Free Weapons of Mass Distraction by Camilla Chafer

stomach was trying to eat itself.
    “Cafe?” I asked Lily when she arrived at the station, clad in cute gray capris and a pristine white, form-fitted top. Headphones slung around her neck completed the look. She might not have worked out today, but her shapely arms and hourglass shape proved she’d been regularly paying her dues.
    “Treadmill.”
    “Cafe,” I said again, barely holding back a whimper. “If I don’t eat soon, I’m going to bite the head off the next person who asks me to wipe ‘em down with a towel.”
    Lily wrinkled her nose. “Yuck. Someone asked you to do that?”
    “Three people. Why? For the love of anybody’s deity, Lily, why would anyone ask me to do that?”
    “Maybe they can’t reach? Did you have to touch anything nasty?”
    “No, but I accidentally whipped one guy across the butt with his towel, and he left me his phone number.”
    “Shame you’re taken. Was he cute?”
    “If you find age seventy cute. I have a newfound respect for fitness instructors. Plus, can you hear that?”
    Lily cocked her head to one side. After a moment, she shook it. “No. What?”
    “Huffing. Wheezing. Air con. More huffing. Oh God, the huffing never ends,” I wailed.
    “I think we better get you a protein shake.” Lily grabbed me by the elbow and steered me towards the doors. “I’m worried you’re starting to hallucinate.”
    I wasn’t hallucinating but I probably was a little low on blood sugar. From the instructor-shirted side of the biz, I saw the gym in a whole new light. Far from a place to work out, hopping happily onto machines, then staggering off them, lifting a few dumbbells, and taking a few classes, all to keep looking good, now all I could see was sweat dripping onto the machines, a discarded water bottle rolling across the floor, and death at every turn. And someone even had the gall to put my neatly organized dumbbell stack into disarray.
    “You do look pale,” said Lily, pushing me into a chair at the small cafe before handing me a bottle of pale colored liquid. Next to us were two older ladies in pink sweats, who were deep in conversation. Otherwise, the cafe was empty. “Drink this.”
    “I thought I was getting a protein shake. What is it?”
    “Vitamin water.”
    “Ugh… Oh! This actually tastes nice.” I glugged some more of the vitamin water. “I guess I’m pale because I’m just waiting for someone else to die,” I added. It could happen anywhere. Electrical outlet fault. Malfunctioning deathtrap machine. Air duct poisoning. Ugh, I hoped not to catch Legionnaire’s disease.
    “Awesome. Count me in.”
    “What?”
    “I said ‘count me in.’ I only got to see two corpses. I want to find another!”
    I leaned forwards, the cold bottle in my hand as I lowered my voice. “I’m supposed to be figuring out if there’s a killer in here, not enabling another potential murder.”
    Lily leaned in too. She looked from left to right, before meeting my eyes. “I. Want. In.”
    “Ugh.”
    “You can’t be everywhere,” Lily continued. “Plus, I know, like, millions of people here and they all talk to me. I come here way more often than you do.”
    “Maybe you should ask Solomon for a job,” I sniffed. She was right though. Not that there were millions of people, but she came religiously every day, paying homage to every machine and praising her body in the mirror, and it showed. Plus, she did know a lot of the members.
    “I run a bar,” Lily pointed out, missing my sarcasm. “I’m very busy.”
    “But with enough free time to go hunting for another body?”
    “Do you want my help or not, hotshot?”
    “I want your help,” I said grudgingly, taking another sip. It tasted funny, but it was okay. It was… Just at that moment, a light bulb went off in my head. It didn’t taste funny enough not to drink. Karen took a sip of her bottle right before she collapsed. “Poison,” I said. “It’s poison.”
    The women at the table next to us turned around.