Hello, friends! I’m C.S. Poe, author of gay mystery-romances like Southernmost Murder, contemporary romances such as Color of You, and the occasional paranormal, like 11:59. Welcome back to my ongoing, Choose Your Own Adventure story, The Murder Collection! If you’re new to this free read, check out previous entries here.

We are now on Pt. 9, and last left Dean Stewart in quite the predicament with a mysterious box outside his apartment.

Readers chose to get him in further trouble with the option:

Dean takes the box inside.

 

Blurb: Dean Stewart recently graduated from a prestigious art college in New York City. Riding the high of a major success that has put him in the spotlight of the art community, there’s tremendous pressure for Dean to unveil his next collection. The only problem is, he doesn’t have one. In fact, Dean hasn’t felt any inspiration in months, and the funds from his first major sale aren’t going to pay for his apartment and work studio forever.
Just when Dean can’t afford a single distraction, he gets noticed by homicide detective Jiro Watanabe, and not in a good way. Without warning, Dean is thrust into a world of mystery and murder, when all he wants is for Jiro to ask him out on a date that doesn’t involve the police station.
The art world just got a whole lot more cutthroat.

–

With my phone wedged between my ear and shoulder, I reached out with both hands and picked up the box. It was heavy for the relatively small size. Ten pounds, maybe. I slithered back into my apartment and quickly slammed the door shut with my shoulder. My hands were shaking so badly that I dropped the bang, bang, bang box in my haste to turn and secure the locks.

“Stewart,” Watanabe was saying over the line. “Are you there?”

“What?” I put the chain back in place and nodded, not like he could see the action or anything. “Yes. Sorry. There was uh—a box.”

“What do you mean, a box?” he repeated.

“Outside my door.” I crouched beside it and added with further clarification, “In the hallway. I brought it inside. It says, bang on the sides—”

“You touched—” His voice became muffled, like he turned his head away to swear my name seven ways to Sunday. “Don’t touch it!”

“I already did!”

“Further. Don’t touch it further! Christ. I’m on my way.” The call ended abruptly.

My phone slid to the floor with a loud thunk and my fingers twitched as I picked up the tag to read it once again.

The Boy With Nails For Eyes.

What the ever-loving fuck did that mean?

I picked up the package, warily brought it closer, and listened. No tick-tock of a bomb. Did homemade bombs even do that? I gave it a gentle shake. Whatever was inside sounded sturdy, but lots of little pieces. Like… it almost sounded like a box of rocks. Frustrated, I set it down, and glared hard.

There was no return address. In fact, there was no indication of any sort that the box was even for me! I mean, sure, I could come to that conclusion based on it being left outside my door, but otherwise? I wasn’t expecting anything in the mail. And if it wasn’t from the postal service at nine at night, then it must have been from someone with access to the apartment building—another resident, perhaps.

But to be perfectly honest, I wasn’t an overly friendly neighbor. I didn’t know the names of 12E or 12G on either side of me. I was the sort that would pretend to be busy with the contents of my bag or feign forgetting something in my apartment so I wouldn’t have to make small talk with my fellow twelfth floor residents in the elevator. Based on my awkwardness, that at times came off as standoffish behavior, it seemed very unlikely any of them would go out of their way to gift me with something. Hell, even if the box had been misdelivered to them by an outside source, I didn’t expect them to carry it down the hall to me. No one but the doorman, Fred, would bother.

Fred.

I shook my head, let out a held breath, and laughed shakily at my own stupidity. Now it made sense. Someone had left the delivery with him and he’d come upstairs to drop it off. And Fred was a decent guy, no way he’d accept a package from a character like Doc Houdini.

Which meant whatever was in this… was harmless. Right? Sure. There was no reason for me to have freaked out and called Detective Watanabe. Because now he was on his way here, only to waste his time and energy and probably get more peeved at me than he already was…. I needed to confirm the package was totally innocent, call him back, and tell him lol, jk, sorry.

I tore the tape off the top and folded the flaps back. Inside was exactly what I’d suspected.

Rocks.

Just a bunch of rocks.

I scrunched my face up in confusion, tilted the box, and dropped the contents onto the wood floor. The small stones scattered, and a handful of nails fell out alongside them. Stuck inside on the bottom was an ordinary yellow Post-It note. I tugged it free.

In the same handwriting as the tag on the outside, it read, The Bad Boy who saw too much had his eyeballs nailed shut.

There was another loud, terrifying knock at the door.

 

CHOOSE DEAN’S NEXT ACTION:

1. Dean opens the door.
2. Dean hides.

–

The Mystery of the Bones (Snow & Winter Book Four)

Official blurb and release date to be announced. Add to your Goodreads shelf today!

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C.S. Poe is a Lambda Literary and EPIC award finalist author of gay mystery, romance, and paranormal books.

She is a reluctant mover and has called many places home in her lifetime. C.S. has lived in New York City, Key West, and Ibaraki, Japan, to name a few. She misses the cleanliness, convenience, and limited-edition gachapon of Japan, but she was never very good at riding bikes to get around.

She has an affinity for all things cute and colorful and a major weakness for toys. C.S. is an avid fan of coffee, reading, and cats. She’s rescued two cats—Milo and Kasper do their best on a daily basis to sidetrack her from work.

C.S. is a member of the International Thriller Writers organization.

Her debut novel, The Mystery of Nevermore, was published by DSP Publications, 2016.

 

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