Page 27 of Secrets Bared
Maggie laughed. “Nice to meet you.”
“And this is Joe.”
A Black man in a polo shirt waved from the other end of the table. “Hello.”
She unzipped her coat and hung it over the back of the chair next to Luke and sat down.
“Have you ever played a game like this before?” Felix asked her.
“Nope. Luke said he’d loan me some dice, though.”
Luke had two pouches on the table in front of him. “Here.” He handed both of them to her. “Choose whichever one you like.”
One set was green, the other black. She poured the green set out and studied it. “These don’t look like the dice I’m used to.”
“I’ll show you which ones we need as we play.”
With that, Felix passed around some papers, explaining the story. “This is a new one-shot I just downloaded from Paizo. Everyone grab a character sheet.” Luke passed one to her, and she read over it. A halfling rogue?
“What’s a halfling?”
“Did you seeThe Lord of the Rings?” asked Grace.
“A long time ago,” Maggie answered.
“Think of a halfling like a hobbit.” She smiled. “I got the human wizard.”
“I’m an orc fighter,” laughed Luke. “So big, green, and ugly.”
Maggie had to bite back her response, which was to say that Luke could never be ugly. Nope, not going there.
“I’m the gnomish bard.”
“And I’m just going to run the campaign, for once.” Felix said with a sigh. He looked over his screen at Maggie. “Normally, we don’t have enough players for me to just focus on the campaign. If you decide this is something you want to continue, we can roll you up a character and work you into our main campaign. But no pressure.”
“What do you do normally then?”
Grace shrugged. “Felix has his own campaign that he’s writing, or if we’re not feeling like it, then we play normal board games for three people. But with Luke back in town, and now you, maybe we can play some different games.”
Luke shifted in his seat. “I’m only back temporarily, Grace. I was supposed to be on leave for a month.” He turned to Felix. “Sure, Mom’s off her feet for three months, so I’ll be here a bit longer, but don’t make a long-term campaign with me in mind.”
Felix smiled sadly and adjusted his glasses. “I know.”
Grace pouted. “Damn, I thought it was going to be like old times again.”
“You’re on leave? Are you in the military?” Maggie turned to him, confused. Surely Deb would have mentioned her son was in the military.
“No, I work for the FBI. I just got done with a long-term undercover mission and needed a break.”
FBI? What was it with her and law enforcement officers? Couldn’t she be attracted to someonesafe?
Those agents used guns just like Sean did. A memory of Sean waving his sidearm around when he was drunk one night flashedthrough her mind, and she shut her eyes against it as her throat tightened. The shiver running down her spine had nothing to do with the temperature in the basement, and everything to do with the crazed rant Sean had gone on that night.
Maggie bit her lip. Right. That had been the time federal agents took over his investigation. He’d hated the Feds for taking his case from him.
And took it out on her.
If Luke knew about Sean, would he be on her side? Or side with his fellow LEO, like she’d always been afraid of? The one time she’d threatened to report his abuse, Sean had laughed at her and reminded her that they lived in his jurisdiction, that he worked with every cop available to take her report.“My brothers in blue would never turn their back on me just to helpyou,”he’d sneered.
