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!