Hope Hadley Eight Book Cozy Mystery Set Read online

  Much to my chagrin, he continued being stiff with me.

  “There’s been a change of plans,” Trent replied.

  “Do they have you working late?” I asked.

  “Not exactly.”

  I couldn’t help but notice that his answers were getting shorter. If I wasn’t careful, he might turn monosyllabic on me.

  “Honey, what’s the matter? You look like you could use a party even more than I do,” I said.

  He took a deep breath. “Actually, I have to talk to you first.”

  My boyfriend had avoided a monosyllabic answer, but that didn’t give me the relief that I had expected. If anything, his ominous response filled my mind with anxiety. With my concerns mounting, it was getting a little too crowded for comfort inside my head.

  “What do you want to talk about?” I asked.

  Trent looked to the left, then to the right. What was he, a spy who was paranoid that he was being watched? Last time I checked, he wasn’t protecting any state secrets. During our yearlong relationship, I couldn’t ever remember seeing him as on edge as he was right then.

  “You might want to sit down,” he said.

  Statements like that always had the reverse effect on me. The delivery of good news never began that way. I knew he was about to tell me something I didn’t want to hear. In that case, I just wanted him to cut to the chase.

  “Trent, what’s going on?”

  He started hemming and hawing, looking uncomfortable in his own skin. My unwavering eye contact forced his hand.

  “It’s not working between us,” he replied.

  I didn’t have the foggiest idea what he was talking about. “I don’t understand. What’s not working?”

  Trent took a deep breath. “This isn’t easy for me to say.”

  My impatience got the better of me. “Just say it.”

  Finally, he blurted out the truth. “I…fell in love with someone else.”

  I became queasy and light-headed. While I lost my sense of balance, my heart felt like it had been ripped right open. Trent’s admission had left me reeling so much that I went silent for a few moments.

  What could I say to that? Even if I wasn’t short on words, my tongue was of no help to me right then. It was completely tied. As the seconds ticked by, I remained in a state of shock. The pain swelled inside me to the point where I was hurting from my head to my toes. My mind wasn’t much better. A jumble of thoughts swirled in my head until my brain finally latched onto one point.

  “Who is it?” I asked.

  He deflected. “That’s not important.”

  I wouldn’t be thrown off my point. “It is to me.”

  “What does it even matter?” he argued.

  I kept after him. “Why are you so afraid of telling me? Is it one of my friends?”

  Trent quickly denied that accusation. “No.”

  “Then tell me who it is.”

  In a fit of anger, Trent let the name of the woman slip out. “Lucy.”

  I was in disbelief. “Lucy Richmond?”

  At nineteen, Lucy was the youngest member of the As The Drama Churns cast.

  Trent muttered back at me. “Yes.”

  I went nuclear. “But she’s half my age. She’s half your age.”

  He tried to gloss over the fact that he was dating someone too young to legally buy alcohol. “Age doesn’t matter.”

  “Really? You’re going to say that to a forty-year-old actress whose show was just canceled because the network thinks she’s over the hill?”

  He winced. “I know the timing of this isn’t great.”

  “You’ve got that right. Then again, there’s never a good time to tell me that you traded me in for a younger model.” I groaned. “You’re worse than the network.”

  Trent defended himself. “I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

  “Well, it happened, and I have the broken heart to prove it,” I replied.

  Remorse came to his face. “What I’m trying to say is that I didn’t mean to hurt you. Lucy and I have just been spending a lot of time together on the set. We ended up really hitting it off. Then, before I knew it—”

  I cringed. “I don’t need to hear all the gross details.”

  “Fair enough.” He offered one last apology. “Anyway, I’m sorry.”

  I didn’t know what he was trying to accomplish. Was he hoping to let me down easy? Because it was too late for that. Besides, his words weren’t going to change what had happened or how much he had broken my heart.

  “Trust me, you’re not nearly as sorry as I am,” I replied.

  At that moment, I was of two different minds. Part of me wanted to slug him, in hopes that taking all my anger out on him would make me feel better. Another part of me wanted to curl into a ball and cry myself to sleep. While my mind was torn, my emotions were not. Tears began welling up in my eyes. I was quickly turning into a hot mess.

  “I can’t believe this is happening,” I said, as much to myself as to him.

  “I wish that things could have turned out differently,” he replied.

  He kept trying to make it seem like he’d had no choice but to fall in love with another woman. As if someone had put a gun to his head. I had never seen such a distinct lack of personal responsibility. That made me angry beyond belief.

  While my blood boiled, he stood dead silent, looking as awkward as could be. It was clear that he didn’t know what else to say.

  As an awkward silence took hold of the conversation, tears streamed down my cheeks. At first, I had tried to hold them back, but there was no stopping them now. I wiped them away as the sight of Trent’s face became too much for me to look at.

  “Go away,” I said.

  “If it’s any consolation, this is the hardest thing I have ever had to do,” he replied.

  “Please just go away,” I said.

  He complied with my request and left me alone.

  That was when I completely lost all grip on my emotions. I was a basket case. My eyes welled up as my heart hurt more than it had in years. I spent the next fifteen minutes crying my eyes out, wondering what else could possibly go wrong in my life.

  Chapter Four

  I had no interest in going to the wrap party. It was the last place I wanted to be. After what had just happened, I was in no mood to put on a fake smile for the crowd or act sociable when I felt absolutely miserable.

  Ultimately, I headed home and decided to hold a pity party for myself. My fourteen-year-old Labrador retriever, Buster, greeted me at the front door of my Spanish-style Pacific Palisades house. Like most rescue dogs, Buster was as loyal as could be. If only men were like that.

  Buster peppered me with love in an attempt to cheer me up as I raided the emergency chocolate stash that I kept in the back of my kitchen cupboard. After polishing off a whole chocolate bar and a glass of red wine, I began talking to my dog.

  “How did this happen?” I asked.

  I knew Buster couldn’t answer me, but that didn’t stop me from venting my frustrations.

  “A couple of weeks ago, I had everything—a TV show, a great boyfriend, and my whole life seemed to be figured out. Now, everything is a mess.” I sighed. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

  Buster curled up as close to me on the leather couch as he could. I gave him some pats. “At least I still have you, boy. I know you aren’t going anywhere.”

  He looked at me with a love that would never fade. “I wish everyone in your gender was as loyal as you.”

  I gave him another pat. At the risk of breaking into tears again, I turned on the television to distract myself.

  “What do you say we watch some tube?”

  With all the mindless reality shows on TV, I figured one of them could take my mind off of my heartbreak. Much to my chagrin, when I turned on the television, a rerun of a Sassy Sleuth episode happened to be airing. What were the odds that my old show would be on right now? Seeing it was like having salt poured into my wound.
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  I found myself tearing up again. This was just too much for me to bear. I immediately flipped the TV off.

  “On second thought, a bath would do me a lot of good,” I said.

  I paired a nice long aromatherapy bath with two more glasses of wine then called it an early night.

  Chapter Five

  The next morning, I didn’t want to get out of bed. I had drunk a little too much wine for comfort the night before. That had left me waking up on the groggy side of the bed. Not that it mattered. I had plenty of time to pull myself out of my fog.

  It wasn’t as if I had any pressing plans. My schedule was blank for the foreseeable future. As far as I could tell, the only thing I was staring down was unemployment. At my age, that was something I had figured I would never have to wrestle with again. While my pity party continued, my Labrador retriever wanted to put an abrupt end to my wallowing.

  Buster was hungry for breakfast and craved his morning walk. I specifically left kibble out for him all day and night so he could nibble on it at his own leisure, but he largely avoided the stuff, as if it was the dog equivalent of a spinach-and-kale salad. He lived for canned wet food and couldn’t get enough of the stuff. Buster jumped up on the bed to make sure there was no doubt in my mind how starving he was.

  “Is someone hungry?” I asked.

  Buster wagged his tail. He was far from a puppy dog, but his soulful eyes still turned me into mush. I was putty in his paws. Buster knew how to get what he wanted.

  “All right. You don’t have to ask twice,” I continued.

  There was no avoiding Buster’s stomach. I reluctantly got out of bed, in desperate need of a cup of coffee.

  Before I had the chance to brew one, I heard a knock at my front door. I ignored the knock and headed into the kitchen. As I reached into the cabinet and grabbed a can of wet food for Buster, there was a second set of knocks at the door. Whoever was at the door wasn’t giving up.

  I cracked open the can of food and put it on the tile for Buster then checked the time on my cell phone: eight twenty. Whoever was at the door, it was too early for it to be someone trying to sell me something. I also doubted that it was one of my friends—surely they would have texted me first before coming over. So, who was it?

  The next set of knocks was followed by a voice.

  “Ms. Hadley, Los Angeles Police Department,” the male voice said.

  I stopped dead in my tracks. Had I heard that right? What were the police doing here? I would have said it was a mistake on their part, but they had said my name. What could they possibly want with me?

  I had a feeling that I didn’t want to know the answer to that.

  “Okay, I’m coming,” I said.

  Before I answered the door, I ran a brush through my hair quickly. I didn’t want to look completely disheveled, even if that was how I felt on the inside. I made myself look vaguely presentable then answered the front door.

  A man in his early forties with a bulky frame, a military-style buzz cut, and a thick mustache stood on my front doorstep.

  “What’s this all about, Officer?” I asked.

  The man pulled out his badge and identification.

  “It’s Detective,” he said.

  I checked his ID to make sure it looked legit.

  “Detective Robert Noble,” I read.

  Wait a minute. His name was Detective Noble? It took all the restraint I had not to make a wisecrack asking if he was a noble man. I was glad I didn’t. He didn’t look like the kind of guy who could take a joke.

  His identity was no longer in doubt. One question still very much lingered.

  “What can I do for you?” I asked.

  “Can we talk inside, Ms. Hadley?” he replied.

  “Yeah. Sure. Of course.”

  I escorted him into my foyer, where his eyes began to wander, peering at my living room and kitchen.

  I became antsy. “All right. Now, do you want to tell me what this is about?”

  He didn’t hesitate to answer. “I have to ask you a few questions.”

  My confusion grew. The detective had managed to be both forceful and vague with me. It was time to get some answers.

  “About what?” I asked.

  “The murder of Trent Harper.”

  My jaw practically dropped. Wait. No. That couldn’t be. My ex-boyfriend had been killed? I had just seen him twelve hours ago. Now he was dead?

  I was in such a state of disbelief that I needed the detective to repeat himself. “Did you just say murder?”

  Detective Noble nodded. “I sure did.”

  And I’d thought I had a bad night. For a moment, I put my bitter feelings about the way Trent had broken up with me aside. Sure, I had wished for payback against him, in the way that everyone who had their heart broken did. That didn’t mean I wanted someone to kill him. I still couldn’t wrap my head around how this could have even happened. Who would have done such an awful thing?

  “That’s horrible,” I replied. “How did it happen?”

  The detective didn’t give me an answer as much as a stern look.

  “Ms. Hadley, I’m the one asking the questions here.”

  I didn’t know why he was being so gruff with me. I had just asked him a simple question. At the same time, I didn’t want to get on this detective’s bad side.

  “Oh. Okay. I’m confused, though. What questions do you have for me? Shouldn’t you be out talking to suspects?”

  “Who says I’m not?” Noble replied.

  The detective’s answer sent a shiver down my spine. It didn’t take being an actress on a police procedural television show to know what he was implying.

  I was beside myself. “Wait a minute. You don’t actually think I’m a suspect in his murder, do you?”

  The words sounded ridiculous as I said them aloud.

  Unfortunately, the detective didn’t treat them like absurdity.

  “Ms. Hadley, I know the victim had just broken up with you hours before he was murdered,” Detective Noble said.

  This was more than just craziness all of a sudden. It had become deadly serious.

  “Technically, that’s true, but—”

  He didn’t hold back in throwing out an accusation. “But what? There’s a motive right there.”

  I pleaded my innocence. “I didn’t kill him.”

  My reply did little to alleviate Detective Noble’s suspicion.

  “That’s what every suspect says.”

  I wanted to make it abundantly clear that he was looking at this situation all wrong. “Detective, come on. Look at me. Do I seem like a killer to you?”

  He looked me up and down. “No, but the killer isn’t always who they look like. I have seen some pretty unusual killers in my day.”

  Detective Noble just didn’t give up.

  Neither did I. “I’ll bet you have, but I’m not one of them. Not only did I play a detective on TV, but I come from a law enforcement family. I’ve helped host a charity fundraiser for police dog training for years. I’m a blue blood, just like you.”

  All of that was true. Until his recent retirement from the force, my father had been a detective for thirty years back on the East Coast. My brother was also currently a homicide detective back home in Florida. For the longest time, my family believed that I would join the police force, too.

  Detective Noble heard everything I said, yet it didn’t sway his opinion in the least.

  “That may be the case, but it doesn’t change the fact that you had a motive for murder,” he replied.

  “A motive is only one component of a murder investigation. A killer needs to have means and opportunity, too,” I countered.

  Noble was a real-life detective, but he wasn’t the only one with insights into homicide cases. Having played a detective on TV for years, I had picked up the procedures involved in catching killers.

  The detective didn’t miss a beat. “Speaking of, where were you between nine and ten o’clock last night?”

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sp; “I was here,” I replied.

  “Doing what?”

  “Taking a bath.”

  “Were you alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, you have no one to verify your alibi?” he asked.

  It pained me to give my answer, but I couldn’t avoid the truth.

  “No,” I said.

  Right then, I regretted having skipped the wrap party. If I had been in attendance, there would have been dozens of people who could have verified that I had not killed my ex-boyfriend. Then again, I had no idea this was going to happen. I was still in shock about hearing that Trent had been killed, much less that I was one of the suspects in his murder.

  As I reflected on last evening, one thing was absolutely clear—what a horrible time for me to have spent the night drinking alone. Now I was left with no way to verify my alibi. And, even though I wasn’t guilty, there was no easy way to prove my innocence.

  “It’s a shame that you don’t have anyone to corroborate your story,” Detective Noble replied.

  “You have to believe me,” I pleaded.

  He didn’t budge an inch. “I don’t have to do anything. My job is to find out the truth, and I’m going to do that.”

  I scrambled to find a way to sow the seeds of doubt in his mind. A prescient point suddenly came to my mind. “Wait a minute. You’re forgetting a very important thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “You say that I had motive and opportunity to commit murder, but I didn’t have the means to do it. I don’t know how Trent was killed, where he was killed, or what killed him.”

  “The victim was bludgeoned from behind in his living room with his Golden Thespian award statuette. Anyone could have broken into his place, snuck up behind him, and killed him—you included.”

  I couldn’t help but think how crazy it was that Trent had been killed by his own statuette. In a way, it was his own vanity that had done him in. The Golden Thespian was the lowest tier of award that was given out for television acting. In Trent’s case, it happened to be the only award he had ever won for his acting. So, despite its far from regal stature, Trent had proudly displayed the statuette on the mantel in his living room from the moment he had brought it home.