Sweets, Suspects, and Women Sleuths Cozy Mystery Set Read online

  Sweets, Suspects, and Women Sleuths Cozy Mystery Set

  Meredith Potts

  Table of Contents

  Fishing for a Murderer

  Drowning In Deceit

  Murder of a Yoga Instructor

  A Not So Merry Christmas Murder

  Killer Injustice

  Murder of a Restaurant Critic

  Murder of a Movie Producer

  The Killer Holiday Office Party

  Murder Hits Close To Home

  Murder and Chocolate Brownies

  Fishing for a Murderer

  Chapter One

  I’ve been trying to move on, to rebuild my life, to look forward, but it’s hard to live in the present when people keep bringing up my past. I don’t blame them for doing it. After all, I toiled for years, struggling to claw my way out of obscurity, hoping to one day become a household name, a star. In that regard, my efforts paid off. Well, kind of.

  “Wait a minute. I know you. You’re the Victoria Sassy,” Daniel Jacobsen said.

  That wasn’t the first time I’ve heard that, nor would it be the last. To this day, people still recognize me. Or, the character I played on TV, at least. Most of them don’t know my real name. It’s the legacy I worked so hard to achieve, that I’m now trying to outrun, and that continues to dog me wherever I go. I am inextricably linked to the Victoria Sassy character I once played on TV whether I want to be or not, and there’s nothing short of the Jaws of Life that could change that.

  When people approached me these days, sometimes I just went along with their misconception that I was actually the fictional character I once played and not just a former actress who used to read lines from a script. Other times, I made the effort to differentiate fact from fiction.

  With Daniel, I wanted to draw a line in the sand and hoped the high tide didn’t come by and wash it all away. It generally wasn’t worth it to correct the casual fan or onlooker. Then again, those fans usually didn’t look like Daniel. He was a tall, handsome, athletic man in his early forties with short, sandy-brown hair, hazel eyes, and soft, kissable lips.

  When it came to Daniel, I wanted to make it clear where my TV character ended, and I began.

  “I used to be Victoria Sassy,” I said.

  I put an emphasis on “used to.” A lot had changed since my acting days, including a discarded career, a cross-country move, and the kind of heartbreak that wasn’t easily forgotten.

  “My real name is Hope Hadley,” I told him.

  He didn’t seem to mind being corrected. In truth, he actually looked a little starstruck. “Oh, right. I loved your show.”

  “Well, thank you. I never get tired of hearing that.”

  The show in question was aptly titled Sassy Sleuth. It had feisty dialogue, colorful characters, and a plucky mystery-bookstore owner turned amateur sleuth who went around town solving murder cases each week. For the first few years, it was a ratings smash, spawning a slew of imitators on rival networks. As the ratings began petering off a few years later, the network abandoned ship and pulled the plug on their once-darling show.

  The Hollywood suits cited a glut in police procedurals shows as the culprit, but I found it hard to believe that there could ever be too many police shows on the air at once. Upon further digging, the nastier truth was revealed to me that a number of the higher-ups were wary of my age and were looking to take their programming in a more youthful direction.

  “I’m sorry your show was canceled,” Daniel said.

  “Me too.”

  “So, you’re working here now?”

  His geographic befuddlement was understandable. While I was still in Hollywood, it was a world away from the Tinseltown that was famous the world over. After my acting career hit the skids, I left California and relocated across the country to my hometown of Hollywood, Florida.

  It appeared no matter what I did, Hollywood was part of my destiny. It was an easy joke to tell that I’d moved all the way across the country just to end up back in Hollywood—that I’d gone to Hollywood and back and all I had to show for it were broken dreams.

  Sometimes, people could really be cruel. I tried to shrug off the haters. After all, you’re never going to make everyone happy. As long as you can please yourself, it’s a start.

  Despite all the jokes about the two Hollywoods, the two cities could not have been more different. While Hollywood, California, was about glitz and glamour, its Florida counterpart was a retiree, vacationer, and water-sports haven. California had the smog, Florida had the swamp. While both cities had a popular beach culture, the surf and sand were only a small part of what made Hollywood, California, tick. In Hollywood, Florida, the beach was everything.

  I nodded at Daniel and answered his question. “Yeah. I opened this shelter about a year ago.”

  I’ve always loved animals, so much that I used to do public service announcements and host charity fundraisers for homeless, neglected, and abused animals during my acting days. So, when I moved back home, instead of sitting around idle, I decided to open this shelter, aptly calling it “Second Chance.” It was a no-kill shelter, taking in animals that were in danger of being euthanized at the local pound. From there, we tried to find forever homes for the dogs and cats. Even if we weren’t able to get them adopted, they’d always have a home here.

  Daniel was here to pick up Charlotte, the scraggly little terrier he’d just adopted from us.

  “So, you gave up acting then?” he asked.

  That was one way of putting it. I had another. “It was more that acting gave up on me.”

  Daniel’s eyes opened wide. “Oh.”

  I didn’t want to make a big deal about how my acting career ended, at least not in front of Daniel. Privately, I had obsessed over how quickly everything came crashing down on me. When my prospects dried up like a desert drought, it was hard not to. One day, I was on a network television show, the next I became a pariah, completely untouchable. I could rant about it for days on end, but it wouldn’t do any good. More importantly, it wouldn’t change anything.

  Hollywood was unabashedly youth-centric. It always has been and always will be. Executives were constantly searching for the next hot, young talent—the key word there being young. In no other industry was youth so prized and aging so frowned upon. Well, as much as studio executives could muster frowns or any expression in their foreheads, given how much facial plastic-surgery work a number of them have had done.

  Hollywood’s worst kept secret was their age problem. More specifically, their nasty habit of putting older actors out to pasture like they were cattle. If that wasn’t deplorable enough, Hollywood had a warped concept of what old even was. To the industry, forty was over the hill. As if people lost all their appeal and acting chops the moment they hit their fortieth birthday. It was a sad, yet true belief that routinely led to middle-aged stars falling from their perch and disappearing into obscurity almost overnight.

  A select few actors were lucky enough to make it through the cutthroat gauntlet of middle age with a career still intact. I was not one of them, an unfortunate victim of celebrating one birthday too many. No wonder women joked about how they were celebrating their thirty-ninth birthday for the sixth or seventh year in a row.

  In a cruel twist of fate, after it was canceled, my show, Sassy Sleuth, was replaced on the TV schedule the following year with a police procedural show featuring an eighteen-year-old, fresh out of the police academy savant. There was no doubt that Hollywood had a terrible sense of humor, and I wasn’t laughing.

  I could have explained all this to Daniel, but decided against doing so. It was bad enough hav
ing to live through it in the first place. Now was a time to rebuild my life. I’d been there, done that, and could write a tell-all memoir about it if I wanted. These days, I was determined to leave the past behind and focus squarely on the present. So, I spared him the details, opting for a generalization instead.

  “You know what they say about life giving you lemons.”

  He nodded. “Oh, yeah. I’ve made a fair amount of lemonade in my day.”

  That was more than just a playful reply to my comment. As I looked into his eyes, I could tell his past was an emotional roller-coaster ride of its own. Without knowing the specifics, it was nice to see he’d come out the other side still in one piece.

  Not wanting to re-open old scars, I elected to keep the conversation light.

  “I’d prefer to make lemon bars,” I said. “They’re much tastier.”

  He laughed. “That’s a good attitude to have.”

  “It has suited me well so far.”

  “Whatever gets you through the day.”

  “Is that your motto?”

  “It has been, but the thought of making lemon bars out of my problems sounds infinitely more appetizing,” he said.

  My mouth began to water at the continued mention of sweet treats. I couldn’t help it. It was hard not to be a sucker for dessert, even if it was only shortly after nine o’clock in the morning.

  “You’re making me hungry.”

  “I’ll stop. I wouldn’t want to distract you. Not with all the work I’m sure you have to do.”

  “That’s very considerate. Although, I wouldn’t turn a lemon bar down right now.”

  He shrugged his shoulders and bit the corner of his lip. “I’m afraid I don’t have any on me.”

  “Oh, come on, what kind of guy doesn’t just walk around with a stash of lemon bars in case they run into a woman who is craving sweets?” I joked.

  He played along. “My apologies. Anyway, I was very sad to hear about your show going off the air.”

  “Life goes on,” I replied.

  That was more than just a platitude to me. It was part of the reason I opened this shelter in the first place. After being forced out of Hollywood, I had plenty to prove. As a matter of fact, I still do. I won’t stop until I show those Hollywood sharks in suits that I’m not feeble or over-the-hill. I’m far from past my prime. I don’t care what it takes, I’m going to thrive.

  Daniel could tell I meant business. He looked around the shelter. “Life sure does go on. I just brought up your show because I never missed an episode. Not to mention, I can’t stand that stupid young savant cop show they put on after yours.”

  I liked Daniel more and more with each sentence that came out of his mouth. We definitely saw eye to eye on a number of things. All the compliments he was lobbing my way didn’t hurt either.

  Before I got too wrapped up in my thoughts, I heard the sound of a dog yipping. That could only mean one thing. Surely enough, a few seconds later, one of my assistants brought Charlotte out from the back and handed Daniel the dog’s leash.

  “She’s all yours,” my assistant said.

  “Thanks,” Daniel replied.

  Our attention then shifted to the scruffy little terrier. As she danced around with boundless energy, it was hard to believe she was ten years old. It would be easy to mistake her for a dog half her age.

  “I think she’s ready for her forever home,” I said.

  “It sure looks like it,” he replied.

  Daniel gave Charlotte some pets. She wagged her tail in response. They were taking to each other immediately.

  “I hope you’re ready to be loved like never before,” I said.

  “Really?”

  I nodded. “Shelter pets know what it’s like to have everything taken from them, to live with nothing, not even a home. All of our animals were on the street once. So when they finally get adopted into a forever home, they appreciate it like no other.”

  I didn’t come by the name “Second Chance” at random, nor did I blindly pull it out of a hat. It was by design. Back in California, it wasn’t just my acting career that went belly up. My love life came to an excruciating halt as well. It wasn’t just the TV network who traded me in for a younger model, my boyfriend did the same thing. Trent Harper, my soap opera star boyfriend, dumped me for some rising ingénue that was half my age.

  Breakups were hard enough, but to have my heartbreak splashed across the pages of the tabloids, and posted about in every corner of the Internet, was a completely different animal. It was like being mauled by a pack of man-eating lions.

  Unlike Hollywood, agents, and boyfriends in the midst of a mid-life crisis, dogs were fiercely loyal. If you gave them love, they returned it in kind. If you gave them a second chance, they’d never forget it. That was especially important to me, after what I’d gone through. So, as much as the second chance in the name of the shelter was about finding these animals homes, it was also about giving myself another opportunity to succeed, to rebuild my life, and to prove my best days were still ahead of me and not behind me.

  As I saw the looks on Daniel’s and Charlotte’s faces, I knew there were plenty of good days ahead of them.

  “I have to admit, it’s refreshing to see someone rescuing an older pet.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Older pets are usually the last to be adopted. People like the young ones better.”

  Daniel smiled as he looked at Charlotte. “What can I say? She charmed me.”

  He wasn’t kidding. One of my assistants told me about when he first came in the other day looking to adopt. Unlike most other people, he went right past the little puppies that always got the most attention. My assistant couldn’t believe it. She asked him why he was drawn to the older dogs instead. His answer—puppies still needed to be housetrained. They were needy and demanded constant attention. Older dogs knew what they wanted and how to take care of themselves. Those were traits he highly respected.

  When I heard that, I was interested to meet him today when Charlotte was caught up on her vaccinations and ready to be picked up by her new master. So far, Daniel had lived up to the hype.

  “That’s so sweet,” I said. “I think you charmed her too.”

  Charlotte barked and wagged her tail, moving towards the door.

  “It sounds like she’s ready to see her new home,” Daniel replied.

  “So true. Anyway, I won’t keep you two.” I gave Daniel one last gaze.

  It was meant to be brief but lasted a lot longer than either of us thought. I got caught up looking into his hazel eyes. They were so soulful. “It was nice to meet you.”

  He smiled back at me. “You too. And by the way, if you’re ever in the mood for a lemon bar again, you should come by my restaurant.”

  “Wait a minute. You own a restaurant?”

  He nodded. “Home Sweet Home Cooking. It’s on Ocean Breeze Lane.”

  “Why did you wait so long to tell me that you own a restaurant?”

  “You know what they say about saving the best for last.”

  “Well, you certainly did.”

  The dog yipped again.

  “The lady has spoken,” he joked.

  “You’d better listen. The last thing you want to do is get a woman angry.”

  “Those are words to live by. Again, it was nice meeting you. Bye.”

  Like that, he was gone. I wondered the next time I’d see him again.

  Chapter Two

  I wasn’t able to let Daniel linger in my thoughts for long. Shortly after he left, one of my employees, Paige Richardson, darted in, equal parts frantic and apologetic. She looked like she’d been through the ringer. Her long brown hair appeared to have been haphazardly brushed only long enough to look presentable, her green eyes were bloodshot, and her normally pretty face was overshadowed by the pronounced bags under her eyes. In short, she was a shell of the buttoned-up, full-figured, forty-one-year-old I was used to seeing.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said
.

  I’d been so caught up thinking about Daniel that at first I didn’t realize she was nearly fifteen minutes late for her shift. Now that it had come to my attention, I couldn’t help but be struck by how uncharacteristic it was for Paige to be so tardy.

  She’d gained a well-earned reputation for being a stickler for punctuality, so much so that she had a tendency to show up early for everything. So, for her to be late like this was about more than just waking up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. Something must have gone terribly wrong.

  I didn’t make a big deal about the late arrival. “It’s ok.”

  The tardiness could be excused. It was the shell-shocked look in her eyes that concerned me the most.

  Paige apologized once more. “It won’t happen again.”

  “Are you ok?”

  She averted her eyes and got a lump in her throat. Suddenly, she was short on words, only managing to utter two. “Not really.”

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  She was surprisingly tight-lipped. This must have been worse than I even suspected. I’d never seen her so torn before. It was almost like she was a woman of two minds; one part desperate to tell her story, the other desperately wanting to keep it in.

  Finally, she answered. “I’d rather just get to work.”

  I respected her wishes, even if she looked like a powder keg that was ready to explode. “All right. Well, I’m here for you if you need me.”

  I knew she’d end up telling me sooner or later, but I didn’t realize how quickly the words ended up spilling out of her. As I moved to go back to work, she was finally unable to bottle up her emotions anymore.

  She stopped me. “It’s about Mark.”

  “What did he do now?”

  Paige grimaced, and then finally revealed the news. “We…broke up.”

  This explained her tardiness and bloodshot eyes. No wonder she was such a wreck. Poor thing. My heart immediately went out to her. “I’m so sorry. What happened?”

  “I caught him cheating on me,” Paige revealed.