by Lila K Bell
Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
THANK YOU FOR READING
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
COMING SOON
The Minstrel
&
The Campaign
The Midnight Minstrel Mysteries Book 3
By
Lila K. Bell
All Rights Reserved
This edition published in 2019 by Raven’s Quill Press
This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this work are either fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity is purely coincidental.
Cover art: Christopher Reddie
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication maybe reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission of the publisher. The rights of the authors of this work has been asserted by him/ her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This book is dedicated to my Mom, who introduced me to Perry Mason, Sue Grafton, Janet Evanovich, and so many other mystery authors who made me appreciate a good puzzle.
1
You know those nights when you lie awake rethinking your most embarrassing moments?
They haunt you even more than your worse fears because they actually happened. Your imagination might fill your head with clowns or spiders or balloons, but it’s reality that’s really terrifying.
And my reality included tackling a grieving widower at his wife’s funeral in front of half of Brookside, Ontario.
I could be grateful that half the population of Brookside means only a few hundred people.
I could be proud that in tackling said widower, I’d actually saved his life from the woman who’d intended to poison him.
I could even be a little bit smug that I, Fiona Gates, ex-thief and nouveau amateur sleuth, had figured out the woman in question had also murdered her sister at my twenty-fifth birthday bash.
Unfortunately, it was difficult to associate any positive emotion with the events of that night when my mother still wasn’t speaking to me and acquaintances I hadn’t heard from in years were crawling out of the woodwork to gawk.
“Hey Fiona, one of my coworkers has been stealing my lunch — can you work out who it is?”
“Hey Fi, our yoga instructor sure has been missing a lot of classes. What do you think? Is he a murderer? You’d better find out!”
“Fifi, have you seen my hat?”
That last one came from my father. I don’t think it was intended to encourage my newfound hobby, but the timing couldn’t have been more perfect. Especially since those were the only words he had spoken to me in the two weeks since the Brooks funeral.
I did my best to brush it off, either by laughing or ignoring it. After all, I was done with solving mysteries. After coming in two-for-two, not a bad record for someone with no official training, I was hanging up my hat and leaving criminal investigation to the professionals.
Hands up, count me out, I’m done.
I was so done, I’d taken to hiding in the secret library behind my bookcase, using the time to reassess what I wanted to do with my life.
In this room were the one hundred titles I had stolen from my neighbours’ houses over the past eleven years. From my first edition Wilkie Collins to the Carrolls, Austens, Brontes, and Dickens’; the necessary Shakespeare and Chaucer, of course; and, tucked between those, some less expensive but more sentimental titles, like Tolkien and Lewis.
None of them were editions you could find in a standard bookstore. These were the kind that usually had a sign in front of them asking people not to touch. The kind that required special ventilation and lighting to preserve the quality.
In all, the contents of my secret library valued in the millions.
All of these books had been taken from people who didn’t appreciate what they had. I was a literary Robin Hood, stealing from the rich and giving to, well, me. All right, so half a Robin Hood? At least I passed some of them on… for a good price.
I’d become so good at what I did that the Brookside Gazette had given me the moniker: The Midnight Minstrel, the mysterious book-stealing menace. I liked it. It was the kind of name that would look snazzy on a business card if I were stupid enough to leave them.
Three months ago, I would have told you I was happy enough with my line of work. It kept me in just the right amount of trouble, even if the thrill had begun to wear off.
Two months ago, when I’d discovered Barnaby Coleman’s corpse in his kitchen and come close to having my secret revealed, I’d realized how precious my situation was. If I were revealed as the Midnight Minstrel, my grandfather would be heartbroken, and my parents would never speak to me again.
On top of that, solving crimes had seemed a reputationally safer endeavour than committing them, not to mention more satisfying.
As it turned out, I’d been caught out as a crime-solving vigilante and, though Gramps was proud of me, if worried, my parents weren’t speaking to me anyway, so, really, what was the point of changing things?
I’d been doing quite well as the Minstrel. One hundred books without the police ever getting close to my identity. Over five million dollars earned from titles I’d passed on to people more deserving than the people who’d kept them lying on coffee tables or squished onto shelves.
It was lucrative, it was fun, and though I’d reached a point where I’d have to step outside of my usual haunts to carry on with my endeavour, I was good at what I did. There was also a copy of Poe’s Complete Short Stories calling my name down the street.
The temptation to go back to that life was strong.
So strong.
Strong enough that part of the reason I kept myself locked in my library for so many hours a night, reading books and hiding from my email inbox, was that I didn’t trust myself not to climb out my window as soon as the sun went down to get my hands on it.
Because, I’ll be honest with you, I was stumped on what else to do with my life.
That’s the problem when you’ve never found your passion. I’d tried school and that had bored me. I’d tried a few jobs here and there, but none had held my interest.
When you come from a family rich enough to buy you anything you wanted, and parents who didn’t care what you did with that money as long as you didn’t bring shame to the family name, it became a matter of decision fatigue. Too many options and none of them appealing.
If I hopped on a plane tomorrow to see the world, there was no doubt in my mind that I would only be changing the nationality of the windows I climbed through and the language of the books I stole.
I had to admit, however, that the enjoyment I derived from stealing the next title was nothing to the rush I got from homing in on a murderer. The thrill of that kind of chase was like nothing else I’d experienced in a life filled with parkour and skydiving. Putting the pieces of the mystery together until the answers fell into place, nosing into other people’s business like the daughter of a professional gossip I was — it was fun and rewarding.
Giving it up was a challenge.
But I had.
End of story.
I wasn’t even interested in hearing more about the body that had recently been uncovered during renovations to the old City Hall building.
Nope.
I was so not interested that, on a beautiful sunny late-autumn afternoon, instead of heading over to the renovation site with the rest of the town, I’d driven in the opposite direction to pick Sybil Robinson up from school. As innocent a task as it was possible to take on.
Sybil was the sixteen-year-old sister of old friend-now-police officer Sam Robinson. She’d accidentally become my investigative partner on the Brooks case, and Sam had been none-too-pleased with me about that. Like my parents, he hadn’t spoken to me much since then, growing particularly quiet whenever he started a new case lest I should weasel anything out of him. I didn’t blame him. Twice burned and all that, though I swear the second time hadn’t been intentional. I couldn’t help that Sybil had wormed a few necessary tidbits of information out of him.
Not this time, though. This time he was free to carry out his job without giving me another thought.
“Have you heard?” Sybil asked as soon as she got into the silver Mercedes I called Mercy.
“Heard what?” I asked, feigning ignorance.
“About the body. Come on, Fiona, you can’t tell me you haven’t listened to the news all afternoon.”
“What have you been doing listening to the news?” I asked. “Shouldn’t you have been in geography or algebra or some equally titillating class?”
She raised an eyebrow and waved her phone at me. “Obviously.”
When I remained uninterested, she turned in her seat to face me. “You’re telling me you’re not even going to check it out?”
“That is correct.”
“Not even a single itty bitty bit of curiosity about what happened?”
“Not an iota. Not an atom of interest. The most infinitesimal particles in the universe carry more weight than my curiosity about what happened.”
“Right.” Sybil crossed her arms over her long red skull-print T-shirt, an adorably macabre choice to go with her red-and-black bat leggings. “Whatever. Then I’m not going to tell you anything I’ve learned. I won’t tell you that it was a woman they found buried under the courtyard. I won’t tell you that they think she’s been there for at least twenty-five years, which, in my books, means it would totally be open ground for any interested parties looking to poke around. Just saying. But that wouldn’t be you.”
“Correct.”
I turned away from her and wrinkled my nose. A twenty-five-year-old cold case? A body buried so cleverly that no one would ever have found it if Brookside’s Artistic Society hadn’t taken over the building to turn it into their gallery and lecture hall?
Who could have had access to the foundations of the building?
Who was this poor woman who had been missing all these years? A missing person would have been a great mystery in and of itself, but I’d never heard of any unexplained disappearances in Brookside.
Stop it, Fiona.
I pressed my lips together and swallowed my questions.
I’d made promises — to Sam, to Detective Angela Curtis, to my parents — that I was done with that detour of my life.
No matter how badly I wanted to know the truth.
To distract both of us away from the subject, I steered Mercy toward the outdoor mall and treated Sybil to a latte and some time at Vinyls, the record shop that had been open longer than I’d been alive.
The retail therapy seemed to work, because she didn’t make another comment about the grisly discovery the whole time we were out. It was a nice change, me and Sybil spending some time together doing things that didn’t involve snooping into anyone else’s business. I was sure that when Sam asked me to take her under my wing, this was more what he’d had in mind.
Part of me worried that she would go back to thinking me her brother’s boring friend, but it was a risk I had to take if it meant keeping to the clear side of the law. I would just have to win her friendship with treats and gifts, like any other rich stereotype would do.
When my trunk was full and my credit card ached, I herded Sybil back into the car to take her home.
“Any wild plans for the evening?” I asked.
She cast me a sidelong glance. “Not unless you wanted to take me to the crime scene to see what was up.”
I glanced at the clock.
Thirty seconds.
We’d been back in the car for thirty seconds.
She’d been humouring me the whole afternoon, and I was tempted to march back to the Sweet Side and return the dentist’s nightmare of chocolate I’d bought her.
“Not a chance. What about something with people your own age?”
She grimaced. “No thank you.”
“Are you telling me you don’t have any friends you hang out with after school? No one you’ll get to wear that awesometastic dress for?”
I don’t know how this girl managed to track down the most punk styles of clothing in a town where the median age was fifty and anything not designer was buried in the clearance section by the back door. She had a knack. A magical gift. In all my years here, I doubted I would have ever found the black-and-white skull-patterned sundress with a sweetheart neckline. It looked incredible on her, so different than the T-shirt, skirt and leggings she typically wore — as though the more skin she covered, the more unseen she would go — and I wanted to see her get out and wear it.
But she only shrugged and stared out the window.
It hurt my heart.
Despite her taste in clothing, Sybil was a fun person with a great sense of humour, a whackload of intelligence, and a heart the size of my mother’s gossiping mouth. She should have been surrounded by friends.
“How about we go check out that action movie tomorrow?” I asked. “You know, the one with that guy you like. Jason Eckhart. Pew pew.”
“I guess,” she said, and I sighed.
It was murder or nothing with this girl. Had I broken her?
We got to her house just as Sam was leaving. He was in uniform, his hat pulled low over his short blond hair.
“Where are you heading off to?” I asked, getting out of the car to say hello.
“Old City Hall,” he said.
“Everyone else is going,” Sybil grumbled, hauling her bags out of the trunk.
Sam eyed me and I raised my hands. “Everyone but me. I told you, Sam. I’m done.”
“Mmhmm,” he said, and I had a sneaking suspicion he didn’t believe me.
Well, he could not believe me if he chose. I would prove myself with my actions and stay well away.
“Mom and Dad are out tonight,” he said to Sybil, “so try not to get into too much trouble.”
“Whatever,” she said, and headed to the door.
“See you tomorrow?” I called after her, and she waved a bag-laden hand in what I interpreted as a yes before she disappeared into the house.
“You guys good?” Sam asked.
I shrugged. “She’s annoyed with me. Thinks I’m a boring old lady because I won’t take her to a crime scene.”
The corner of Sam’s mouth quirked upward. “Well I, for one, am glad of it. She doesn’t need to be exposed to what’s out there. Bad enough it’s all over the news.”
He got into his car and waved as he drove off. I dropped into Mercy’s driver’s seat and leaned my head back against the head rest.
Honestly, this whole staying out of it thing was more of a challenge than I expected.
I’ve never been good at following other people’s rules when there was something I wanted. Hence, you know, all the theft.
But a cold case. A twenty-five year old murder that would no doubt be on everyone’s lips. How was I supposed to steer clear of it? How was I not supposed to express an interest? Based on Sam’s reaction, even an innocent question would make him suspect I was poking my nose in.
Remember what�
��s at stake, I told myself.
Gritting my teeth, I backed out of the laneway and headed down the street.
It was closing in on the dinner hour. The Treasure Trove, Brookside’s underground bar and my home away from home, wouldn’t be open yet, but that was probably for the best. Troy Dawson, the owner and bartender extraordinaire, would no doubt inquire as to my intentions with this new criminal development, which I didn’t want to answer, and I wasn’t ready yet to see Ryan Clark. I hadn’t seen him in two weeks, actually. We seemed to be stuck in an awkward rut that I didn’t want to contemplate right now.
Not when my entire life felt like an awkward rut.
So I headed home. A quiet night to myself with a book and maybe a cup of tea or a hot bath. House alone with my thoughts, sans television or radio to avoid the latest news updates.
Maybe I would take Charlie for a walk. Gramps’s recently adopted beagle was a bundle of energy I usually made a point of avoiding, not being much of a dog person, but on a night when I wanted to escape reality, he could serve as a useful distraction.
I pulled up in front of the house, grabbed my bags from the trunk, and headed inside.
“Hello?” I called out, and by the silence I gathered my parents weren’t home. Not even my mother’s indignation would prevent her from reminding me not to yell in the house.
She considered it tacky.
I kicked off my shoes and headed upstairs, eager for the comfort and friendly silence of my bedroom.
Maybe I would do a bit of research to see what new noteworthy books had come to reside in Brookside in the last two months. Just for fun. For no other reason than casual curiosity.
When I opened my bedroom door, however, I was greeted by a bounding Charlie, his short yelps of excitement filling what I’d expected to be my quiet, empty room. His wagging tail struck against my leg with even beats, and his wet nose found my hand.
I pet his ears as I turned my attention to Gramps, who was sitting in my armchair by the window. His arm rested on the sill, his forefinger pressed against his upper lip as he pinched his chin in thought. His balding head, covered in soft white wisps, caught the evening sun, and he may as well have been a statue for all the reaction he showed to my walking into the room.