Murder Is Our Mascot
Schooled in Murder Book 1
Tracy D. Comstock
Tracy D. Comstock
Cozy
Mystery/Light Romantic Suspense
Gemma
Halliday Publishing/65k
Murder is the new mascot at
Ellington High...A murdered coach and a missing counselor has thrown the school into a foreign curriculum of anger, fear, and suspicion. English teacher Emily Taylor is determined to prove that her missing friend is not a murderer. But if she's not, then who is? And where could her friend be? Against the advice of fellow math teacher and former crush Tad, Emily and her best friend Gabby dig into the dead coach's past. But someone doesn't want Emily unearthing their secrets and is determined to see that she gets a failing grade in the sleuthing department. Soon, Emily finds herself scrambling for a new lesson plan to solve the murder...before the killer sets his own deadline!
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Excerpt:
The clack of Emily Taylor's high
heels echoed hollowly in the deserted high school hallway. Normally, she loved
the sound her heels made on the tile floor. Her obsession with high heels began
when her height topped off at a gargantuan five foot one inch, and their
authoritative tapping sound typically made her feel confident and in charge.
But not this morning. The click-clack reverberating off the rows of metal
lockers seemed ominous, a warning of some kind.
Letting herself into her classroom,
she decided that the school seemed somewhat sinister because she was unused to
being there that early. Her great love affair with her snooze button meant that
getting to school before it was filled with a mass of hormone-fueled teenagers
was a rarity for her, but she had needed to get in early today in order to prep
for a special before-school meeting with a student's mother. Stevie Davis was
new to Ellington High and was really struggling in Emily's junior-level English
class.
Something about Stevie tugged at
Emily. He usually hid his eyes behind his fringe of bangs, causing Emily to
fight the urge to grab her scissors and hack away at his curtain of hair so that
she could see what was going on behind it. The few times he had tossed his hair
back with the irritated shrug that was his typical answer to any question, his
eyes had seemed sad, lost, or…something. Emily wasn't sure what that something
was, but she was hoping that this meeting with his mother would shed some light
on his issues.
Her cantankerous old computer whined
to life as Emily flipped on her desk light. Dark, swollen clouds crowded the
sky, swallowing her early morning classroom in shadows. Emily felt jumpy and
spooked, as if those dark clouds were pressing down on her, enshrouding her in
their gloom. Must be an allergy medicine-induced hangover making her feel
strange this morning. Nothing like fall to get her sinuses going. As soon as
she got her notes together for her meeting, she'd grab a cold shot of caffeine
from the stash of sodas she kept in the teachers' lounge fridge. That would
help clear her head. Or at least it would if Tad, the conference-hour-sharing,
next-door math teacher and fellow soda junkie, hadn't depleted her supply.
As she pulled out samples of
Stevie's writing and wrestled her computer into spitting out a copy of his
grade report, the lights flickered. Glancing out the back wall of windows,
Emily watched the increasing wind whip the trees into a frenzy. Multicolored
fall leaves rained down like confetti. She usually loved the electric feel in
the air before a good thunderstorm, but a loss of power would ruin her day's
plans. Figuring she better make her copies before the ancient, temperamental
copy machine went on the fritz, she began sorting through the piles on her desk
for the paper she needed. They were organized piles, of course. Oh, who was she
kidding? Trying to find the one thing she needed on her messy desk was like trying
to isolate a single snowflake during a blizzard. Shuffling papers and files,
Emily jumped at the first boom of thunder. The accompanying flash of lightning
happened to spotlight the copy of the quiz for which she was searching. Hoping
to entice Stevie into becoming more involved in class discussions, she was
starting a unit on mythology since he had shown some interest in legends.
Today's quiz was over the gods and goddesses of Mount Olympus, or it would be
if she got her copies made in time.
Tucking all of her information for
the meeting with Stevie's mother into a stray file folder, Emily grabbed up a
fresh legal pad and pen and headed out the door. Halfway there, she turned on
her heel to go back for the quiz she needed to copy. Yep, she definitely needed
that soda. A glance at her vintage Strawberry Shortcake watch showed she was,
as usual, cutting it close on time. But first things first.
Popping the top on the last soda in
the fridge, Emily silently thanked whoever was the God of caffeine for their
nectar as she took her first icy sip of the sugar-laden soda. No diet drinks
for her, no sir, as the extra ten pounds on her hips could attest. Tad had
tried to hide the last can behind a pitcher of green tea, knowing Emily would
never touch that, even if it might benefit her hips. She, however, was on to
his nefarious ways. Practicing her evil victory laugh, she click-clacked her
way to the copy room to get her copies started before the meeting. Another
crashing boom of thunder rattled the windows as Emily threw the door wide,
propping it open with those cursed hips while she flipped the light switch.
Nothing. Scanning the hallway confirmed her suspicions. The power was out. She
took a step backward, thinking she would head downstairs to consult with Principal
Matthews. Rain began to lash the windows over the stairwell, making the
darkness of the hall seem even more complete. She fumbled her way a few feet
down the hallway until the lights flickered back on again. Not wanting to waste
a second in case the power decided to blink off again, Emily dashed back to the
partially open copy room door. Hitting the light switch again with one hand,
she rushed toward the hulking machine on the far wall. That was when papers
went flying and sticky, syrupy soda sprayed everything in its path. Emily went
airborne. Throwing her hands out in front of her to break her fall, Emily
winced as they skidded through sticky wetness. The picture of grace she was
not, so finding herself flat on her face was actually not uncommon for Emily.
She could trip on a completely flat surface. The lights flickered again as she
clambered to her feet, worrying about getting the sticky mess cleaned up before
someone else slipped. Glancing down at her hands, she was busy cursing her lost
lifeline, her last caffeine hit, when she realized that the sticky substance
covering her hands was not soda. It was something thicker, and redder. Finally
looking back to see what she had tripped over, Emily saw what appeared to be a
head protruding from behind an office chair. Taking a cautious step closer, she
could see that the head was surrounded by what looked like a puddle of
congealing blood and was, thankfully, attached to a body. Unfortunately, it
appeared to be a dead body. And
that's when Emily began to scream and scream.
About the
Author:
Tracy Comstock is a small-town girl
from Missouri. She lives in a home where she is outnumbered 3:1 by the males in
her life: her husband and their two extremely adorable, but terrifyingly ornery
sons. She has no pets as all living things, besides humans, of course, come to
her house to die, including the victims in her books. All her life Tracy
devoured books. Her parents' most effective punishment was grounding her from
reading. Although she has a B.S. in Education and a Masters in Literature, she
was nudged down the path to publication by encouraging (and sometimes
threatening!) family, friends, professors, and students. When not working on
Emily's adventures, Tracy is an adjunct instructor for several local colleges,
where she gets to teach others about her greatest passion: writing.
Giveaway: $20 Amazon Gift Card
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