"Seriously, Jamie. Don't say things like that to me." I stared at nothing, hoping and praying that Matt would be able to convince whoever needed convincing of my innocence.
Chapter Thirty
Fortunately for me, once Mark Fletcher heard that Don was dead, he told the cops all about what had happened. I was right, Don had killed Janice Fletcher to hasten Mark's inheritance. Seems Mark had talked a good talk about how rich his family was to get Don's boss to extend him a very generous line of credit, one that wasn't going to be paid off by the little plot of land he'd inherited. When Don learned that the money had all gone to the cats, he took his frustrations out on Mark. If we hadn't stopped him then, the next victim might have been Patsy Blackstone and who knows who else, because the list of people designated as cat caretakers before Mark Fletcher was a very long one indeed.
We learned all of the details at Taco Tuesday that next week.
Matt was there. So was Mason. And Jamie.
I watched Mason and Jamie laughing and talking back and forth and decided that maybe Mason wasn't such a bad choice for my friend after all. He had risked his life for her. Would Lucas Dean have done the same? I think not.
Plus when he looked at her…Well, his eyes just lit up in this amazing way. I actually found myself rooting for him.
(I know. A few days before I'd thought he was a murderer. What can I say? Sometimes when you misjudge a person initially you overcompensate in the opposite direction after you realize your mistake. I know this from the number of people who've gone from thinking of me as a ditzy dumb blonde to thinking of me as a genius. I'm neither. I'm just Maggie May Carver, barkery owner, Miss Fancypants slave, and adequate but not perfect friend and granddaughter.)
As we ate our tacos and laughed and enjoyed ourselves I realized that was the first night I'd felt truly honestly at home. I really had found the place I wanted to be and the people I wanted to be with.
And as I fell asleep that night—wedged into the far corner of the bed because Fancy had finally bothered to try the steps and decided she liked them and was now taking up 95% of the available space—I told myself everything would be okay. I could finally get on with the business of starting my new life in the Baker Valley and spending quality time with my friends, my grandpa, and my dog.
No more dead bodies. No more arrests. Life was just going to be nice and normal from there on out.
Boy was I wrong.
If you enjoyed this book, check out the next in the series, A Buried Body and Barkery Bites.
About the Author
When Aleksa Baxter decided to write what she loves it was a no-brainer to write a cozy mystery set in the mountains of Colorado where she grew up and starring a Newfie, Miss Fancypants, that is very much like her own Newfie, in both the good ways and the bad.
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You can reach her at [email protected] or on her website aleksabaxter.com.
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Nosy Newfie Cozy Mysteries
A Dead Man and Doggie Delights
A Crazy Cat Lady and Canine Crunchies
A Buried Body and Barkery Bites
Copyright
Copyright © 2019 by M.L. Humphrey
All rights reserved.
A Crazy Cat Lady and Canine Crunchies Page 14