Dangerous Curves Boxed Set 1: 3 Cozy Christian Mysteries

by K L Montgomery

  I ducked under the yellow police caution tape wrapped around the wrought iron fence that enclosed Willa Bryce Monroe’s property. I had walked past her stately Victorian brick home a million times, but I’d never been inside. My heart thundered like a dozen race horses were heading toward an unseen finish line as I walked up the three steps to a wide concrete path that led to her front porch. Then it was up four more steps till I was on a beautiful veranda with an intricate tile and brick design on the floor and hanging pots of graceful ferns swaying in the morning breeze.

  I’d already called Evangeline and asked if she minded if I was late to work. I had a program that would be running into the early evening, so she didn’t care. I hardly ever had teen patrons in before noon, anyway.

  “Are you sure you should do that alone?” she’d questioned.

  “No, but I’m going to,” I answered confidently. I didn’t want to wait until she or Molly got off work. I could have asked Jada, but I was pretty sure she had a staff meeting this morning. Evidence was often fleeting, and I didn’t want to miss a chance at discovering something the police left behind.

  There was more police tape over the front door, but it was unlocked. I moved the tape aside, and the door creaked when I swung it open. I found myself standing in a grand foyer with a curved staircase winding its way to the second floor. A chandelier dripping with crystal beads sparkled when I flipped the switch near the door. A hall tree stood guard in one corner, empty, and a grandfather clock was stopped on 9:45 in the other corner.

  On either side of the staircase were openings to the rest of the house. It looked like a formal parlor to the left with a baby grand piano and Victorian furniture that reminded me of what I’d seen at the mayor’s house when Molly and I delivered goodies to Mrs. Steyer a few months ago after the library fundraising gala. The righthand side looked like it opened to a library, and I gasped when I saw the reading nook laid out in front of a beautiful bay window.

  I had to force myself to move beyond the bookshelves; otherwise, I could have happily stayed in that space for hours. The way the sun striped the comfy armchair and ottoman through the slats of the blinds, I could imagine curling up there with one or more leather-bound tomes and wasting away the entire morning with a cup of coffee at my side. Alas, I needed to look for clues.

  The parlor on the left opened to a formal dining room, and beyond that was the kitchen, which took up the entire back of the house and connected to the other side of the home via a narrow hallway. The windows above the sink looked out onto a garden, where there was a beehive with dozens of bees flitting between it and rows and rows of all sorts of summer flowers: towering daylilies, vibrant zinnias, clumps of begonias and geraniums, and big showy hydrangeas. It was a riot of colors with yellow, pink, purple, red, and white all represented against the verdant backdrop of leaves and bushes.

  The pantry door next to the hallway that led to the back door was ajar, so I pulled it open. One side was filled with canned goods and boxes of pasta and other staples. The other side was lined with shelf after shelf of honey. I’d never seen this many jars of honey outside a grocery store. Each shelf had jars tied with a different color of ribbon: yellow, blue, green, and red.

  It was tempting to pilfer one of those jars for my personal use, but I remembered I was there in a professional capacity. Okay, maybe I was still an amateur sleuth—I wasn’t getting paid, after all—but I wanted to be professional about it. Who knew? Maybe someday I could do this for a living. It wasn’t feasible to work with teenagers forever, was it? Surely at some point I would be hopelessly unhip and unrelatable to my adolescent patrons, if I wasn’t there already. Though my programs seemed to be thriving at the moment.

  I headed across the kitchen to another room off the back of the house. It wasn’t as wide, and it was immediately apparent this section had been added on. Maybe it was a garage in the past? Set up like an office, it was full of more bookshelves, but these looked like a professional or business collection, whereas the ones in the library at the front of the house looked like fiction, general reference works, and priceless first editions.

  A desk on the corner overlooked another window that faced the side garden, also full of flowers and buzzing with bees. Tall rhododendron bushes lined this side of the house, though they were not in bloom this late into the summer. I recognized their leaves from my own garden.

  Nothing signified a scuffle or any type of confrontation, leading me to believe Willa had either gone willingly with her captors, or she didn’t believe she was in danger. Maybe she was forced out of her own home at gunpoint. There was no blood anywhere that I could see—surely they wouldn’t have gotten it all cleaned up yet. Especially if she was found forty-eight hours after her death—those stains would be set in.

  My eyes were drawn to the computer sitting on the desk. It looked like an older desktop model, and the letters on the keyboard were worn, as was the mouse. Propped up against the lamp was a small spiral-bound notebook, the type with the wire on top. Scribbled in a long, flowing script, it read,

  pro journal

  honeydiaries

  8877ceb

  What on earth does that mean? I whipped out my phone and took a photo of the note. Then, when I passed through the kitchen again, I took a photo of the honey jars.

  I made my way upstairs, noting the family portraits that lined the staircase. There were baby pictures and old-fashioned wedding photographs—they looked like Mrs. Monroe’s from sixty years ago when she married Mr. Monroe. I snapped a few photos of them too as I ascended to the second floor.

  Like the ground level, this floor seemed undisturbed. Nothing pointed to any sort of altercation. No blood spatter on the walls, no blood on the long oriental rug that lined the polished wood floor of the hallway, no blood on the doors of any of the four bedrooms I counted. The one at the end of the hall appeared to be Mrs. Monroe’s.

  It’s impressive she could still climb these stairs at her age, I noted as I pushed the door open and made my way inside. Her bed was unmade. That was the only non-pristine thing in the entire house. I wondered if that meant her murderer came in the middle of the night. Glancing around, I spotted a pair of glasses on her bedside table. Did that mean she was unable to see what was happening to her?

  A Bible sitting under the glasses brought a tear to my eye. Willa Bryce Monroe was a woman of great faith, a longstanding member of my church. At least I can be comforted by the fact that she is home with Jesus, I thought as my gaze trailed over her personal effects.

  Her closet was full of beautiful gowns and simpler dresses and housecoats. I had never known her to wear pants, and I didn’t see any in her closet. Several items were encased in garment bags at the back, and lifting the corner of one, I saw it was a fur coat. I imagined the others were also furs or formalwear.

  Oh my gosh… Natty! I remembered as I spotted some dog hair on the chaise lounge beside the bed. It was a navy blue, and the dog’s light brown fur showed up well. It must have been one of his favorite lounging spots. I’m sure the police took the dog somewhere safe, I guessed as I began to head toward the door. The pain in my heart panged all over again as I imagined the poor pup missing his owner, who would never be returning.

  Before my eyes completely welled up with tears, I heard a squeak. It was the high-pitched creak of a foot on wooden stairs. Immediately my body froze in place, my spine feeling like it had turned into a block of ice. I held my breath as I waited for something…anything to happen.

  I heard another sound, a soft plodding down the hall, and the paralysis that inflicted me moments before gave way to a rush of adrenaline that dropped me to my knees on the far side of the bed. Then a voice carried down the hall into the bedroom.

  “We’ll have to let Mom’s housekeeper know,” said a male voice.

  “I already did. She won’t be coming until next week,” answered a female voice. “I don’t know what to do about that darn dog. I don’t want him!”

  “We’ll just have to
let the shelter find him a new family,” the male voice stated. “We have enough to worry about without adding him to the list.”

  Poor Natty, I thought as I lowered myself completely to the floor. I didn’t want to run the risk of my curly red hair sticking up and giving me away, or my ample rear end, for that matter.

  “I can’t bear to go into her room,” said the female voice.

  These must be Mrs. Monroe’s estranged children, I realized. I wasn’t sure where they lived, but it didn’t take them long to arrive. I wondered if they were staying here at her house. If so, how was I going to escape without having an awkward conversation about who I was and what I was doing in their mother’s house?

  I’ll just lay low for a moment. Hopefully they’ll leave soon.

  But I wasn’t about to stop listening. It was a private conversation, but who knew what kind of valuable information could be gleaned?

  Seven

  “It’s about time you showed up!” Evangeline was clearly exasperated by the time I dragged myself into work. She, Molly, and Jada were cleaning up their lunches and preparing to come inside from the courtyard. The skies were layered with gray clouds, but the rain seemed to be stuck inside them.

  “Sorry about that. I got trapped,” I explained.

  Three pairs of eyebrows shot up toward the heavens. “What do you mean, trapped?” Jada queried.

  I understood their concern—with me, it could mean anything!

  “Chief James told me I could check out Mrs. Monroe’s house—the police had finished up their investigation, but there’s still police tape everywhere, blocking it off. I was looking over everything when I heard voices—”

  Molly gasped, her hand flying to cover her mouth. “Murderers always return to the scene of the crime!”

  I chuckled. “Well, it turned out to be her children. But surely they’re innocent.”

  “I almost forgot she had children.” Evangeline sighed. “From what I understand, they were estranged. Did you talk to them?”

  “No!” I shook my head. “I was afraid it would be too weird, and I didn’t know how to explain why I was in their mother’s house. So I hid behind the bed while they were walking through and talking about everything.”

  Molly laughed. “Oh my gosh, I’m picturing you hiding behind the bed, and I don’t know why, but it’s just so funny!” She couldn’t seem to get her giggles under control and was waving her hands around like she was struggling to get a full breath.

  I rolled my eyes at her. Justifiably so, I might add. “Yeah, real funny. But listen to this, guys…”

  All three bodies leaned toward me, eager to hear my report. “No, this won’t work. There are too many people around.” I gestured toward the courtyard door, and my boss wasted no time in pulling it open and ushering the group back outside.

  Seconds later, the four of us were standing in the courtyard in the thick, humid afternoon air. It was like stepping into a sauna. “Ugh…it’s miserable out here.”

  “Hurry up and tell us what they said!” Evangeline urged me.

  I began my spiel: “So, first they were complaining about the dog—”

  “Oh, no, poor Natty!” Molly gasped. “What did they end up doing with him?”

  “They said he was at a shelter,” I replied. “He has to be absolutely heartbroken.”

  Molly’s lips curled down as her eyes filled with tears. “I will have to find out where he is. Maybe Murphy needs a friend?”

  “Aw, that’s sweet!” Jada gushed, putting her arm around Molly and giving her a sympathetic squeeze.

  “What else?” Evangeline was clearly ready for me to cut to the chase.

  I glanced around the courtyard just to make sure no one else had wandered out there, though I doubted it with the skies threatening to open up at any moment. “Her daughter said something about a ‘honey convention.’ And her son said, ‘Don’t worry; I’ve taken care of it.’”

  “‘Don’t worry; I’ve taken care of it,’” Molly repeated. “That sounds suspicious. What’s a honey convention?”

  “I don’t know for sure, but she has a pantry full of honey, and there are bees in the backyard.”

  “Bees?” Jada asked.

  “She was a beekeeper,” I explained. “I know. I had no clue either. There were four shelves full of honey, and each shelf had a different color ribbon around the neck.”

  “Oh, that’s such a strange hobby!” Jada exclaimed. “What do you think the ribbons mean?”

  “Well, Mrs. Monroe was a bit of a strange duck,” I rationalized, a few of the many conversations I’d had with her through the years springing to mind. “So I have no idea, but I did take a photo.” I pulled out my phone and showed them the photo I took of her pantry.

  Then, slipping past that photo to the one of her office, I said, “I also found a strange note by her computer.”

  “Pro Journal?” Jada studied the photo more closely. “Isn’t that an online diary? Kind of like a blog, but it’s meant to be private.”

  “Oh, maybe?” I hadn’t thought of that. It was a little hard to fathom Willa Bryce Monroe using a computer, but she did have one there, and it did look well used.

  “That could be the login,” Molly ventured, finally recovered from her giggles.

  “Maybe it is.” Could I try to hack into her online diary? I wondered if the police had seen the note? They hadn’t collected it into evidence, after all.

  “What else did her kids say?” Evangeline pressed.

  “They were talking about the funeral…and a couple things I didn’t quite catch about her estate.”

  Molly’s eyes widened. “Do you think…?”

  I glanced back down at the photo of the note I found on her computer before my gaze bounced between my three colleagues. “Surely the developer with the mob ties is our murderer.” Their expressions didn’t change. “Right?”

  I fell asleep on the couch, where I’d been trying to find out everything I could about Willa Bryce Monroe’s children. Her son, Nathaniel Bryce Monroe—named, obviously, after Willa’s ancestor who founded Bryce Beach— worked in finance in New York City, where he was a partner in the firm Benson, Hayes & Monroe. Her daughter, Matilda Monroe, was a retired model who lived in Los Angeles and apparently still did stage work from time to time. I perused a few vintage clothing ads she did in the eighties. Holy shoulder pads, Batman!

  I was trying to see if there was any connection between the son and Marco Callaghini, the developer, since they were both in New York, but I hadn’t found anything yet. Yawning, I stretched and apparently disturbed Bond, who had been curled up beside me. He jumped off the sofa, landing softly on all four paws. Then his whole body shook, his tail twitching, incensed I had dared to disturb his slumber.

  After grabbing my phone, I plodded down the hallway to my bedroom, not bothering to change clothes, brush my teeth, or any of my other usual nighttime tasks. If I didn’t get back to sleep right away, my brain would insist on going back to the puzzle I was trying to work out, the puzzle of Mrs. Monroe’s shooting and her body washing up on the shore.

  Though, I still wasn’t clear if she had washed up onshore, or if she’d just been left there on the beach. Where was she shot? I guessed the owners of the property where she was found weren’t suspects. When I drove back by there earlier today, the police tape had been removed, and the guy was out in his yard on a riding lawn mower like everything was business as usual. Like an elderly woman hadn’t been found dead just yards away. I was surprised someone that rich didn’t pay a company to take care of his lawn, but I convinced myself it was the owner because he looked like he’d just come from the golf course.

  See? I was never going to get to sleep like this. I. Was. Obsessed.

  My thoughts slowly drifted toward Chief James and our conversation in his office, about the runaway kid and how his parents had passed away. My heart ached for that kid. I wondered if his next foster family would be the one to make a difference, to help the poor boy heal.


  My alarm blaring, I jerked awake, the dream I was having still fresh on my mind. My arm sprang out to turn off the assault to my ears as the fuzzy images began to fade. No! I reached out and desperately snatched at them, needing to remember the plot of the dream.

  Oh, yeah…

  I stretched as I swung my legs over the side of the bed, lowering them until they hit the floor. When I looked over at Paigie-Poo curled up on the pillow next to where I’d been sleeping, I remembered the dream took place at work. The kid who tried to steal the donation box at the library had been marched back in to apologize to the entire library staff. His new foster parents were standing behind him, wearing scowls as his quivering voice tried to find the words to say he was sorry.

  If I felt bad for the kid before, I felt even worse now, and my brain had totally made the whole thing up.

  While I was stirring creamer into my much-needed coffee, the proverbial lightbulb lit up in my brain as the memory of something I’d seen in my internet searches bloomed. When I was on the page for Benson, Hayes & Monroe, Nathaniel Monroe’s financial advising firm, I saw a link to a list of clients. Before even taking the first sip of coffee, I scrambled over to where I’d left my laptop in the living room and pulled up their website again.

  Sure enough, when I clicked on the list of clients and scrolled down, the logo for MC Properties, Inc. popped out at me, sparking recognition. A quick search revealed that MC Properties was owned by none other than Marco Callaghini.

  Everyone at work was busy all morning, so I had to wait until lunchtime to tell them about my discovery. I wondered if the state police had put it together yet—I was willing to bet I’d beat them to the punch. Picking up my desk phone, I prepared to call the police station to tell Chief James the news, but before I could dial out, my other line rang.

  “Sunshine Baker, YA Librarian,” I answered as cheerily as I could.