Dead Tide (Blackmoore Sisters Romantic Cozy Mystery Series)

by Dobbs, Leighann

  Contents

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty One

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Chapter Twenty Three

  Chapter Twenty Four

  Chapter Twenty Five

  Chapter Twenty Six

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  Chapter Twenty Eight

  Chapter Twenty Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Epilogue

  Note From The Author

  About The Author

  This is a work of fiction.

  None of it is real. All names, places, and events are products of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to real names, places, or events are purely coincidental, and should not be construed as being real.

  Dead Tide

  Copyright © 2013

  dpgroup.org

  Leighann Dobbs

  http://www.leighanndobbs.com

  All Rights Reserved.

  No part of this work may be used or reproduced in any manner, except as allowable under “fair use,” without the express written permission of the author.

  Cover art by: http://www.coverkicks.com

  ***

  More Books By This Author:

  Lexy Baker

  Cozy Mystery Series

  * * *

  Killer Cupcakes

  Dying For Danish

  Murder, Money and Marzipan

  3 Bodies and a Biscotti

  Brownies, Bodies & Bad Guys

  Bake, Battle & Roll

  -------

  Blackmoore Sisters

  Cozy Mystery Series

  * * *

  Dead Wrong

  Dead & Buried

  -------

  Contemporary

  Romance

  * * *

  Sweet Escapes

  Reluctant Romance

  -------

  Dobbs “Fancytales”

  Regency Romance Fairytales Series

  * * *

  Something In Red

  Snow White and the Seven Rogues

  Dancing On Glass

  Chapter One

  Celeste Blackmoore felt a trill of excitement as she pushed open the door to Rita’s Eats. She scanned the diner, her heart skipping just a little when her eyes found the small, elderly man sitting in the last booth. She made her way down the aisle and slid into the bench opposite him, the red naugahyde seat squeaking as she scooted across it.

  “You have some news, Mr. Skinner?” Celeste raised an eyebrow at the man.

  Reinhardt Skinner’s eyes, magnified by the thick lenses of his round eyeglasses, glittered with excitement. He pushed his half eaten sandwich to the side and leaned across the table toward her.

  “I may have found something very important in your journal,” he said in a low voice.

  Celeste’s heartbeat picked up speed. She’d hired the historian to decipher a three hundred year old journal that had belonged to a distant relative of hers. The journal had been found in the attic of the family home she shared with her three sisters … a home which had been the location of a deadly treasure hunt only months before. The journal had started the treasure hunt and, while Celeste’s sisters thought the treasure was long gone, she held out a hope that there might be something worthwhile in the journal. The only problem was that it was in some sort of code, thus the need for Reinhardt Skinner.

  “Oh? What?”

  Skinner glanced around the diner. A bead of sweat formed on his forehead. He pulled a white linen handkerchief out of his pocket and swiped at his face.

  “This may be the most important find of my career.” He tugged at his red bow tie, pulling it out and loosening the top button of his crisp, white shirt.

  “What did you find?” she persisted.

  “Well, if what I think I have uncovered is true, this could be a find of historical importance.” He gulped in a wheezy breath. “Not to mention financial significance.”

  “Go on.” Celeste bit back her impatience, feeling a jolt of concern at the man’s red face and labored breathing.

  Skinner reached across the table putting his clammy hand on top of hers, his black eyes boring into her blue ones. She could feel the excitement rippling off him and her heart skittered in anticipation.

  “Miss Blackmoore, it seems you might be sitting on top of Aghh—”

  His eyes grew wide and he jerked his hand away to clutch at his chest. Celeste’s heart leapt into her throat as she heard him make a sickening gurgling sound. His eyes bulged in their sockets and he slumped over sideways in the booth.

  Celeste jumped out of her seat and ran to his side.

  “Someone call nine-one-one!”

  ***

  Celeste was still attempting CPR when the ambulance arrived even though Mr. Skinner was clearly beyond help. The EMT’s took over and she collapsed into the booth.

  “Well, well, well, if it isn’t one of the Blackmoore’s. You gals always seem to end up with a dead body on your hands.”

  Celeste felt her stomach sink at the grating voice. She turned to see Sheriff Overton standing in the doorway glaring at her. She cringed as he ambled toward her, his oversized belly protruding over his belt, a toothpick bobbing up and down in his mouth.

  “What have we got?” The question was directed at the EMT, but Overton kept his beady eyes on Celeste.

  “Looks like a heart attack," the EMT said as he started rolling the body away.

  Overton watched him go then turned back to Celeste. “And you’re right in the middle of it. Big surprise.”

  Celeste took a deep breath to squelch the spark of anger she felt. Overton had become sheriff in the seaside town of Noquitt, Maine five years ago—shortly after her mother had killed herself by jumping off a cliff into the ocean. Celeste had only been eighteen and had watched the investigation through anguished teenage eyes. She hadn’t been impressed with him then and was even less so now. For some reason Overton seemed to have it in for her and her sisters and relished accusing them of almost every crime that happened in their small town.

  “So tell me, why are you here?” Overton switched the toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other.

  “I was meeting Mr. Skinner for lunch.”

  Overton’s brows shot up. “Kind of old for you isn’t he?”

  Celeste suddenly became aware of the entire diner staring at her. She squirmed in her seat.

  “We had hired him to validate some of our family heirlooms.” She didn’t need the whole town knowing they had a journal that might lead to treasure—or if Skinner was right, an important historical find.

  Overton narrowed his eyes at her. “And that’s why you were here with him?”

  Celeste nodded. “He was telling me about … ummm … the items.”

  “And what were they?”

  “I don’t see how that’s relevant. The man had a heart attack for crying out loud. He was pretty old.”

  Overton’s face tightened and he wrote something in a notebook he had produced from the top poc
ket of his shirt.

  “It appears that way, Ms. Blackmoore. But I have a feeling you’re up to no good. We’ll see what the medical examiner has to say—given the fact that you were just in my jail a few short months ago on murder charges I’m going to have to treat this as a possible homicide.”

  “What? You know those murder charges were trumped up by you!” Celeste rose from her seat, fists clenched at her side. “The real murderer was caught and my name was cleared.”

  Overton laughed and Celeste’s cheeks flamed knowing she had played right into his hands letting him get a rise out of her.

  “Well, be that as it may, I have a sneaking suspicion that any death that involves you Blackmoore girls has a lot more to it than meets the eye. I’d be willing to bet this isn’t the last time I’ll be questioning you,” Overton said shoving the notebook in his pocket and turning in the direction of the front door.

  Celeste stared after him, fighting the urge to stick her tongue out at his retreating back. As she watched him get into his cruiser in the parking lot, her thoughts turned to Reinhardt Skinner.

  She hadn’t known him well, but she was truly sorry that he was dead. Not only because she’d liked the old historian, but also because now, she was going to have a heck of a time figuring out what the “important find” was that he was trying to tell her about just before his badly timed death.

  Chapter Two

  Celeste closed the thick oak door of her ocean front home and leaned against it with a sigh. The twenty-four room house had been in her family for three hundred years and it had a calming influence on her psyche. For some reason just walking through the door always seemed to wash away the stresses of the day. And today she needed that, especially with the way Reinhardt Skinner had died right in front of her.

  “Mew.”

  Belladonna, the family cat, weaved figure eights between her ankles and Celeste bent down to pet her silky white fur.

  “So, how was your day?”

  Belladonna just stared at her with ice blue eyes and flicked her tail.

  “Mine wasn’t that great. I need a treat.”

  Celeste made her way down the front hall to the kitchen. Like many of the rooms in the house, the spacious kitchen had been an add-on built sometime in the mid-1800s. It still had the original dark mahogany, Victorian cabinets which were offset by white marble counters. Stainless steel appliances were a newer addition as was the island which had a sink in the center.

  Celeste breezed past the island to a thick, wooden door on the far wall. The door led to the basement. Celeste felt a chill run up her spine as she approached it. She yanked it open, her nose wrinkling at the damp smell that greeted her.

  The girls never went in the basement—it was dark and creepy and their mother had threatened them with severe punishment if they even thought about going down there when they were little. As far as Celeste was concerned, the threats were unnecessary. She’d been down there once and remembered a cavernous room with a dirt floor. A big brick well stood in the middle and spiders and other creepy crawlies skittered around in the corners. She’d had no desire to go down there when she was a little girl and even less of a desire to do so now.

  It was, however, a great place to keep paper bags filled with the end of season garden tomatoes—the ones that you want to slowly ripen so that you can still have fresh tomatoes into the fall. They kept the bags three steps down where it was cool enough to do the trick, but not far enough down so they had to venture into the basement.

  Celeste pushed the door open all the way and stood on the first step, bending down to reach the bag two steps below. Something brushed against her leg and her heart stopped … then started up again when she realized it was only Belladonna.

  She grabbed the bag and was about to turn and rush into the safety of the kitchen when she noticed the cat was five steps down.

  “Mew.” Belladonna looked over her shoulder at Celeste and flicked her tail.

  “Belladonna, get back up here.” Celeste indicated the open door, but the cat just stared at her and took another step down.

  Celeste’s heart crunched. She didn’t want the cat to get stuck in the basement. She made swooshing noises and waved her hand toward the door.

  Belladonna sat down and licked her paw.

  “Oh, for crying out loud.” Celeste shoved the paper bag into the kitchen and tip toed down to the fourth step. She bent down to scoop up the cat, making the mistake of looking into the darkness that loomed below them.

  Her heart froze when she saw a little wisp of vapor at the bottom of the steps, swirling around as if it was beckoning to her. She blinked and it was gone. It might have just been her imagination, but she’d seen that type of vapor before and knew what it meant.

  A ghost.

  So far, all the ghosts she’d talked to had been friendly ones. Her grandmother and her spirit guide, Andrew. But they always appeared in warm, comforting places.

  She had no idea if the basement ghost would be friendly or not … and she had no intention of sticking around to find out. Grabbing Belladonna she lurched up the steps, into the kitchen and slammed the door shut behind her.

  “What the heck?”

  Celeste jerked her head in the direction of the voice, dropped the cat on the floor and got into her most defensive karate position, her heart beating wildly in her chest.

  “What is going on?” Her younger sister, Jolene stood in the kitchen, her chocolate brown curls matching her brows that were arched over ice-blue eyes.

  Celeste relaxed.

  “Oh, sorry. That basement always spooks me.” She didn’t want to get into the whole ghost thing with Jolene. Her sisters were just barely accepting the notion that she talked to their dead grandmother. She didn’t know what they would think if she told them she was seeing other ghosts too.

  “What are you doing home anyway?”

  “I’m just doing some homework for my computer forensics course.”

  Jolene, the youngest of the four sisters, had graduated high school the previous year and floated around most of the summer trying to find herself. After doing some computer work that helped them clear their oldest sister from a bogus murder charge, she’d finally found her calling—computer forensics.

  Now she was taking a course at the local college and starting a new career working for their other sister’s boyfriend Jake, a former Noquitt cop, who had just hung up his shingle as a private investigator.

  Thinking about it made Celeste smile. Jolene had only been fourteen when their mother died and she’d been hit pretty hard. The sisters had tried their best to get her through high school but she’d been a bit hard to handle. Even though it was mostly Morgan and Fiona that had done the “mothering” Celeste had done what she could and felt a glow of satisfaction that Jolene was finally on the right track.

  “Did you meet with the historian?” Jolene’s question interrupted Celeste’s thoughts and she frowned.

  “Yeah, but I have some bad news about that.” Celeste took the brown bag over to the kitchen island, grabbing a knife from the drawer on the way.

  “Bad news?”

  “Well good news and bad news, actually.” Celeste reached into the bag and pulled out a bright red tomato the size of her fist.

  “Give me the good news first.” Jolene handed a small cutting board to Celeste who got to work slicing the tomato.

  “Well, he said that he had made some progress figuring out the code in the journal.”

  Jolene’s eyebrows shot up. “That’s great.”

  Celeste nodded, still focused on the tomato. “Even better, he said that if his findings were correct it could have historical significance … and be worth a lot of money.”

  “What could be bad about that?”

  Celeste looked up from spreading the tomato slices out on a plate. “The bad part is that he dropped dead before he could tell me exactly what his findings were.”

  ***

  “What do you mean ‘dropped dead’?�
�� Jolene’s ice-blue eyes widened.

  Celeste shrugged. “I guess he had a heart attack. One minute he was sitting across from me in the booth and the next he was making gargling noises and keeling over.”

  “Oh, the poor guy.”

  “Yeah, he was a nice man.” Celeste sprinkled sea salt on the tomato slices and pushed the plate toward Jolene. “Help yourself.”

  Jolene picked up a bright red slice and lifted it to her mouth. “So, we need to find someone else to decipher the journal then?”

  “Why would we need to do that?” Celeste’s oldest sister, Morgan, asked from the kitchen doorway where she leaned against the opening in her usual calm manner.

  “Celeste just told me the guy we hired is dead,” Jolene said.

  “Who’s dead?” Fiona appeared behind Morgan, her fiery red curls and tense stance matching her feisty personality.

  “Reinhardt Skinner. I guess he had a heart attack.” Celeste bit into a tomato slice, her mouth watering with the earthy, salty flavor.

  “When did he die?” Fiona took a seat at the kitchen island and grabbed a slice of tomato.

  “At lunch with Celeste,” Jolene said.

  “You were with him?” Morgan turned to Celeste.

  “Yep.”

  “What happened?”

  “Well, we were eating lunch and he grabbed his chest and keeled over. I tried to do CPR but it was really too late. The EMT’s came and said there was nothing left to be done.” Celeste frowned. “Oh, and Overton came.”

  “Oh, I bet he loved finding you with a dead body.” Morgan stood on her tiptoes to reach up to the top shelf of one of the cabinets, her long, silky black pony tail swinging from side to side.

  “Yeah. He made the usual snide remarks, but at least this time there were plenty of witnesses that can vouch that I didn’t kill him.”

  “Because he wasn’t murdered,” Jolene added.