BOOK THREE: Third Strike

Death always came when you least expected it. Unless you lived in Pelican Bay. Then you just always expected it.

Broadrick drove on Main Street and turned toward the high school as we made our way to my sister's boyfriend's high school baseball game. It was early in the season and their relationship, but she kept calling this guy the one. I had to check him out for myself. It was the big sister thing to do.

Broadrick clutched the steering wheel of Rachel, my car, as we chatted on the quick trip. Somehow Broadrick-the boyfriend I'd just accepted was actually a boyfriend-became the lead driver even though it was my car. "Vonnie, no one is going to die."

"You haven't lived here long enough, B," I argued. He wanted to take a vacation to Florida, but I couldn't leave Pelican Bay. What if someone croaked?

Who would solve the case? Ridge Jefferson, the tough as nails former SEAL who semi-employed Broadrick? Sure, he could, but where's the fun in that? He didn't have my pizazz.

Maybe we'd leave it up to the town's police. Detective Anderson was just named interim chief, and he had a lot on his plate. He didn't need another murder case falling in his lap. I'd be doing him a favor by solving it.

And don't even get me started on the "around whenever it's convenient" bounty hunter, Tony. He had enough fun chasing down criminals. Tony didn't need another adventure. He didn't even keep a scrapbook of his jobs-even the enormous ones.

We only had me to rely on.

A cop car with screaming sirens blasted past us. See? There was always trouble in this town. "What the hell?" I asked.

"I'm not chasing him," Broadrick said, and I rolled my eyes while watching the car speed away.

He didn't realize I didn't have to follow the cops. I'd find out whatever happened through a Facebook update in only a few minutes. Gossip spread quickly thanks to the internet.

"Are they going to have popcorn at this baseball game?" he asked, probably to change the topic, but it wouldn't work.

"Yes, but I'd be careful. Kids cook everything. They use the concession sales to fund the band. Eat nothing that has to be cooked." In high school, I'd once ordered a cheeseburger. Took me two bites to reach the frozen middle. I spent the next five days thinking I'd eventually die from eating raw meat.

"Noted," he said and slowed as a county cop car come in from out of town and turned into the high school parking lot. No lights.

We followed it because that was also our final destination. "Do you think something happened at the baseball game?" I asked, but I knew the answer. You didn't turn on the sirens for nothing.

"I hope everyone is okay," Broadrick said as he found a parking spot against a backdrop of flashing lights.

A blonde who resembled me with matching green eyes ran to the car. She hit the window on Broadrick's side, but I got out before he lowered it.

"Vivi, what's wrong?" I asked my seventeen-year-old sister as she rounded the car to reach me. We looked alike in features, but nothing matched in attitude.

"They found Coach Torres in the dugout before the game," she said with her gaze flicking from me to Broadrick.

"Okay and..." he asked. Like I said, he hadn't lived in Pelican Bay long enough.

"He's dead," I answered.

Broadrick loomed over us with his back to the field. "Vonnie, you don't know that for sure."

I sniffed the air. "It smells like murder."

"Vonnie," my sister said, grabbing on to my shoulder and spinning me toward her. "This is serious. Mr. Torres really is dead."

"I know." Didn't she hear me when I said it smelled like murder? A school coach was dead, and foul play was definitely involved.

They didn't bring this many cop cars to the scene of a heart attack. Also, they were missing an important part of the equation.

An ambulance.

The only way Coach Torres left that dugout was in a body bag.

If I wanted to get any decent clues, we had to get in there before they closed off the scene. "Let's go," I said and pulled Vivi toward the dugouts.

She resisted, but I had more muscle. I always told her she couldn't get by on just book smarts alone, and look who was right.

"I'm going to go talk to the officer and see what's up," Broadrick said, putting his phone to his ear. Probably to call his boss Ridge and fill him in on the details. Ridge loved a dead body almost as much as me.

Vivi and I made it to the edge of the baseball field and pushed our way through the crowd. My feet hit the dirt, and my shoes left tracks in the field's sand as we walked closer.

"I can't do it," Vivi said as she stopped walking. "You should have seen Allen's face when he told me. He's never looked so scared."

I turned back to her. "Your boyfriend actually saw the coach?"

She nodded. "They were meeting early to go over his swing."

I raised an eyebrow at her. "Maybe someone practiced their swing on the coach." That would lead a body to have a memorable appearance. Definitely not a heart attack.

Vivi stepped away from me with her hands out. "I can't go there, Vonnie. I can't do it!" She stomped her foot and shook her shoulders, her words bordering on hysterical. See? Not alike at all.

"Okay, okay. Stay here." I patted her on the shoulder and left her a few feet from the crowd. People said Vivi, and I were similar, but she had no chill. Our bodies may have had matching appearances with the blonde hair and green eyes, but our brains were complete opposites.

I left her and made it another five feet before my arch nemesis barreled his way from the dugout with his hands out in my direction. "I don't think so, Vines. Get behind the police tape."

"Come on, Bradley. Don't be that way," I said to the uniformed officer who liked to make my life difficult. He had shorter brown hair with matching eyes and a tall, formidable stance.

He kept up his charge. "Get behind the police tape before someone arrests you."

Wow, he was in a mood today. I pointed behind me at the crowd, who were standing together a short distance away on their own cognition. "There is no tape, Bradley."

His face turned red, and he swiped back his dark brown hair. "Someone get some tape out here!"

He was a relatively new hire on the small-town police force and apparently thought he had to make something of himself. It had also recently come to light that he had a girlfriend in the FBI. She'd be a handy acquaintance to have if Bradley wasn't such a stick in the mud. No matter how often I asked, he never gave me her phone number.

My shoe kicked up dust from the field as I walked backward since it looked like Bradley might pick me up and carry me to the crowd. He was feistier than normal. Someone must have told him I tried to FOIA his girlfriend's name.

Detective Anderson, or I should say practicing chief, cut through the swarm of people and made his way to us. Even as chief, he still wore his signature tan trench coat and had his badge swinging from a chain on his neck. The cops in this town really had a type they played into.

"It's about time you showed up," I said to Anderson as he walked by us.