Whispering Bay Cozy Mysteries Box Set

by Maria Geraci

  “Let me guess. When Tara told you she had to film here in Whispering Bay, you demanded your ten thousand dollars back. Only she wouldn’t give it to you, would she?”

  “She laughed in my face. Said I was stupid enough to pay her and the money was hers now.”

  “That must have made you mad.”

  “You better believe it made me mad. A deal is a deal.”

  “So you and Gilly came up with a plan to make her sick so Gilly could bring the show back to Catfish Cove.”

  “Downtown is all cleaned up now. There’s no reason to film the show here, not when it was supposed to be in my town all along.”

  “I understand,” I say trying for a soothing tone. “Tara wasn’t a nice person. She took your money, then double crossed you. I’m sure the courts will be lenient. First offender and all. Um, this is a first offense, right?”

  “I know what you’re doing, but it isn’t going to work. There isn’t going to be any court because I’m not going to get caught.”

  “How do you plan on that? What? Are you going to kill both Brittany and me?”

  “Lucy, please,” says Brittany. “Don’t give this loon any ideas.”

  “Yeah, Lucy, don’t give me any ideas,” he parrots. “I’ll tell you how I’m going to get away with this.” He glances wildly around the room until his gaze settles on a closet door. “In there, both of you. Now!” he roars.

  “Jeez, okay, no need to yell. What are you gonna do? Lock us up in the closet? Good idea.”

  Darren stills. “You’re right. Eventually you’ll both get out, and then you’ll call the cops.”

  “Lucy, for the love of God, please stop making this worse,” says Brittany.

  He closes his eyes like he’s thinking. When he opens them again, the smile on his face gives me the willies. He nods toward the desk. “Those muffins you brought me. Take them out of the bag.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I said so, that’s why!”

  I have a bad feeling about this, but what choice do I have? I take the remaining two muffins out of the bag and place them on the desk.

  “In the corner, over there,” he says, nodding his head toward the wall. “Open up my briefcase. Inside the inner pocket, you’ll find a vial and a syringe.”

  I hold up the vial to the light. “Is this what I think it is?”

  “Never mind what it is. Just fill up the syringe.”

  “This is what you used to poison Tara,” I say.

  “Only a little in her whiskey. She didn’t even notice. Until that last dose, when I gave her just the right amount.” He smiles causing a chill to run down my spine.

  “Then it wasn’t an accident after all. You meant for her to die.”

  “The bitch wouldn’t give me back my ten thousand dollars. Said she’d already spent it all. I did what I had to do.”

  “What did you do with the whiskey bottle? The cops never found it, you know.”

  “I threw it in the gulf. Pretty clever of me, huh?”

  “You threw a glass bottle into the gulf?” Brittany gasps. “Do you know how environmentally incorrect that is?”

  “So sue me.” He laughs. “Now be a good girl and fill up that syringe,” he says to me.

  “Why?”

  “I thought you were supposed to be smart. So you can inject it into the muffins.”

  “What … wait. You want me to pump up my muffins with cyanide? Are you crazy?”

  “No, my dear Lucy, I’m afraid you’re the one who’s crazy. You poisoned Tara, and then when Brittany here found out, you poisoned her too. After you watched her die, you were so filled with remorse that you took your own life. Murder by muffin. It’s sort of a fitting ending for you, isn’t it?”

  “No one is ever going to believe that.”

  “Why not? Trust me, I can sell it. You both thought I was nothing but a mild-mannered city employee, right?”

  Paco snarls at Darren, baring his teeth at him.

  Darren makes a face at Paco. “Maybe once the two of you are gone, I’ll give Fido here some of the leftover muffin. Think he’ll like that?”

  “You’re sick. What has Paco ever done to you?”

  “I don’t like the way he’s looking at me.” He readjusts the knife over Brittany’s throat. “You’re wasting time. Go ahead and inject the muffins. Now.”

  I do as he says, all the while trying desperately to think of a way out of this. If only I could get to my cell phone, but it’s on the desk, and there’s no way I can reach it and dial 911 before he hurts Brittany. I look at Paco, who’s still snarling at Darren. His stance is rigid, and his eyes are glazed over with anger. I know he wants to lunge at Darren, but he’s smart enough to realize it would put Brittany’s life in danger.

  I finish with the muffins.

  “Good girl. Now take a big bite.”

  “No way.”

  “Either you take a bite or I slit Brittany’s throat. I have a feeling that would be very messy,” he singsongs.

  I pick up the muffin like it’s a stick of lit dynamite.

  My life flashes before my eyes. Of all the ways to die, it seems very unfair to be done in by a blueberry muffin. If I have to be poisoned, why couldn’t it be by eating something I enjoyed? Like one of my double chocolate chip muffins or, yes, I’ll admit it now that time is running out, one of Heidi’s crumb cake donuts? I make a vow that if somehow I get out of this scrape, I’ll never be jealous of Heidi and her donuts again.

  Correction: Since jealousy is an emotion, I can’t help but feel it, but I’ll never act in a petty way toward Heidi again.

  “Go ahead, Lucy,” taunts Darren, “or I cut Brittany’s throat open.”

  I close my eyes. I have to do it. Maybe I can pretend to take a bite … or maybe …

  I open my eyes and look directly at Paco. “Okay, I’ll do it. I’ll take a bite of this muffin laced with cyanide. I’ll do it right now.”

  Please, Paco, I need your help.

  I take a bite, filling my mouth with as much muffin as I possibly can cram inside. Darren’s eyes go wide with surprise. He probably thought I’d take a tiny delicate bite, but that won’t work with my plan. I chew the muffin, praying that Paco understands what I need him to do.

  Okay, here goes.

  Right when it seems like I’m about to swallow, I spit all the chewed-up muffin straight into Darren’s face.

  “What the—!” Paco leaps in the air, knocking Darren off balance. The knife falls from his hand and lands on the floor. Brittany scurries to scoop it up.

  “Get that dog off of me!” Darren shrieks like a girl. He’s flat on his back with Paco on his chest growling down at him.

  “Good boy, Paco!” I shout.

  “Lucy, call the cops!” says Brittany. “And wash your mouth out!”

  Right. I call 911, then run to the bathroom to rinse my mouth out like Brittany suggested. Ugh. I don’t know what’s worse, the taste of the cyanide or the blueberry muffin.

  When I get back to Brittany’s office, she’s standing over Darren’s head with the knife in her hands. “How dare you?” Her eyes are dark with indignation. “I took you under my wing, and this is the thanks I get! For the past week I’ve had to listen to your stupid slogans and ideas and pretend to like them! No wonder the Catfish Cove Chamber of Commerce is in trouble with you at the helm.”

  Paco growls at Darren like he agrees.

  A couple of minutes later, Zeke and Travis bust into the office. They take one look at Darren on the floor with Paco and Brittany standing guard over him and holster their weapons.

  “What’s going on, Lucy?” asks Travis. “The dispatcher said you were in trouble.”

  “That,” I say, pointing to Darren, “is Tara Bell’s killer. He admitted to poisoning her. Oh, and you better call the cops in Catfish Cove and have them pick up Gilly. She was his accomplice in the whole thing.”

  “Please,” Darren whines, “get this friggin’ dog off of me before he tears my face off.�
��

  Zeke looks around the office. “What happened here?”

  I open my mouth to explain, but Brittany jumps in first. “Lucy figured out that Darren was the one who poisoned Tara. When he realized he was cornered, he tried to get Lucy and me to eat a poisoned muffin, but between the three of us we managed to out-trick him.”

  “The three of you?”

  “Yes.” She lifts her chin in the air. “The three of us. Lucy, me, and Paco.”

  Paco barks as if to say, Yeah, the three of us!

  21

  It’s Sunday night dinner at the McGuffin homestead. The usual suspects sit around the table, including Brittany and Will, and thanks to my mom’s eager-beaver ways, Travis and Jim are here tonight as well.

  Talk about the most awkward dinner of all time. The two guys I’m interested in are sitting less than three feet away from each other. The only thing saving me from whisking up Paco, placing him in my car and driving far, far away is that Travis is filling us all in on what’s going on with Tara’s case. That and my mom’s lasagna (which she opted on tonight instead of the shrimp Newberg, probably because she knows it’s my favorite and that there’s no way I’d miss dinner if she was serving it).

  “Gilly signed a confession and has already cut a deal with the DA,” says Travis.

  “Did she tell you why she showed up here the morning I found Tara’s body?” I ask.

  “That night after you left, Gilly and Tara had words. Tara suspected Gilly might have given her something to make her sick and pretty much accused her of trying to poison her. That’s when Gilly freaked out and sprinkled the cyanide on the remaining muffins. The next morning when she went to check on Tara and found her bed empty she was terrified that Tara might have gone to the hospital, or worse the police, so she drove all over town trying to find her. When she found Tara’s car in your parking lot, she assumed that Tara had come to ask you for help.”

  It’s what I thought, but it’s still hard to hear. “I wish I’d answered my phone when she called.”

  “You couldn’t have known, Lucy,” Will says quietly.

  “What about Winters?” asks my brother.

  “He’s still proclaiming his innocence.”

  Paco sits up from his place at my feet and barks in indignation.

  “That’s what I say,” says Brittany. “The nerve of him! I still can’t believe I wasted an entire week of my life trying to teach that man PR. All his slogans were perfectly dreadful. If I’d known he was a killer, I wouldn’t have bothered.”

  Will and I exchange a glance because … well, that’s just so Brittany.

  “He can claim he’s innocent all he wants,” says Jim. “I’ve gotten a look at the evidence, and it’s pretty airtight against him. He’ll have a hard time convincing a jury he didn’t mean to kill Tara Bell.”

  “Now that all that’s settled,” says Mom, “has everyone read the big article in the paper about Lucy?”

  Dad sighs like he’s heard this before because he has. Ever since the article in the Whispering Bay Gazette came out yesterday, it’s all Mom has been able to talk about. “We’ve all read it, Molly. Three times.”

  Mom giggles. “Yes, but it’s already out of date. Since that article was written, Lucy’s caught another killer. I could get used to having a famous daughter.” She smiles at me proudly. “Especially a famous married daughter.”

  A piece of garlic bread sticks in my throat, causing me to gag.

  Travis, who’s sitting next to me, slaps me on the back. “Just let me know if you need me to do the Heimlich,” he says with an evil twinkle in his eye.

  I choke down the bread and give him a snarky look. He’s enjoying this Sunday dinner with my parents way too much. I glance over at Will to gauge his reaction to my mother’s over-the-top statement. He smiles tightly. “You okay, Lucy?”

  I gulp down some water. “Just fine,” I croak.

  “So,” Mom continues, “I have another bit of exciting news.”

  We all look up from our plates, waiting for her to continue, because frankly, I can’t imagine what’s more exciting than a murder.

  “J.W. Quicksilver is coming to town!” she announces.

  Okay, that would be it.

  “Betty Jean called me this afternoon with the good news. He’ll be here in two weeks for her Thursday book club meeting. Thank goodness I said yes when she asked me to join the club. Once everyone in town hears that he’s coming, they’ll be begging her for an invite.”

  Brittany squeals. “I have to have his number.” She turns to Will. “Let’s see if we can get him to do a signing at the library. Two weeks isn’t nearly enough time to get the word out, but maybe I can turn this into a big literary event for the town.”

  “I guess I’ll have to rejoin Betty Jean’s book club,” I say, acting resigned, but inside I’m every bit as excited as Brittany. J.W. Quicksilver in Whispering Bay! I can’t believe Betty Jean pulled it off.

  Everyone starts talking about it except Will. I glance over at him. “You’re awful quiet. You okay?”

  He clears his throat. “I’m good.” But he looks pale to me. I hope he’s not coming down with something.

  “I’ve just finished J.W.’s newest book,” says Dad. “Assassin’s Dilemna. I think this one is his best ever. It’s about this guy who goes undercover as a pool shark. Very witty. Lots of big action scenes.”

  “Oh, I’ll have to read it next,” says Mom.

  Pool shark?

  I glance back at Will. He’s staring down at his plate.

  An idea occurs to me that’s so completely absurd I can’t even think it without immediately telling myself that I have to be wrong.

  “Can I see you in the kitchen?” I say to Will.

  “What’s up?” asks Mom. She looks at Will and frowns. “Oh, dear, you look positively white. You’re not sick, are you?”

  Will gets up from the table. “I’m fine, Molly, thanks,” he mumbles. He avoids my gaze as he follows me from the dining room into the kitchen. Paco follows as well. You’d think a girl could get a little privacy from her dog now and then, but considering I owe him my life, I’ll cut him some slack. Besides, whatever Will tells me, Paco will find out eventually.

  “Are you sure you’re all right?” I ask him.

  His color is back now. “Your mom sure does seem to like Fontaine.”

  “She has plans.”

  “Do your plans match up with hers?”

  That’s the million-dollar question.

  “I’m not sure,” I answer honestly.

  He doesn’t say anything for a minute. “What was Tara going to use against you and Sarah during the cooking competition?” he asks.

  I blink. “Where did that come from?”

  “I just remembered there was something in those notes about everyone except you.”

  I was wondering when someone was going to ask me that.

  “That’s because I tore those pages up. Believe me, we weren’t exempt from the notebook from hell. Tara had a couple of angles, neither of which were pretty.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “She was going to try to pit Sarah and I against one another by saying that Sarah was jealous of me because everyone comes to The Bistro for my muffins. Which is totally not true. Sarah’s mac and cheese is one of our best sellers.”

  “And the other angle?”

  I hesitate.

  “Lu-cy,” he says, imitating Ricky Ricardo from the old I Love Lucy shows, something my brother does all the time. It usually raises a giggle from me, but I’m not in a laughing mood.

  He leans in closer, and the air in the room immediately goes thick.

  Does he feel it too?

  Neither of us says anything.

  “Lucy,” he says again in that silly voice, only this time much quieter.

  I look up at him. Mistake! Those blue eyes of his bore right through me like he can read my mind. There’s no way out of it. And the thing is, I don’t want to find a way. It�
�s time to tell Will how I feel.

  “Way back in one of the first interviews we did for the show, Tara asked me what I would do with my portion of the prize money if The Bistro were to win the twenty-five grand. I told her I’d pay off the money you loaned me for the down payment. I have no idea how she knew ... Maybe she was more intuitive than I gave her credit for, but somehow, she figured out that I have a thing for you. She was going to create this whole sad romantic story about me pining away for my best friend. It was pathetic really. I think she thought it would soften up the other story lines she was creating.”

  Will looks at me hard. “You have a thing for me?”

  I nod.

  “As in, a romantic thing?” he clarifies.

  I nod again, too terrified to say anything because the way he’s looking at me, it’s as if—

  “Guess what, Lucy? I have a thing for you too.”

  He cups the back of my head and leans in to kiss me

  Will. Is. Kissing. Me.

  I kiss him back.

  I’ve dreamed of this moment for years, but now that it’s happening, it’s like I’m floating above my head watching it all go down.

  Paco barks, making Will and I jump apart.

  We laugh nervously, because holy wow. Everything I’ve thought about our relationship has just flown out the door. He would never kiss me if he didn’t have strong feelings for me. Just like me, he’d never risk our friendship on a whim.

  He watches me intently. “How come we’ve never done that before?”

  “I don’t—wait. I almost forgot. Will, are you J.W. Quicksilver?”

  “What?” He makes a face. “Why would you ask me that?”

  “It makes total sense. You always act so weird whenever anyone talks about him. Like you have this irrational dislike of him. But I’ve read one of his books and … ” Oh my stars. Why did I never figure this out before? “You’re the one who made the big donation to St. Perpetua’s! Sebastian knows, doesn’t he?”

  “Lucy, you’re talking crazy here—”

  “Will,” I say, looking him straight in the eye. “Are you J.W. Quicksilver, yes or no?” I demand.

  He chuckles like this is all some big joke. “Lucy,” he says, “I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I am not J.W. Quicksilver.”