by Sandi Scott
Georgie laughed as she went to wash her face. She was glad she was wearing a mask as it hid the blush she felt on her cheeks. It drove her crazy that Stan could still make her blush.
Within minutes the pizza had arrived, and Georgie ate and painted while Stan ate and made funny riffs throughout the movie. It was like a date, only better.
Georgie knew who she was. And she knew who Stan was. Somehow, she couldn’t see one without the other. Maybe just not under the same roof—not yet, anyway.
Chapter 16
More than two weeks ago, Clara Lu was arrested as Samantha Alfred’s killer. The press had quite a time dubbing the case “The Makeup Murder” and how Clara had transformed The Better You! products into Deader You! products.
As she watched the news, Georgie was seeing it all unfold a little more this morning while scrubbing her paint brushes in a bucket before she started painting.
Aleta came barging in.
“Hey, have you seen the latest?” Georgie asked, still watching the TV. “Clara fired another attorney. You know, the news reports it is because of this reason or that, but I’ll guarantee it’s because the lawyer is telling Clara to shut her mouth, and she isn’t having it!”
“Georgie. I need your help,” Aleta said. When Georgie looked up from the brushes she had in her hands, she didn’t see the sister Georgie normally expected.
“What happened?”
“It’s Emily.”
“Is Em all right?”
“No, Georgie, she’s not all right. She had me checking some of her books yesterday. No big deal, right? I do that all the time for her. She said she just couldn’t get the numbers to match and thought another pair of eyes might find the glitch.” Aleta pinched her lips together.
“Did you find the glitch?”
Aleta shook her head slowly back and forth.
“There is money missing.”
“Missing? What do you mean missing?”
“I mean, someone is stealing from my baby.”
Georgie took a deep breath and sat down on the couch.
“Aleta, now I want you to understand that I am saying this with love for you and Emily. You’re sure it wasn’t just a mistake? A glitch. An oversight?”
“I know why you’re asking,” Aleta replied calmly. “I’m not just covering for a mistake Emily might have made or a bad decision. I know my daughter. So, do you! You want to answer that question for yourself?”
Georgie arched her right eyebrow and dumped her brushes in the bucket.
“Give me five minutes to get dressed.”
Whether the Kaye Sisters liked it or not, they were headed for their next mystery. But they never expected it would hit so close to home.
THE END
Letter from the Author
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR purchasing this early-release book made available exclusively to my readers group, Sandi’s Sleuths, before the book was made available on any other retailers.
You are probably already subscribed to my group, but if you ended up here and are not subscribed, head over to my website and join us. That way you will be the first to hear about other exclusive opportunities like this one.
www.SandiScottBooks.com.
I love to stay in touch with readers and periodically give out free books, advanced copies, and other fun stuff.
Email me at [email protected]
Stay cozy,
Sandi
About the Book Cover
I am so grateful to my readers every day for reading my books, making it possible to keep writing. As a gesture of appreciation (and because it is really, really fun) – I feature a reader’s pet on the cover of each book in this series!
For each book, I host a contest where you can enter your fur baby to be the next cover model. I love seeing all your fur babies and reading their stories. The prizes of winning the contest are digital images of any artwork done of the winning pet, a free paperback copy of the book, and the opportunity to write the dedication to the book.
This month’s cover model is Casey. His mom, Kathleen, had the following to say about him:
Us Fowler kids always wanted a dog. We had had a parakeet, but you can't take a bird for a walk. My mom had a great idea to remedy this. She put her name in for a pup from a Boston bulldog litter. My father had had the same kind of dog when he was young, and giving us the same dog would be a delight for everyone. However, the mother had experienced a false pregnancy and no pups would be available. But all was not lost. At my sister’s Camp Fire Girls’ meeting, she witnessed the birth of a handful of fawn boxers. My mom was offered one, and we became a “dog family.”
The runt of the litter, Casey was all legs, floppy ears, velvety soft muzzle, and a variety of white accents that made him adorable. He snored, he slobbered, he nibbled our necks, and he sometimes smelled. But he was always there waiting by the door when we came home from school. My father chose to have his ears cropped, and although it looked torturous, Casey was fine; he even learned that the ear contraption was like a weapon he could use to butt us if we weren't giving him enough attention. He loved sleeping with others; no dog bed for him. We often woke up to find my brother on the floor next to the heater, and Casey comfortable in his bed usually snoring under the covers. He loved running, crashing through the neighbor’s fence, and riding in the car. He would leave a special reminder in my sister’s room indicating he was not pleased to have ever been left behind...no, he didn't have to, it was a planned protest! He loved soft-serve ice cream, marshmallows, hamburger mixed in his food, and anything we had on our plates...thank goodness, he loved “liver and onions” night!
There were moments we thought we might lose him; frightening experiences to say the least. The evil Husky down the street that attacked pinning my sister on the front porch and the territory fight with a Doberman were scary, but Casey 2, usurpers 0! The black widow bite that sent us all to the vet in the middle of the night and the rabid skunk that sent him on a 28-day quarantine, but Casey 2, animal kingdom 0! Then the Christmas tree crash, the shoes and slippers diet, and carpet and screen door damage, Casey 3, everything else 0!
Casey gave each of us things we will always hold dear: a sympathetic ear, slobbery kisses, memories galore, and unconditional love!
TO LEARN MORE ABOUT the cover model competitions for other books in the series, as well as information on how to enter your fur baby, visit http://www.sandiscottbooks.com/cover-models/
PREVIEW: Madeleine Murder
Chapter 1
Ashley Adams’s stomach growled. She was starving, which was made worse by being surrounded by delicious food. But she and Patty had spent too many hours cooking and baking for her to eat their wares—she’d already taste tested everything to death. Plus, she wanted to try and see what the competition had to offer.
The Seagrass Days annual festival, held the last weekend in July, had grown from a handful of tents for local businesses to a real summer social event that drew in people from all over the county and state. Two rows of vendors, charities, and businesses stretched along Cleveland Park, with a third row dedicated to food and drink.
Ashley Adams and her friend Patty LaFontaine were sharing a tent for their two businesses, both based on French cuisine, Ashley’s Seagrass Sweets and Patty’s The Southern Bird. It was a good setup and they were full of excited energy, even if they had been up all night doing prep work for the last several days.
Ashley’s offerings included a variety of macaron flavors, French yogurt cake topped with peach or praline sauce, sour cream chocolate espresso cake, key lime tartlets, madeleines with salted caramel-chipotle sauce, and shortbread cookies decorated with Texas flags. She always considered it a success when someone stopped by to buy a dessert and then stopped back again a few minutes later. It had happened three times already, and it was only two o’clock Friday afternoon.
“What do you think about food trucks?” Patty asked, picking up an earlier conversation. She was dressed in a blue-and-white B
reton shirt, capris, sandals, and black sunglasses that looked like they belonged on Audrey Hepburn.
“It’s a big investment,” Ashley said. “But if we got a food truck together, we’d have a lot more opportunities to work with local wineries that don’t have their own kitchens.”
“That’s what I was thinking,” Patty said. “Actually, I was mostly thinking about the wine.”
Ashley’s stomach growled again. Patty laughed. “Want me to fix you a plate? You’re sitting at the table of one of the best French caterers in Seagrass.”
“The only French caterer in Seagrass,” Ashley corrected her. Patty’s menu today was roast chicken, salade niçoise, a chilled tomato soup with crème fraîche, and a charcuterie plate with grilled french bread slices or lemon-chipotle aioli potato salad on the side.
Too bad that Ashley had been eating from the same delicious menu for two days straight.
“I think I’m going to wander around the festival for the next half hour or so. Is that okay?”
Patty smiled and glanced over toward another food truck, Smokeground Barbecue. The owner, Smoke Daddy Lee, saw her looking and waved from the window. The two of them were a new couple, still basking in the flirtatious fun of early romance.
“As long as you don’t eat with the enemy,” Patty said drily.
Ashley tried not to sound too concerned. “Everything going okay between you two?”
“Only that he’s the most competitive man I’ve ever met. Including our old chef in Paris.” Ashley and Patty had met working together at L’Oiseau Bleu, a medium-sized bistro in Paris, France.
Ashley said, “Ah, Chef Lemaire. The man who once threw a tray of my macarons across the room for being too perfect when his had all cracked. All because he was angry over a failed love affair. Thanks for reminding me.”
Ashley’s stomach growled a third time.
Patty said, “Go on, get out of here. I have it. Don’t you trust me?”
“I would trust you with an oven full of soufflés in an earthquake, you know that,” Ashley said.
“If we got a food truck, we could sell crêpes,” Patty called out as Ashley started walking away.
“Stop torturing me!” Ashley laughed.
She took a quick trip around the food trucks, seeing a few familiar faces but also a lot of trucks from out of town and even out of state, according to their license plates. Because of all the events she’d been catering lately, she was less surprised than she would have been even a few months ago. Seagrass was growing a big enough appetite to draw in food vendors from outside their small town.
She waved at Smoke Daddy as she went by, but settled on a red Cajun/Creole food truck called Betty’s Bayou Cuisine, where she bought a crawfish pistolette—a fried french bread roll stuffed with crawfish étouffée filling.
“It looks delicious!” Ashley told the woman working the truck. She had short white hair, silver-rimmed glasses, and an infectious smile.
“Thanks! I’ll tell the chef. Who is, by the way, me. Betty Remondet.” She reached out of the window to give Ashley’s hand a shake. “You’re the sweet little thing from Seagrass Sweets, ain’tcha?”
Ashley raised an eyebrow but shook Betty’s hand firmly. “Those are my desserts, yes.”
“Gimme a business card, why don’t you? And hold on to one of those slices of chocolate cake. I’ll need a free sample before I start passing your name around the festival circuit as a go-to dessert girl.”
Ashley fluttered her debit receipt between her fingers. “Sorry, free samples are to noncharging food trucks only.”
Betty grinned wider as Ashley dug out a business card from her wallet. “Couldn’t hurt to try.”
Ashley gave her a friendly wave and moved down the line of food trucks toward an empty picnic table with a view that went past a few sandbars and all the way out to the Gulf. The sandwich was very good, crunchy on the outside and hot in the center. The french bread itself was okay, but had an inconsistent crumb—hers was much better. To be fair, though, it might just be due to the excellent ovens at the shared commercial kitchen space that she and Patty used, Fresh Start Kitchens.
She finished the sandwich, then decided to look through the vendor area. If she was being honest with herself, she wasn’t just shopping—she was looking for Ryan.
They were old friends who had recently started dating.
However, they hadn’t kissed yet, and she was starting to get worried.
At any rate, he was working as an orange-shirted volunteer at the festival, helping to keep the vendors’ computers and debit-machine wireless transactions secure so that their money matters stayed organized and out of trouble. He’d stopped by first thing that morning, but she hadn’t seen him since.
Looking around, she caught sight of someone in an orange shirt, but it wasn’t Ryan. A handsome, dark-haired hunk of a guy was talking to a woman at one of the ATM machines set up for the festival. The woman had a double-wide stroller with two differently sized toddlers, and all three of them were crying.
“But I had three hundred dollars in my account, and now it says it’s all gone!”
“I understand, ma’am. These things happen to all of us. I can’t have you pounding on the ATM, though. That won’t solve anything. You need to speak to your bank or the police.”
Ashley felt sorry for the woman and double-checked her wallet to make sure she still had it.
She turned around at the end of the row of booths to the next aisle over and caught the sound of the open-mike tent. At one end of the festival was a stage where professional musicians serenaded an audience; at the other end was the open-mike stage, where amateurs crooned karaoke to the crowd. One moment a singer with an operatic voice might be tackling a Dolly Parton number, the next a tone-deaf howler might try to conquer Guns N’ Roses.
A woman in a teal crocheted cap with seashell-blonde dreadlocks and a sea glass dolphin necklace chewed on a knuckle as she paced outside the tent. Ashley smiled in encouragement at her, but the woman didn’t seem to notice. Inside the tent, a guy was singing a George Strait song—perfectly in tune but completely off tempo.
She kept wandering.
About halfway up the next aisle of booths and tents was a man who seemed dedicated to the art of taking it easy. His handmade lawn chair was not only fully reclining, but it also had a drink holder, a portable electric fan, and an umbrella. The older man wore a battered black leather top hat decorated with a small red-brown feather sitting on his light brown dreadlocks, and his full beard was streaked with gray. He wore a khaki fisherman’s vest with about a thousand pockets, and when he smiled at her, his mouth was full of bright, white teeth.
“Hello there, missy,” he said.
“Um, hello?”
“You’re looking for a dog collar, aren’t you?”
Ashley blinked at him—she hadn’t had anything in mind as she was walking around the vendor area, but as a matter of fact she could use a new one. Dizzy, her pet Labrador-hound cross, had a habit of wearing out her collars pretty quickly.
She looked down at the tables surrounding the man; his appearance was so distracting that she hadn’t even noticed what he was selling. What he sold was hemp products—lots of twisted, knotted jewelry, clothing made out of hemp, hemp soap, hemp seeds, hemp moisturizer, hemp sunscreen, hemp oil, and pretty much all other things hemp, too.
The man had leaned forward so that his reclining chair snapped upright without spilling his drink. His hand hovered over a few different types of colorful dog collars. He clucked his tongue as he talked to himself.
“Not the chicks in the baskets, not the red stars, not the plain one, not the one with the tribal marks, not the paisley one...”
Ashley interrupted him. “How did you even know I had a dog?” she asked.
He tapped the side of his nose.
She did not smell of dog. She had even changed pants in the changing room at Fresh Start Kitchens. If there was a dog hair on her, it was from one of the many dogs
at the festival, not Dizzy.
“This one,” he said. He’d picked up a multicolored collar, one printed with a cute blue-and-white design that looked more like Provençal pottery than paisley. Fat little birds touched beaks, surrounded by green leaves.
It was cute.
“How much?” she asked.
“Sixteen dollars,” he said. “You can get it off the internet for twelve ninety-nine plus shipping, if you care to look it up on your phone. I’ll wait. Shipping’s six dollars, though.”
Ashley snorted. She felt like she was getting scammed into buying exactly what she wanted. She took out her wallet. “Do you take cards?”
“That I do, little missy,” the man said. Ashley was relieved. She didn’t want to have to venture back to the scene with the angry mom beating the ATM.
Pulling a stuffed animal that looked vaguely doglike to Ashley from under the table, the man continued, “I may not look it, but I’m a modern businessman.”
The stuffed animal had a credit card reader between its paws. Cute.
“I didn’t mean to imply differently,” Ashley said. “Is this your first year here?”
He leaned forward farther and took her card, then shook her hand. “My name’s Sparrow Soulbrother. And you are...” He checked her debit card. “Ashley Adams. Nice to meet you. And no, this isn’t my first year in Seagrass. I’ve been coming to camp and eat BBQ at the Smokeground for years now. Might come back down in the winter and see if it’s worth renting a storefront for a few months while it’s cold up north.”
Ashley took the machine from him to enter her PIN, carefully shielding the machine from prying eyes as she did so. “I really like your machine holder—it looks like a floppy-eared puppy.”
She declined the receipt and then handed the machine back to him. Just then, a young man with beads in his hair and a weather-beaten guitar across his back walked by and said, “Hey, Sparrow. Your van has a flat.”