playing games on her Twitch channel, Need to Watch Games. She had reached out to Esther to see if she wanted to play through a new indie RPG called Among the Singing Stones. Ever up for a game—and attention—Esther had jumped at the opportunity and invited the others to join, thinking it would be a good chance to catch up with her old friend, and great PR for Wren’s board game store, the Cardboard Sheep.
Esther fumbled for her phone in her oversized purse, dumping out a notebook, several receipts, and her keys onto her lap. She pulled up the text thread from Noelle, searching for the address she had sent her. “We went to grad school together years ago and were in a lot of the same library science classes. Noelle was interested in audio archival practices, and we instantly bonded over our mutual hatred of Edison, despite our professor’s obsession with him.”
“The light bulb guy?” Jo asked, scrunching up her face.
“The torturer of animals,” Esther huffed. “Do you know what he did to an elephant once?”
Wren winced, having heard Esther’s rendition of the sordid, albeit historically accurate, tale before. “What am I looking for?” she asked, hoping Esther might focus back on the matter at hand.
“Twenty Brookside Terrace is the address.” Esther pulled up the map app and looked out the window, scanning for street signs.
“Have you stayed in touch with Noelle since grad school?” Jo asked, shifting the conversation away from Edison. She winked at Wren, who mouthed a thank you as she waited for further instructions.
Esther shrugged, her attention still focused on her phone. “We graduated and mostly stayed in touch through the occasional email or DMing each other a quirky link to this or that like—”
“Pebbling,” Charlie interrupted.
Jo turned to look at them, confusion wrinkling her brow, unfamiliar with the term.
“You know, like penguins,” Esther said, unphased by Charlie’s terminology. “I didn’t even realize she had started livestreaming games until last year when I came across a video of her talking about playing Goblinqueen.”
Goblinqueen was a popular indie RPG Wren frequently had to reorder, selling out of it nearly every month. Players took on the roles of rulers of different goblin tribes, collaborating on how best to protect their members from increasing threats, like murder-hobo adventuring parties and ecological pollution from a nearby wizard’s magical experiments gone wrong. One teen group held a regular game in the shop, meeting once a week to play. Wren always knew it was Goblinqueen time when she’d spy five girls in the back room, wearing homemade crowns fashioned from pipe cleaners, construction paper, or even once, an embroidery hoop.
“Did you play together when you were in grad school?” Jo asked.
“Oh, definitely. We rolled up more characters than we rolled library carts,” Esther joked, still looking at her phone. “But I hadn’t thought she’d make a career out of it.”
“Few did back then,” Charlie commented, as if eons had passed instead of only a decade. The rise of livestreamers playing games and earning a living off of it had certainly boomed in the past few years with YouTubers and Twitch streamers vying for followers of their content.
“About two more blocks and then a sharp right onto Willow. That will take you to Brookside,” Esther instructed and sagged back in her seat, shoulders slumped.
“Can do,” Wren said, studying Esther in the rearview mirror. Something was off, more than just the faraway looks and tired eyes. “You okay, though?”
The neighborhood was surprisingly quiet for a Saturday morning. Down the block, an older man in a navy fleece with a fluffy white dog crossed the street. The dog yapped, leaping ahead on its lead, as its owner tried to keep up. With no traffic nearby, Wren pulled the car back onto the road.
“I haven’t been sleeping well lately.” Esther ran her fingers through her pink-streaked hair and rubbed at her eye, careful to avoid smearing her pink eye shadow. “There’s something I need to tell you before we get to Noelle’s.”
Wren glanced over at Jo in the passenger seat, the two sharing a concerned look.
“Everything okay?” Wren asked again, slowing down the car, trying to elongate their journey in any way possible. If need be, she’d circle around the block or park the car at a store to give Esther more time.
“Not really . . .” Esther hesitated. Jo turned around and gently patted Esther’s knee, encouragingly. “I’m fine. It’s Noelle I’m worried about.”
Charlie clicked off their phone and stretched their long legs as far as they could in the cramped backseat. “Anything we can do to help?”
Esther smiled weakly and sighed. “Well, that’s just it. To be honest, Noelle didn’t just contact me to have us come on her gaming livestream.” She bit her lip, smearing her bright lipstick, and straightened her skirt absent-mindedly.
Jo and Wren exchanged glances again as Wren pulled the car over into a gas station. A couple came out of the convenience store with cups of coffee, and Wren realized she did not have enough caffeine this morning to deal with whatever this was going to be.
“Then why did she contact you?” She looped a strand of dark hair from her face and turned sideways in her seat to face Esther, whose shoulders were hunched as if carrying the heavy weight of her worries.
“Well, she does want us to play together. But, she . . .” Esther sighed and hugged her purse close to her chest. “She wanted my help because she thinks someone is stalking her.”
“What?” Charlie blurted out, their eyes wide.
“Is she safe?” Wren asked, trying to understand. She looked at Jo, whose normal calm demeanor seemed rattled by the news.
“Are we?” Jo asked, a crease dividing her forehead. “How could you keep this from us?” Jo sat back against the passenger door, her arms folded over her chest. “This might be very dangerous.”
Esther blanched and chewed her lower lip more. “I didn’t think about it that way. I just wanted us to help her however we could.” She reached out a hand toward Jo, her blue nail polish chipped and cracked as if she had been nervously picking at her fingers.
Jo looked at Wren, who smiled sympathetically, before relenting. Esther squeezed her hand, her eyes turned up in a heartfelt apology.
“But why didn’t you at least mention this before now?” Jo asked, apparently still upset that Esther had kept them all in the dark. “How can we help if we don’t know what’s going on? You shouldn’t just spring this on us, you know?” Jo’s tone was harsh and authoritative, but Wren caught a hint of fear behind her annoyance.
Esther released her hand, a sheepish look crossing her face. “Noelle asked me not to mention it. She isn’t sure what to do.” She plucked a black cat hair from the seat cushion of the car, undoubtedly a stray bit of Pip, Wren’s beloved fur-baby. “But then I kept thinking about it and knew I had to tell you. Honestly, I think she’s in denial about this whole thing.”
“A coping mechanism,” Jo said, the tension in her shoulders and arms easing.
“Has she tried to get a restraining order?” Charlie asked, ever logical.
“Does she even know who this stalker is?” Wren chimed in. “Like, is it a random person from the internet or someone she actually knows?”
An SUV pulled into the gas station and parked at the pumps. A bearded man in a gray flannel suit started to fill up his tank, stretching his neck as he waited. Wren guessed he had been driving for a while. She knuckled her own aching back and returned her attention to Esther.
“I’m really not sure. She hasn’t wanted to put much in writing.” Esther clicked on the thread of messages from Noelle and scanned them, looking for a specific one. “She just said someone sent her some creepy messages. But she didn’t say if it was online or in person, or if there was more to it than that.”
Esther had always preferred communicating by text or maybe the occasional email. She wasn’t big on long phone calls. If she could, she’d text 911 in an emergency . . . anything to avoid talking on the phone.
“I was hoping she’d open up more in person. And especially once she knew we all understood.” Esther looked up at Jo and Wren and then back to Charlie.
Jo sighed and broke the silence.
“Of course we understand. And we’ll help if we can. But next time, maybe just let us know before we’re about to walk into a potentially dangerous situation? Maybe give us a heads-up before we get added to a stalker’s radar?”
“Or at least time to prepare,” Wren added. “I could have brought a knitting needle, or threaded my keys in my hand like Wolverine, or something.” A sly smile tugged at her lips and she winked at her friends, breaking the tension.
“If she’s having issues online, maybe I could help.” Charlie tapped at their phone and began searching for something in the app store. “There’s a few new apps that could help keep her passwords safer and alert her when her accounts are being accessed on unfamiliar devices.”
As usual, Wren was impressed with Charlie’s tech savvy. She knew how to set up a two-step verification on her online banking, but hadn’t really gone too much further than that when it came to cybersecurity. “Can you show all of us how to do that?”
“Yes, sign me up for the advanced online safety lessons, too, please.” Jo raised her hand, a reluctant smirk spreading across her face.
“I’m not sure what has happened,” Esther confessed. “Whether it’s cyberstalking or in person. All Noelle said was that she no longer felt safe and needed to talk. She didn’t feel comfortable giving me more details online. And I get the sense she’s uncomfortable going out in person much. I told her we could play at the store, but she felt more comfortable staying at home.”
“Then we better get there,” Wren said, turning around in her seat to face the steering wheel once again. “Anyone need anything while we’re here?” She pointed at the convenience store attached to the gas station. “Or I could reroute us back to Outrageous! for something fancier? Why didn’t we plan ahead and stop there first?” The Outrageous! Bakery was the group’s go-to spot for delicious treats.
“No can do. Anne is closed today to prepare for a wedding,” Charlie announced. “She told me when I went to pick up the café’s usual order earlier this week.”
Wren’s mouth salivated at the thought of an Outrageous! wedding cake. Anne’s creations were always decadent and extravagant. A fall-themed cake full of autumnal spices would be extra-delicious.
Esther and Charlie decided to go inside to buy refreshments to bring to Noelle’s. While she waited, Wren filled up the gas tank so she wouldn’t have to stop on the way home.
“Do you think it’ll be all right?” Wren asked Jo through the passenger window as she waited for the gas to pump.
“Noelle, you mean?” Jo was distracted, checking her phone messages in case there was an emergency at the hospital.
Wren nodded and twisted close the gas cap on the car with a click.
“Hard to say.” Jo slipped her phone back into her bag. “We don’t really know anything yet. This could play out in a lot of different ways.”
“I know. That’s what worries me.” Wren climbed back in the car and anxiously waited for the others, tugging at her wedding ring. A few minutes later, they emerged from the store carrying bags of gummy candy and a twelve-pack of seltzer. Charlie handed Wren Styrofoam cups of hot coffee with a nod. “Not exactly Flavor Text Café quality, but I thought some caffeine might be called for.”
Wren laughed and thanked them for the sweet gesture. The coffee was definitely not as good as the robust brew that Charlie made at the new café at the Cardboard Sheep, but with the mention of a possible stalker lurking, any caffeine would do.
Author Bio:
Shelly Jones is a professor by trade and a nerd by design. Woefully introverted, their pockets are full of post-it notes and their head is full of (unsaid) witty come-backs and un-won arguments from years past. When they aren’t grading papers or writing new cozy mysteries, Shelly can often be found hiking in the woods or playing a board game while their cats look on.
