Stormy Day Mysteries 5-Book Cozy Murder Mystery Series Bundle

by Angela Pepper

  I sipped a beer from a can and checked my phone for messages from my roommate.

  “No veggie burger,” I told Logan. “Jessica's having dinner with her mom.”

  “What?” He hadn't heard me over the sound of his scraping. I started to repeat what I'd just told him, but he impatiently started scraping the racks again before I could answer.

  I yelled, “No veggie burger!”

  He paused long enough to say, “Does she want it well done? I never know how long to cook these stupid mushroom-oat-bran-quinoa things.” And then he tossed one of Jessica's veggie burgers onto the grill with a sizzle.

  I got up from my patio chair and went to hug him from behind. He pushed me away. “Hot grill!”

  I took a step back and bit my tongue. Logan had been working long hours, and today had felt like the first time I'd seen him in years. But with that treatment, I was feeling like a stranger in his life. I wanted to yank the spatula out of his hand and paddle his butt with it for not listening to me, but you know what they say. Violence is not the answer to relationship problems.

  “Jessica's not coming home for dinner,” I said.

  He gave me an indignant look. “Why didn't you tell me? Now this lemongrass-tofu burger is going to waste.”

  “I'll eat it,” I said. “And it's a lentil-cashew burger.”

  “It smells like wet cardboard,” he said. “If you eat this, who'll eat your steak? Will your father eat two of them?”

  “Dad's not coming tonight,” I said. “Which you would know if you actually listened to me.”

  “Oh?” He returned his attention to the grill, turning his back to me, but there was no mistaking the fight in his voice. I could imagine the facial expression that went with it.

  The urge to hit him with the spatula returned. I retreated back to the picnic table and my beer.

  Logan glanced back over his shoulder at me, eyebrow raised. “That's it? You're not going to talk to me?”

  “I'm letting you grill in peace.”

  After a few minutes, he asked, “Is it just the two of us tonight? What are the neighbors up to?”

  “Dean and Eve? Beats me.”

  Dean and Eve Lubbesmeyer had just moved into the house next door in August. They'd arrived on the day of the town's annual Forest Folk Run, a charity event that people walked or ran while wearing costumes ranging from furry Forest Folk monster suits to zombies. The zombie look had been increasing in popularity lately. Dean and Eve had been driving their moving truck, which was packed full of all their earthly possessions, when a volunteer stopped their vehicle to let a group of zombies cross the street. Dean and Eve had looked at each other in horror, doubting their decision to move to Misty Falls. Did people in the town normally dress in tattered clothes and walk at a shuffling pace? Wave after wave of zombies surrounded the moving truck, all moaning and groaning. A few muscular troublemakers came up with the fun idea to shake the moving truck, so they did. And the squeaking of the truck only spurred the zombies on. Now, the Lubbesmeyers didn't have a Forest Folk Run where they came from, and they'd never seen zombies outside of Halloween, so what were they to think? Confusion turned to panic. After a few terrifying minutes of having their truck rocked by zombies, Dean leaned on the horn. The zombies all jumped back. That was when Eve noticed the blood and falling-off body parts were just makeup and monster effects. The whole spectacle was all in good fun. They rolled down their windows and congratulated the zombies for giving them a good scare. After the zombie horde cleared away and let them continue on their way, Dean and Eve laughed the rest of the way to their new home.

  Other than their colorful entry to the town, I didn't know much about Dean and Eve Lubbesmeyer, except that they were empty nesters whose kids had all left for college, and they'd been flirting with the idea of early retirement when they discovered that the factory that made their favorite potato chips was for sale. They visited Misty Falls in the spring of that year on a zombie-free day, toured the factory, and soon became the new owners of Aunt Jo's Crispy Spuds. The first time I met Dean and Eve, we bonded over our shared love of the chip company's logo featuring Aunt Jo, with her curls freshly set from the hairdresser, and her good pearls worn proudly around her neck.

  “We should see if Dean and Eve want these other steaks,” Logan said. “We can't let them go to waste.”

  Suddenly, a face appeared over the fence separating my backyard from the Lubbesmeyers'. It was Eve, with her spiky, pale purple hair. She must have climbed a ladder to peer over at us with comically good timing.

  Logan laughed. “Speak of the devil!”

  She asked, “Did I hear somebody talking about steaks going to waste? That's a crime where we come from. Punishable by public shaming in the local newspaper.”

  Logan replied, “Were you doing some gardening just now?”

  “No,” she said with a straight face. “I always kneel on this side of the fence and listen in when you two lovebirds are back here. Between your law practice and the private investigation business, it's my best way to get all the local gossip. Then I go down to Ruby's Treasure Trove and sell the intel to Ruby piece by piece.”

  Logan laughed again. I couldn't help but notice he found Eve's antics far more amusing than my own. I sipped my beer and watched him chat with Eve. She called for her husband to come outside, they negotiated with Logan on side dishes, then they disappeared into their house to rustle up a salad. Logan finished grilling the three steaks and lone veggie burger without saying a word to me.

  I got the sense I'd done something to upset him, but I couldn't think of what.

  I recalled what one of the security guards had said about Colt, about how he was the kind of guy who bottled up his feelings. Was Logan bottling something? I watched his careful movements as he set the platter of grilled food on the picnic table. He barely even glanced up at me. He could have been alone right now, for all the interaction he was giving me.

  Jeffrey appeared in my lap as if by magic. I was petting his head before I even realized he was there.

  “You're like smoke,” I told him. “You waft in on a breeze, don't you?”

  He looked at the steaks and licked his lips. “Just one little piece,” I said, reaching for the platter.

  “Don't,” Logan said. “Steaks need to rest after grilling, or the juices will leak out.”

  I looked down at Jeffrey. “Sorry. You heard the grill man. Stop trying to ruin dinner.”

  Logan sighed. “Now you're making me the bad guy.”

  “He doesn't speak English,” I said. “He's a cat.” I tilted my head. “What's gotten into you?”

  Logan didn't get a chance to answer—not that he looked like he wanted to.

  “Knock, knock,” said Dean Lubbesmeyer as he entered the backyard from the back of the house. Grinning, he said, “We should cut a hole in our fence to make it easier to get over here for the free food!”

  Eve said, “Or dig a tunnel underneath!”

  Logan looked right at me. “You'll have to discuss it with the land owner herself. I have no stake in this property.”

  Eve and Dean looked at each other for a moment before bursting into laughter. That was the great thing about the two of them—they took everything as a big joke, whether it was or not. Given Logan's cranky mood, I was happy to have them there.

  Later, when Dean cut a piece of his steak into tiny cubes and “accidentally” dropped them on the concrete patio pavers, Jeffrey was even more happy to have the Lubbesmeyers there.

  “These are great steak knives,” Dean commented. “Laguiole. If you ever need them sharpened, let me know. You have to sharpen each serration separately.”

  “Thanks for the offer,” I said.

  “Oops. Dropped another piece,” Dean said.

  Jeffrey pounced on the chunk of steak. He was well beyond trying to appear cool and practically begged like a hound dog.

  “Butter fingers,” Eve said with a tsk-tsk.

  As the sun set and the air turned chill
y enough for us to bring out blankets to drape over ourselves, Dean and Eve regaled us with tales from the potato chip factory. In the short time since they'd taken over as owners, they'd cycled through a number of shift supervisors and support staff. Even their management team had been fighting with each other like unsupervised children.

  “Some people can't handle change,” Logan said. “They're acting out because they're afraid.”

  Eve batted her lashes. “Afraid of little ol' me?”

  Dean patted his wife on the shoulder. “You and your army of robots,” he said.

  I leaned in. “Robots?” Now he had my attention.

  Dean explained, “The old owners still had staff hand-picking out the chips with brown spots. We brought in a machine that scans every chip visually, sends the imaging to a computer, which then controls these nifty little hot-air jets that remove the flawed chips. The burned ones, and the green ones that contain trace amounts of solanine.”

  Eve grinned. “It's an incredible piece of equipment. Very expensive, but it will pay for itself in saved labor.”

  “What do you do with the flawed chips?” My mouth watered at all the discussion of potato chips. My cashew-lentil burger hadn't exactly filled me up.

  “We're debating leaving a few in,” Dean said. “One or two per bag gives it that authentic artisanal quality people enjoy.”

  “Plus it gives you a target for Last Chip Standing,” I said. They appeared to be perplexed by this, so I explained, “When you're eating chips, you always have that one you think you won't eat at all, but then the perfect ones are all gone, and you think, oh what the heck. You eat the grisly brown one. But then you have a burned taste in your mouth, so you have to get something else to snack on.”

  Dean and Eve stared at me in stunned silence then burst out laughing again. Eve declared me to be the Funniest Person in Misty Falls.

  I said to Logan, “Did you hear that? I should write down all my many thoughts and adventures and get a big TV series on HBO.”

  “Leave me out of it,” he said moodily.

  Eve said, “Speaking of HBO, did you see that crowd at the casino yesterday? You'd think they were giving away buckets of money to everyone with a cute kid. I tell you, someone's going to be coming into a few bucks real soon.”

  Dean patted his wife on the shoulder. “My wife isn't materialistic. She just loves money, and she's a whiz with it.”

  Eve smiled. “I do love money. But not in a materialistic way.”

  Dean gazed lovingly at his youthful-acting, purple-haired, fifty-something wife. “And I love seeing you scheming about money, babe.”

  “I love that you love my scheming.”

  They leaned in and touched their noses in a sweet gesture that was almost too sweet.

  My heart buoyed as I witnessed the Lubbesmeyers' everlasting love. I looked across the table at Logan.

  He was reading the ingredients on the bottle of barbecue sauce.

  Chapter 10

  Sunday night, I crawled into bed feeling like a bag of junk with no handle. The cashew-lentil burger sat low and heavy in my stomach, plus I hadn't smoothed things out with Logan. I didn't get a chance. He'd excused himself for bed at the same time the neighbors went home.

  I tossed and turned so much that even Jeffrey abandoned me.

  Once I did get to sleep, my dreams were as vivid as reality.

  I found myself at Samantha's open house, alone in the tiny upstairs bedroom with Colt Canuso. He took me by the hand and gazed at me with his sensitive, soulful, dark-brown eyes. He told me, “You're too good for Logan. He doesn't appreciate what he's got.”

  And then we kissed.

  We kissed so vividly that when I woke up at five o'clock in the morning in a panic sweat, I had to say to myself, out loud, “It was just a dream.”

  I couldn't get back to sleep. I lay in the dark and listened to the garbage trucks moving up and down the street. And I suddenly remembered I'd forgotten to put out the trash the night before. Should I pull on my housecoat now, and run out? Was that the sound of the garbage truck moving toward my house or away?

  I drifted in and out of consciousness, imagining myself running around in Pam's old housecoat. Running away from her while she fired my father's gun at me.

  More bad dreams and panic sweating.

  The garbage trucks were getting closer, and they were full of dead bodies and secrets. Everyone was angry at me, disappointed in me.

  I woke up with a dry mouth.

  Jeffrey came padding into the bedroom and gave me a chatty meow from the doorway. If you're up already, how about we make it Kitty Play Time? He slipped underneath my bed, swatted something around on the wood floor, and then hopped up next to me with a mouse-shaped toy in his mouth. Even in the darkness, I knew the toy had gotten covered in dust bunnies under my bed. I didn't want him to ingest the fluff, so I flicked on the bedside lamp and picked the mouse clean while Jeffrey tried to wrestle it from my hands. By the time I was done cleaning his mouse, I was fully awake.

  I climbed out of bed and flicked on the overhead light, since the sun wasn't up yet. By the time I'd picked out some clothes to wear to work at the store, Jeffrey had finished swatting the stuffed catnip toy around the bed. He curled up on my pillow, clutching his mouse in his front paws and licking it with his noisy, raspy tongue.

  “Busy day planned?”

  He kept licking the mouse, making the tiny bell on its nose tinkle.

  “Me, too,” I said. “It's Monday, so I'll be putting in the store's orders. I'll get an early start on things.”

  He gave me a dopey look.

  “You're high on catnip,” I said.

  More dopey blinking.

  I carefully pinched his mouse toy by the tail and gave it a few tugs. His eyes widened and he twitched his head from side to side as he extended his claws into the stuffed toy. I curled up next to him and immediately fell asleep again.

  I awoke when my alarm clock went off. I was partly dressed and lying sideways on the bed, with one arm underneath myself and numb. I'd left the lights on, and the room was strangely bright, like a warehouse grocery store.

  So much for getting an early start on my day.

  I was brushing my teeth when the vivid dreams about Colt came back to me.

  By the time I got to Glorious Gifts, I was still thinking about the love triangle between Samantha Sweet, Michael Sweet, and Colt Canuso.

  I meant to get started right away on the store's restock orders but didn't.

  The manager of my gift shop, Brianna Chang, arrived for her shift. She walked into the office at the back of the store and caught me stalking Colt Canuso via his social media accounts.

  “Busted,” Brianna said.

  I wheeled my computer chair around and gave her a guilty look.

  Brianna looked a bit less than her usual perky self that Monday morning. Had she also been plagued by weird dreams and demanding pets?

  Unlike my own fuzzy hair that day, Brianna's hair looked nice. She always wore her thick, dark-brown, pin-straight hair combed forward to hide her ears, which she was self-conscious about sticking out. Her round, makeup-free face looked different that morning. She had a tiny pimple along the edge of her jaw, and her big brown eyes weren't as bright as usual. Her outfit was one of her Librarian Chic looks—pencil skirt, white blouse with rounded collar, and a lightweight red cardigan. The cardigan had one button fastened, but it was a mismatch, paired with the wrong hole.

  She leaned over my shoulder to look at my computer screen, which was showing the photos on Colt's personal social media account.

  She made a tsk-tsk sound. “That sure doesn't look like the candles order.”

  I gave my employee a sheepish one-shoulder shrug.

  “Sorry, boss.” I snapped my fingers. “Oh, wait. You're not my boss.” I pointed at myself slowly and then at her. “I think maybe I'm your boss. Could it be? Could someone as smart and sophisticated as myself actually pay someone else to boss her around about
candle orders?”

  “We need those candles,” Brianna said tersely. “Her Royal Highness put in a special order for three dozen of the lavender ones.”

  “The Countess?”

  “No, the Queen of England,” Brianna snapped. “She shops here regularly. With all her corgis and everything. You haven't noticed?”

  “Your sarcasm is bordering on actual nastiness today, Brianna. Did Evil Chad make your mocha decaf for some wicked reason?”

  “I wish.” She wrinkled her nose. “I didn't stop at the coffee shop. Before I left home, I had an herbal cleansing tea that's supposed to get rid of my toxins.”

  I snorted. “Without your toxins, what would be left?”

  She blinked at me with a faux-murderous expression.

  “Go,” I said, waving her away. “Go get yourself a full-caff mocha, and pick me up a you-know-what.”

  “What about my cleanse? I have a pimple. From toxins.” She pointed to her chin and the teeny tiny bump.

  “Brianna, everyone knows you don't have to drink herbal cleansing tea until you have three pimples.” The key to lying is to make it broad yet also specific.

  She bought it. “Oh. Cool.”

  Brianna left me to my cyberstalking, which I picked up right where I'd left off.

  I read the newest post on the casino's website. After the public altercation between Michael Sweet and casino staff on Saturday, the casino's publicist had issued a statement of apology for an unspecified event. We regret any negative impact this unfortunate event may have had for families attending the festivities, it read, and so forth.

  Michael and Samantha Sweet had posted their own vague regrets as well. Their real estate office had issued a statement of apology that didn't quite apologize so much as spread the blame over a wide range of factors including hot weather, a crowd-induced panic attack, and even the side-effects of medication for a lingering ear infection. I rolled my eyes. Their publicist was certainly creative.

  On the positive side, nobody had been seriously injured during the ruckus. Jessica had talked to Samantha over the weekend and gotten more details. Young Sophie had been happily occupied with her best friend Q, chaperoned by both Chip and Quinn McCabe. During the “regrettable incident,” the four of them had been in another part of the resort, getting butterflies painted on all of their faces.