Smile And Say Murder [On Hold]

C h a p t e r O n e

Blue McMahon sank back into the cushioned seat of the commuter train that travelled between Bloomington and Chicago and pulled a glossy new magazine out of her shoulder bag. The star of the new TV show, Younger, smiled sexily at her from the cover. Above his head, in bold pink letters, was the word FLASH.

Blue opened the magazine and skimmed articles about a sixteen year old ballet star in Atlanta, a fashion show fundraiser at glitzy Hollywood High School, and a college freshman in Nevada who'd discovered a cure for acne. Without a doubt, Blue told herself, Flash magazine is a winner. No wonder kids all over the country were snatching it up the second it was out on the news stands.

Blue had been meaning to pick up a copy for a few weeks, ever since one of her best friends, Amanda Eliot, had started raving about it. At the moment, though, Blue wasn't just trying to pass a boring ride from the suburb into the city. She was doing a research on a new mystery, a mystery that was bound to take her on a flashy adventure.

Urgent - that was how Flash magazine's publisher and co-owner had described the situation to Blue on the phone the other night. And it wasn't slipping sales figures that had Yvonne Verdi worried. Someone has been sending her threatening letters — ugly ones— and she was scared stiff.

Blue closed the magazine and stared out the train window as suburb melted into suburb. It would have been nicer to drive into the city, but she knew finding a parking space would be completely hopeless. If I decide to take the case, she told herself, I'd better get used to being a commuter. I'm going to have to make a trip every morning, and Dad is against the idea of my driving in all that city traffic.

Blue's mother had divorced her father when Blue was just a child. So for most of her eighteen years it had been just her and her father, Scott McMahon, a highly successful lawyer. Blue figured she and her father had to take care of each other. Blue hated to hassle with her father. She figured the best way to avoid that was to leaver her black Mustang at home for the time being.

Blue's thoughts returned to the new case. It made her heart pound with excitement. Even if the letters turned out to be just some creep's idea of a prank, she'd get a chance to see the inner workings of the number one teen magazine. Of course, there was always the chance that the threats were serious.

Either way, Blue felt sure she was prepared. With dozens of difficult and successfully solved mysteries behind her, she'd seen through the most carefully constructed criminal plots, and she was ready to do it all over again.

Blue crossed her slim shapely legs and ran her hand through her black shoulder length hair. Starting a case was like running a cross-country race. You knew that once a gun went off, you had to reach the finish line before the other guy, but weren't sure how you were going to get there. That meant you had to be especially alert and observant, or you'd end up following a lot of dead-end trails

Blue's keen blue eyes gazed resolutely at the sexy face of the star on the Flash cover. "Whatever secrets you're trying to hide," she said to the magazine. "they're not going to stay secret for long!"

As the train pulled into Chicago's main terminal, Blue stood up, straightened her yellow knee length dress, and grabbed her black jacket and shoulder bag from the seat. She hurried outside and found a taxi. Twenty minutes later, she was standing in front of the Flash offices on Michigan Avenue. Here goes, she thought. She took a deep breath and stepped into the building.

Blue waited for the elevator alone. When the doors opened, two casually dressed women walked out.

"Really, Yvonne is pushing me too far," one of the women was saying. "I don't care if she is the co-owner of the magazine. If she makes one more comment to me about 'proper office clothes' I'm going to . . . well, I don't know what, but I'm going to do something."