Death from Abroad: Target Practice Mysteries, #6

By Nikki Haverstock

When a renowned international archery team arrives for training camp, they bring with them elite athletes, drama, and murder. 
Di's plan for quiet time with Great Dane Moo and handsome Liam is interrupted when Bordistan National Coach Natasha is found dead in the snow. Instead of cuddles, Di finds herself roped into solving the murder with one of the visiting star archers, Ivana. That gets more interesting when Di discovers Liam was once engaged to the stunning beauty from Bordistan.
Can she sort through the secret complications to find the truth before time runs out?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ranch Dog Entertainment, LLC
• Release date: Apr 5, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386226017

Nikki Haverstock

Nikki Haverstock lives with her husband and dogs on a cattle ranch high in the Rocky Mountains. Before escaping the city, Nikki taught collegiate archery for ten years. She has competed on and off for fifteen in the USA Archery women’s recurve division. In the 2015, she finished the season ranked 14th nationally. Nikki has more college degrees than she has sense and hopefully one day she will put one to work.

Book preview

Your dedication here.

To all the archers the world over who told me about drama on their national teams. I won’t mention you by name, but hopefully you know who you are.

When opportunity nocks…

When a renowned international archery team arrives for training camp, they bring with them elite athletes, drama, and murder. 

Di’s plan for quiet time with Great Dane Moo and handsome Liam is interrupted when Bordistan National Coach Natasha is found dead in the snow. Instead of cuddles, Di finds herself roped into solving the murder with one of the visiting star archers, Ivana. That gets more interesting when Di discovers Liam was once engaged to the stunning beauty from Bordistan.

Can she sort through the secret complications to find the truth before time runs out?

Target Practice Mysteries 6

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Also By Nikki Haverstock

Target Practice Mysteries

Death on the Range

Death at the Summit

Death at the Trade Show

Death Indoors

Death in the Casino

Death from Abroad

Death in the Desert

Death in the Dormitory - short story

Casino Witch Mysteries

Of Murders and Mages

Which Mage Moved the Cheese?

No Business like Mage Business

Nice Day for a Mage Wedding

Dragons are a Mage’s Best Friend

Dragons are Forever

Only the Good Mages Die Young

Casino Witch Mini Mysteries

The Case of the Murdered Moose

The Case of the Criminal Christmas

The Case of the Foretold Fatality

Purgatory Falls Mysteries

Mermaid in Troubled Water

Snowed in Mermaid

Mermaid to the Rescue

Captain Liz Laika Mysteries

Space Murder

Alien Ambush

Space Station Investigation

Reality TV Cozy Mysteries

Lights, Camera, Murder

Crossover Murder

CHAPTER ONE

I absently scratched behind Moo’s gigantic Great Dane ears while typing up the first draft of my email to Orion at Westmound-Andersson Industries headquarters. He expected the first draft of my proposal on the Advancement of Female Archers to be in his email inbox first thing Monday morning, which was less than twelve hours away. AFA was our attempt to start to close the payout gap between professional male and female archers while invigorating our female customer base. It was a huge project, and I was in charge, with Orion being my direct supervisor.

Moo perked up his ears and ran to the door a second before someone knocked. I opened the door and wasn’t surprised to see Liam on the other side.

Hey, Moo. How you doing, buddy? Liam kneeled down to see eye to eye with Moo, scratching his black-and-white fur and roughhousing a little.

I leaned against the door to my apartment and watched. I had barely seen Liam since we had returned from a tournament in Vegas, where we had finally kissed. I had asked to keep our new relationship private for a while longer. The AFA project had absorbed every second I wasn’t working at the Westmound Training Center for Competitive Shooting Sports or grabbing some archery practice at the range. Liam and I had shared every meal we could, but there was a big difference between scarfing down a meal elbow to elbow with all your coworkers in the cafeteria and quiet time alone with Liam.

He gave Moo one last scratch and stood up to face me. How is AFA coming along?

I pushed off the doorframe to lean closer. I’m almost done. I want to give it one last read through out loud, then I’ll send it over to Orion. I know I promised I’d be done this afternoon, but I went with Jess to drop Mary off at the airport in Denver. The snow really slowed down the trip.

Jess ran the elite archery program at the center, while Mary was my roommate and closest friend. It was her mother’s fiftieth birthday this week, and Mary flew home to spend some time with her family. It was going to be lonely without her, but once this proposal was sent to Orion, I would be free to spend lots of time with Liam.

Liam reached out and squeezed my hand. I want to talk before the Bordistan archery team arrives.

Oh? Why? I smiled up at him. Maybe I had a few minutes to spare for him. We could hang out alone for once, and I could finish the proposal later. An involuntary yawn stifled my thoughts, sneaking up on me after a week of late nights and early mornings working on the AFA project before and after work.

It’s no big deal, but we— Liam started to scoot Moo back into the room so he could enter, when the heavy mechanisms of the fireproof door at the end of the hallway turned over.

Walking through the door was Ivana, one of the archers from Bordistan that I had met at a recent tournament. Snow clung to her dark curly hair and covered the shoulders of her jacket. Liam, there you are. Come help us. Her English was perfect but carried the slight tone of another language that I couldn’t identify.

Liam stepped back into the hall. Hello, Ivana. This is Di. She works at the center.

I waved a hand in greeting. We met in Vegas. Nice to see you again.

Her brows knit together. She gave me a bored look up and down before shrugging. Did we? I meet so many people. She faced Liam. You can help me with my luggage, then we would like a tour of the facilities, then you said we could watch a movie.

None of it was a question, and she waited at the door for Liam to comply.

He watched her for a few seconds, showing no irritation or eagerness at her demands.

Liam, I called his attention back to me. I only need another hour on this. I’ll come find you the second I’m done.

See, your employee doesn’t need you. Come. Ivana beckoned him to come then turned and let the door slam behind her without waiting for him to agree.

Liam stepped forward and brushed his lips against mine in far too brief of a kiss. Text me. The snow’s really coming down, and I don’t want you wandering around out there, even with Moo.

I will. I closed the door behind me and leaned against it for a few seconds while rubbing behind Moo’s huge velvety ears. A warm, pleasant tingle ran down to my toes, as it always did when Liam kissed me, which hadn’t been often enough. Since we were keeping things discreet between us, there had been no public displays of affection, no matter how chaste.

Though I had been long separated from my husband, the divorce was not quite finalized, though it was close. My ex, the snake, had been living with one of his floozies since I kicked him out when I caught him in flagrante on our kitchen table. The real salt in the wound was finding out that he was carrying on with several other women at the same time, including my supposed best friend.

I blew out a sigh. That was a long time ago. Counseling and a move to Wyoming for a new job had moved all that to farthest corners of my mind. Once the divorce was finalized, there would be nothing connecting me to those dark times.

Come on, Moo. I have work to do. I stretched briefly before sitting down in front of my computer. The sooner I get this off to Orion, the sooner I can focus on Liam.

***

Guess what, Moo! I pressed the send button on my email and stood up to stretch. It took a lot longer than expected, but I’m done! I danced around the room and checked my phone for messages.

Moo lifted his head off the couch and let out a long yawn, not nearly as excited about my progress as I was. He smacked his lips a few times and hopped down to stretch into a literal downward-facing dog yoga pose.

There was a message from Liam that he was joining the Bordistan team to watch a movie, but that was several hours ago. I typed up a quick message that I was done and was taking Moo outside for a few minutes.

I grabbed a leash for Moo and slipped on tall snow boots and a jacket. Since we had a visiting team, I snapped the leash on Moo’s collar. People seemed to find his waist-high head intimidating until they knew him, and I wanted to make sure that everyone felt safe. For the past few hours, I had been hearing the heavy slamming of doors as the Bordistan team opened then let the doors to their room bang shut. They must have been assigned rooms in my wing of the dorms. I bounced down the hallway toward a back door that, besides me, mostly only the cleaning staff used. It was a discreet place to let Moo do his business out of sight so that I only had to clean up once every day or two. I mostly used it early in the morning or late at night when I wanted to stay inside and