Free Criminal Crumbs by Jessica Beck

having the time of my life.
    Grace came back a minute later, and I was glad for her presence. “Thinking about Jake?” she asked me as she joined me by the fire.
    “As a matter of fact, I was. How did you know?”
    “It’s not hard. You get this goofy smile on your face whenever you think about him.”
    I laughed softly. “I didn’t realize I was that transparent.”
    “It’s not a bad thing, Suzanne.” She yawned once, and then she asked, “Would you like some company?”
    “Go to bed, Grace. I’ll see you in the morning.”
    “Good night,” she said, and soon enough, I heard her soft snores, blending in with the others as though they were members of some slumbering choir.

    I pulled one of the overstuffed chairs closer to the fire and found a place where I could watch both the flames and everyone else while I was at it. I knew that most children looked like little angels when they slept, but I wasn’t sure I could say that about this crew. That might have been more from the weird flickering shadows the firelight threw out or the ages of my group, but none of them looked particularly innocent at the moment, even Grace. They weren’t even all that peaceful, either, if their expressions were any indication. Most of them appeared to be battling their own personal demons, and I was glad that I couldn’t see into any of their dreams.
    No matter how I considered it, I knew that I was in for a long night.

Chapter 11
    W hen the sun finally came up, it seemed brighter than it should have been to me. Had my eyes been that sensitized to the lack of light? Puzzled, I stood, stretched, and then I moved over to one of the windows. Peering outside, I suddenly realized why we were being bathed in so much light.
    Sometime when the rest of the world had been sleeping, we’d been visited by a silent snowstorm.
    From the look of things outside, we had a new problem to contend with, as if having a killer among us wasn’t enough.

    “Is that really snow?” Celia asked me over my shoulder. “Seriously?”
    “It looks serious enough to me,” I said softly. “We need to keep it down. The rest of them are all sleeping.” I glanced over at Grace and saw that she was awake, but she clearly didn’t want Nicole’s sister to know that.
    “I’m hungry,” she said plaintively.
    “Then why don’t we go in the kitchen and see about getting us all something to eat?” It was the perfect opportunity to get her alone. I still had a hard time believing that Celia would try to kill her sister, but what did I know?
    “Fine by me,” she said.
    I headed off for the connecting door between the dining room and the kitchen, with Celia just behind me. Grace frowned at me, looked at Celia, and then at Nicole. I shrugged, because what else could I do? My plan the night before for all of us to stay together was not going to be tenable today. Bathroom breaks alone would be a nightmare, but I stood by my buddy-system idea. If the whole crew knew which teams were coupled, then if Nicole ended up dead, we’d be able to pinpoint the killer, barring the off chance that two of them were trying to get rid of her and were conspiring to commit the murder together. Frankly, I didn’t think that was possible, given the level of disharmony they were all showing. In my mind, there was no way that any of them was that good at acting.

    Celia and I went from the dining room into the kitchen, and the first thing I did was check the stovetop. If it was electric, we were going to be eating cold food until someone was able to dig us out of there. I was relieved to find that the stovetop was hooked up to propane, though, because I got an instant blue flame when I turned it on. Finally, at least something was going our way.
    “What are we having?” Celia asked me.
    “If you can wait, how about some donuts?”
    “Do you know how to make them?” she asked me.
    “I guess you haven’t heard. That’s what I do for a living.”
    “Seriously?” she asked