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Fiona Grace

Debut author Fiona Grace is author of the LACEY DOYLE COZY MYSTERY series which includes MURDER IN THE MANOR (Book #1), DEATH AND A DOG (Book #2) and CRIME IN THE CAFE (Book #3). Fiona would love to hear from you, so please visit www.fionagraceauthor.com to receive free ebooks, hear the latest news, and stay in touch.

Copyright © 2019 by Fiona Grace. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the author. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Jacket image Copyright Helen Hotson, used under license from Shutterstock.com.

BOOKS BY FIONA GRACE

LACEY DOYLE COZY MYSTERY

MURDER IN THE MANOR (Book#1)

DEATH AND A DOG (Book #2)

CRIME IN THE CAFE (Book #3)

CHAPTER ONE

The bell above the door tinkled. Lacey looked up and saw an elderly gentleman had wandered into her antiques store. He was dressed in English countryman attire, which would’ve looked peculiar in Lacey’s old home, New York City, but here in the seaside town of Wilfordshire, England, he was just another one of the locals. Only, Lacey didn’t recognize him as she now did most of the small town’s residents. His bemused expression made her wonder if he was lost.

Realizing he may need some help, she quickly covered the mouthpiece of the telephone she was holding—mid-conversation with the RSPCA—and called over the counter to him, “I’ll be with you in just a second. I just need to finish up this call.”

The man didn’t seem to hear her. His focus was fixed on a shelf filled with frosted crystal figurines.

Lacey knew she’d have to hurry her conversation with the RSPCA along so she could attend to the confused-looking customer, so she removed her hand from the mouthpiece. “Sorry about that. Could you repeat what were you saying?”

The voice on the other end was male, and he sounded weary as he sighed. “What I was saying, Miss Doyle, is that I cannot give out details of staff members. It’s for security reasons. Surely you get that?”

Lacey had heard this all before. She’d first called the RSPCA to officially adopt Chester, the English Shepherd dog who had more or less come with the antiques store she was leasing (his prior owners, who’d leased the store before her, had died in a tragic accident, and Chester had wandered all the way back to his home). But she’d gotten the shock of her life when the woman on the other end of the line had asked her if she was related to Frank Doyle—the father who’d abandoned her at the age of seven. Their call had gotten disconnected, and she’d rung back every day since to trace the woman she’d spoken to. But it turned out all calls now went to a central call center located in the closest city of Exeter, and Lacey could never track down the woman who’d somehow known her father by name.

Lacey tightened her grip on the receiver and fought to keep her voice steady. “Yes, I understand you can’t tell me her name. But aren’t you able to transfer me to her?”

“No, ma’am,” the young man replied. “Beyond the fact I don’t know who this woman is, we have a call center system. The calls are randomly allocated. All I can do—and have done already—is put a notice on our system with your details.” He was starting to sound exasperated.

“But what if she doesn’t see the notice?”

“That’s a very real possibility. We have tons of staff members who work voluntarily on an ad hoc basis. The person you spoke with before might not have even been into the office since the original call.”

Lacey had heard these words before, too, from the numerous calls she’d made, but each time she wished and prayed for a different outcome. The call center staff seemed to be getting pretty irritated with her.

“But if she was a volunteer, doesn’t that mean she might never be back for another shift?” Lacey asked.

“Sure. There’s a chance. But I don’t know what you want me to do about it.”

Lacey had had enough of cajoling for the day. She sighed and admitted defeat. “Okay, well thank you anyway.”

She put down the phone, her chest sinking. But she wasn’t going to dwell on it. Her attempts to find information about her father seemed to be two steps forward, one and a half back, and she was getting used to the dead ends and disappointments. Besides, she had a customer to see to, and her beloved store always took precedence in Lacey’s mind above all else.

Ever since the two police detectives, Karl Turner and Beth Lewis, had posted their official notice to say she’d had nothing to do with the murder of Iris Archer—and that she had, indeed, helped them solve the case—Lacey’s store had bounced right back. Now it was flourishing, with a steady stream of daily customers made up of locals and tourists. Lacey had enough of an income now to buy Crag Cottage (something she was in the process of negotiating with Ivan Parry, her current landlord), and she even had enough income to pay Gina, her next door neighbor and close friend, for semi-permanent working hours. Not that Lacey took the time during Gina’s shift off—she used it to study up on auctioneering. She’d enjoyed the one she’d conducted for Iris Archer’s belongings so much, she was going to hold one every month. Tomorrow, Lacey’s next auction was to commence, and she was buzzing with excitement for it.

She went out from behind the counter—Chester raising his head to give her his customary whinny—and approached the elderly man. He was a stranger, not one of her regular customers, and was peering intently at the display shelf of crystal ballerinas.

Lacey pushed her dark curls off her face and came out from behind the counter, heading toward the elderly man.

“Are you looking for anything in particular?” she asked as she drew up beside him.

The man jumped. “Goodness, you frightened me!”

“I’m so sorry,” Lacey said, noticing his hearing aid for the first time and reminding herself not to sneak up behind old people in the future. “I just wondered if you were looking for anything specific, or if you were just perusing?”

The man looked back to the figures, a small smile on his lips. “It’s a funny story,” he said. “It’s my late wife’s birthday. I came to town for some tea and cake, as a sort of remembrance celebration, you see. But as I passed your store, I felt the urge to come in.” He pointed at the figurines. “First thing I saw were these.” He gave Lacey a knowing smile. “My wife was a dancer.”

Lacey returned the smile, touched by the poignancy of the story. “How lovely!”

“It was back in the seventies,” the elderly man continued, reaching out a shaking hand and taking a model off the shelf. “She was with the Royal Ballet Society. In fact, she was their first ever ballerina with—”

Just then, the sound of a large van careening too fast over the speed bump directly outside the store cut off the end of the man’s sentence. The subsequent bang it made as it jolted down onto the other side of the bump made him jump a mile, and the figurine went flying from his hands. It hit the wooden floorboards. The ballerina’s arm snapped right off and went skittering away under the shelving unit.

“Oh my goodness!” the man exclaimed. “I’m so sorry!”

“Don’t worry,” Lacey assured him, her gaze fixed out the window at the white van, which had pulled up to the curb and drawn to a halt, its engine now idling and belching smoke from the exhaust pipe. “It wasn’t your fault. I don’t think the driver saw the bump. He’s probably damaged his van!”

She crouched down and reached with an arm beneath the shelving unit, until her fingertips brushed against the little jagged edge of crystal. She pulled the arm out—which was now covered in a fine layer of dust—and drew herself back up to standing, just as she saw through the window the driver of the van hopping down from the cabin to the cobblestones.

“You have got to be kidding me…” Lacey muttered, narrowing her eyes at the culprit she could now identify. “Taryn.”

Taryn owned the boutique store next door. She was a snobbish, petty woman, whom Lacey had awarded the title of Least Favorite Person in Wilfordshire. She was always trying to mess with Lacey, to drive her out of town. Taryn had done everything in her power to frustrate Lacey’s attempts to start a business here in Wilfordshire, all the way down to drilling holes in her own store wall just to irritate her! And though the woman had asked for a truce after her handyman had taken things a little too far and been caught loitering outside Lacey’s cottage one night, Lacey hadn’t been so confident she could trust her again. Taryn played dirty. This was surely another one of her tricks. For starters, there was no way she didn’t know the speed bump was there—it was visible from her own store’s window, for goodness sake! So she’d driven over it too fast deliberately. Then to add insult to injury, she’d parked it right in front of Lacey’s store, rather than her own, either in an attempt to block the view, or in order to pump fumes in her direction.

“I’m so sorry,” the man repeated, pulling Lacey’s attention back to the moment. He was still holding up the figurine, now one-armed. “Please. Let me pay for the damage.”

“Absolutely not,” Lacey told him firmly. “You did nothing wrong.” Her narrow-eyed gaze roved back over his shoulder and out the window. She fixed it on Taryn, following the woman as she gingerly waltzed to the back of the van like she had no cares in the world. Lacey’s annoyance at the boutique owner grew stronger. “If anyone’s to blame, it’s the driver.” She tightened her hands into fists. “It’s almost as if they did it deliberately. Ow!”

Lacey felt something sharp in her palm. She’d squeezed the broken ballerina’s arm so tightly, it had nicked her skin.

“Oh!” the man exclaimed at the sight of the bright globule of blood swelling in her palm. He pincer-gripped the offending arm from the middle of her hand, as if removing it might somehow mend the wound. “Are you okay?”

“Please excuse me for one second,” Lacey said.

She headed for the door—leaving the bemused-looking man behind in her store holding a broken ballerina in one hand and a disembodied arm in the other—and marched onto the street. She paced right up to her neighborhood nemesis.

“Lacey!” Taryn beamed, as she heaved up the back door of the van. “Hope you don’t mind me parking here? I have the new season’s stock to unload. Isn’t summer just your favorite season for fashion?”

“I don’t mind you parking there at all,” Lacey said. “But I do mind you driving too fast over the speed bump. You know the bump is right in front of my store. The noise almost gave my customer a heart attack.”

She noted then, that Taryn had also parked in such a manner that her bulky van blocked Lacey’s view across the street to Tom’s patisserie. That was definitely purposeful!

“Got it,” Taryn said with fake joviality. “I’ll make sure to drive slower when it’s time to get in the autumn season’s stock. Hey, you should pop in once I’ve set all this up. Switched up your wardrobe. Treat yourself. You deserve it.” Her eyes roved down Lacey’s outfit. “And it’s certainly time.”

“I’ll think about it,” Lacey said tonelessly, matching Taryn’s fake smile with her own.

The second she turned her back on the woman, her smile turned into a grimace. Taryn really was the queen of the back-handed compliment.

When she got back into her store, Lacey discovered her elderly customer was now waiting by the counter, and a second person—a man in a dark suit—had also entered. He was perusing the shelf filled with all the nautical items Lacey was planning on auctioning tomorrow, while under the watchful eye of Chester the dog. She could smell his aftershave even from this distance.

“I’ll be with you in a moment,” Lacey called over to the new customer as she hurried toward the back of the store where the elderly gentleman was waiting.

“Is your hand okay?” the man asked her.

“Absolutely fine.” She looked down at the small scratch in her palm, which had already stopped bleeding. “Sorry for rushing off like that. I had to—” she chose her words carefully, “—attend to something.”

Lacey was determined not to let Taryn get her down. If she let the boutique owner get under her skin, it would be akin to scoring an own goal.

As Lacey slid behind the sales counter, she noticed the elderly gentleman had placed the broken figurine upon it.

“I’d like to buy it,” he announced.

“But it’s broken,” Lacey countered. He was obviously just trying to be nice, even though he had no reason to feel bad about the breakage. It really hadn’t been his fault at all.

“I still want it.”

Lacey blushed. He really was adamant.

“Can you let me try to fix it first, at least?” she said. “I have some super glue and—”

“Not at all!” the man interrupted. “I want it just as it is. You see, it reminds me of my wife even more now. That’s what I was just about to say, when the van went bump. She was the Royal Ballet Society’s first ballerina with a disability.” He held up the figure, twirling it in the light. Light caught off the right arm, which still looked elegant outstretched despite stopping in a jagged stump at the elbow. “She danced with one arm.”

Lacey’s eyebrows rose. Her mouth fell open. “No way!”

The man nodded eagerly. “Honest! Don’t you see? This was a sign from her.”

Lacey couldn’t help but agree. She was searching for her own ghost, after all, in the form of her father, so she was particularly sensitive to the signs of the universe.

“Then you’re right, you have to take it,” Lacey said. “But I can’t charge you for it.”

“Are you sure?” the man asked, surprised.

Lacey beamed. “I’m positive! Your wife sent you a sign. The figurine is rightfully yours.”

The man looked touched. “Thank you.”

Lacey began to wrap the figurine up in tissue paper for him. “Let’s make sure she doesn’t lose any more of her limbs, huh?”

“You’re holding an auction, I see,” the man said, pointing over her shoulder at the poster hanging on the wall.

Unlike the crude hand-drawn posters that had advertised her last auction, Lacey had had this one professionally made. It was decorated with nautical imagery; boats and seagulls, and a border made to look like blue and white gingham bunting in honor of Wilfordshire’s own bunting obsession.

“That’s right,” Lacey said, feeling a swell of pride in her chest. “It’s my second auction ever. It’s exclusively for antique navy items. Sextants. Anchors. Telescopes. I’ll be selling a whole array of treasures. Perhaps you’d like to attend?”

“Perhaps I will,” the man replied with a smile.

“I’ll put a flier in the bag for you.”

Lacey did just that, then handed the man his precious figurine across the counter. He thanked her and headed away.

Lacey watched the elderly man exit the store, touched by the story he’d shared with her, before remembering that she had another customer to attend to.

She looked right to turn her attention to the other man. Only now she saw he had gone. He’d slipped out silently, unnoticed, before she’d even had a chance to see whether he needed any help.

She went over to the area he’d been perusing—the bottom shelf where she’d placed storage boxes filled with all the items she was selling at the auction tomorrow. A sign, in Gina’s handwriting, stated: None of this lot is for general sale. Everything will be auctioned! She’d doodled what appeared to be a skull and crossbones beneath, evidently confusing the Navy theme with a pirate one. Hopefully the customer had seen the sign and would be back tomorrow to bid on whatever item it was he was so interested in.

Lacey took one of the boxes filled with items she’d not yet valued out, and carried it back to the desk. As she took out item after item, lining them up on the counter, she couldn’t help feeling excitement coursing through her. Her last auction had been wonderful, yet tempered by the fact she was hunting for a killer. This one, she’d be able to fully enjoy. She’d really get a chance to flex her auctioneers muscles, and she literally couldn’t wait!

She’d just gotten into the flow of valuing and cataloguing the items when she was interrupted by  the shrill sound of her cell phone. A little frustrated to be disturbed by what was undoubtedly her melodramatic younger sister, Naomi, with a single-parent-related crisis, Lacey glanced over at the cell where it lay face up on the counter. To her surprise, the ID flashing up at her was David, her recently ex-husband.

Lacey stared at the flashing screen for a moment, stunned into inaction. A tsunami of different emotions rushed through her. She and David had exchanged precisely zero words with one another since the divorce—although he seemed to still be on speaking terms with Lacey’s mother of all people—and had dealt with everything through their solicitors. But for him to be calling her directly? Lacey didn’t even know where to begin theorizing why he’d be doing such a thing.

Against her better judgment, Lacey answered the call.

“David? Is everything okay?”

“No, it’s not,” came his sharp-sounding voice, bringing forth about a million latent memories that had been lying dormant in Lacey’s mind, like dust stirred.

She tensed, preparing for some terrible bombshell. “What is it? What happened?”

“Your alimony didn’t come through.”

Lacey rolled her eyes so hard they hurt. Money. Of course. There was nothing that mattered more to David than money. One of the most ludicrous aspects of her divorce from David was the fact that she had to pay him spousal support because she’d been the higher earner of the pair. It figured that the only thing to compel him to make actual contact with her would be that.

“But I set the payment up through the bank,” Lacey told him. “It should be automatic.”

“Well, evidently the Brits have a different interpretation of the word automatic,” he said haughtily. “Because no money has been deposited in my bank account, and if you weren’t aware, the deadline is today! So I suggest you get on the phone to your bank immediately and resolve the situation.”

He sounded just like a headmaster. Lacey half-expected him to finish his monologue with the phrase, “you silly little girl.”

She squeezed the cell phone, tightly, trying her hardest not to let David get to her, not today, the day before her auction that she was so looking forward to!

“What a clever suggestion, David,” she replied, wedging the phone between her ear and shoulder so she could free her hands and use them to log onto her online bank account. “I’d never have thought to do that myself.”

Her words were met by silence. David had probably never heard her use sarcasm before, and it had thrown him. She blamed Tom for that. Her new beau’s English sense of humor was rubbing off on her very quickly.

“You’re not taking this very seriously,” David replied, once he’d finally caught up.

“Should I be?” Lacey replied. “It’s just a mix-up at the bank. I can probably get it taken care of by the end of the day. In fact, yes, there’s a notice here on my account.” She clicked on the little red icon and an information box popped up. She read it aloud. “‘Due to the bank holiday, any scheduled payment dates that fall on either Sunday or Monday will reach accounts on Tuesday.’ Aha. There you go. I knew it would be something simple. A bank holiday.” She paused and looked out the window at the throng of passing people. “I did think the streets looked extra busy today.”

She could practically hear David grinding his teeth through the speaker.

“It’s actually extremely inconvenient,” he snapped. “I do have bills to pay, you know.”

Lacey looked over at Chester, as if in need of a comrade in this particularly frustrating conversation. He raised his head off his paws and quirked up an eyebrow.

“Can’t Frida lend you a couple million bucks if you’re short?”

“Eda,” David corrected.

Lacey knew full well the name of David’s new fiancée. But she and Naomi had taken to calling her Fortnight Frida, in reference to the speed with which the two had gotten engaged and now she couldn’t think of her as anything else.

“And no,” he continued. “She shouldn’t have to. Who even told you about Eda?”

“My mother might have let it slip on one or two dozen occasions. What are you doing talking to my mom anyway?”

“She’d been a part of my family for fourteen years. I didn’t divorce her.”

Lacey sighed. “No. I guess not. So what’s the plan? The three of you go and bond over a mani-pedi?”

Now she was trying to wind him up, and she couldn’t help herself. It was quite fun.

“You’re being ridiculous,” David said.

“Isn’t she the heiress to a false nail emporium?” she said with feigned innocence.

“Yes, but you don’t have to say it like that,” David said, in a voice that catapulted the image of his pout-face right into Lacey’s mind’s eye.

“I was just speculating on how the three of you will likely spend your time together.”

“With a tone of criticism.”

“Mom tells me she’s young,” Lacey said, changing course. “Twenty. I mean, I think twenty might be a little too young for a man your age, but at least she’s got a full nineteen years to work out whether she wants children or not. Thirty-nine is the cut-off point for you, after all.”

No sooner had she said it than she realized just how much like Taryn she sounded. She shuddered. While she had no qualms over Tom’s mannerisms rubbing off on her, she most certainly drew the line at Taryn’s!

“Sorry,” she mumbled, back-tracking. “That was uncalled for.”

David let a beat pass. “Just get me my money, Lace.”

The call went dead.

Lacey sighed and put the phone down. As infuriating as the conversation had been, she was absolutely determined not to let it bring her down. David was in her past now. She’d built a whole new life for herself here in Wilfordshire. And anyway, David moving on with Eda was a blessing in disguise. She wouldn’t have to pay him alimony anymore once they married, and the problem would be solved! But knowing the way things usually went for her, she had the feeling it would be a very long engagement.