The last five months felt like a tornado had touched down right smack in the middle of my life. My wonderful new husband, Mick, and I bought a beautiful new home, but at the moment, it looked like it had been ransacked. Our belongings were scattered everywhere—boxes with clothes, dish rags, books, and cat toys overflowing. Mick was out in the garage setting up his man cave. I stood, hands on hips, looking up at the high ceiling of our living room before continuing my attempt to sort through it all.
Hopefully, he knows I can change the oil in my car myself, and that I’ll be using those tools too! I thought to myself taking a seat on our oversized, comfy couch and reaching for the first exploding box I found near me.
Oh yeah, did I mention that living together meant we now had a total of eight cats? That equals seven stinky boys while Bobbi Jo, D.J., and I did our best to deal with the stench. To begin with, I was pretty sure I had the stomach virus going around town. All the boy odor was putting my gut even more on edge and having to hustle to the nearest bathroom to be sick every now and then wasn’t helping me get things done. Plus, I was juggling co-running a restaurant and a part-time private investigation service, all with my BFF, Ava Martinez.
Over the holiday season, Ava married her soul mate, Delilah, and I spontaneously proposed to and married Mick during the double wedding ceremony. My grandma Opal and Tom Costello, Leavensport’s local grocer, were supposed to be the other couple getting married that day, but my grandma found out some information from Tom’s past and left him standing at the altar.
Grandma’s ex-fiancé was more than a widowed local grocery owner. Grandma found out that back in the day when Tom’s first wife was pregnant, his store was struggling. He had to borrow some funds to keep it afloat, and, in doing so, gained some not-so-desirable “influences” on his business decisions. He had to host illegal raves in the basement of his store for the Canadian mafia. Everywhere I turned, I realized someone had a dark secret. Skeletons weren’t just falling out of closets—it seemed like they were raining down from the sky.
Yet, as stressed as I was, I had a lot more to be thankful for than not. I was thrilled that Mick and I had made it over the hurdles we’d been battling the last two years. Even though I knew life would continue to throw us curveballs, I had complete trust that he and I could work through anything that came our way. That was a HUGE hurdle for me personally, considering my past with men. Plus, I lived in a beautiful small village populated with many wonderful people. My family was, for the most part, supportive of my life, if maybe a tad too involved.
As much as I loved my family and my life growing up in Leavensport, I’d always been an odd duck—hiding in kitchens, walking around town with my earbuds in and a book in hand. I always carried a huge tote loaded with journals, books, music—an emergency kit that allowed me to disappear into my own world at any gathering that involved people. Yeppers, I was that gal.
Ava and I still hadn’t debriefed one another on all the intel we’d gathered on historical town politics over the last few months. We desperately needed to meet for a full day to catch up on our I Spy Slides for our PI business that Ava titled Bounty-Full Investigative Services—Food and Felony Fixes with Sass! Hopefully, we’d never have to pay for a sign. We’d have to have a large building to fit that title.
“Earth to Jolie!” I jolted out of my reverie to find Ava snapping her fingers near my eyes. I sat up straight on the couch.
“Oh, when did you get here?” I shook my head to return fully to the present.
Ava’s face was three shades of green, and her eyes bulged out as she looked around in a panic. She stood in front of me, wild curls frizzed out from the wind, her bag falling off her arm and a key in her hand. Behind her, my front door stood open as though she had burst through it in a rush.
“It’s over there!” I pointed to the small guest bathroom located down the hall off the great room. Mick’s head popped through the garage door just as Ava galloped down the hallway. She lunged for the bathroom door and slammed it behind her.
“Is she okay?” His face twisted in concern as he walked inside and closed the front door that she had left gaping open in her wild entrance.
“I hope she isn’t catching what I have,” I fretted, leaning away from him as he settled next to me on the couch. “You should stay away from us. There have been a ton of people in the village with this bug recently.”
“It’s going around the station, too. And Bea and Denise both had it last week, so we were short of help at the restaurant,” Mick said, referring to his place, M&M’s Italian Restaurant.
Like Ava and me, my hubby was an out-of-control multi-tasker—he was the only ranking detective in Leavensport and also a restaurant owner. He had MS and purchased the restaurant a couple of years ago to have if he got to the point with his health that he couldn’t do police work any longer. Luckily, Teddy, the police chief, was a childhood friend and extremely understanding when Mick had MS flare-ups and needed to take extended periods of time off work.
“If half the town wasn’t also sick in bed, I’d think it was that the three of us were burning the candles at both ends,” I said, referring to how busy we all had been lately.
Ava came dragging back into the great room. “I used some of your mouthwash. Did you pass this thing on to me?”
“Who knows who is passing it around? You know how many people have had it,” I said as Mick handed Ava a glass of water.
“Thanks.” She guzzled it.
“Slow down there, champ,” Mick said, reaching for the almost-empty glass.
“Sorry, Delilah’s had this bug, too. I shouldn’t have snapped at you, Jolie.”
“It’s okay. I haven’t exactly been a beacon of joy and sunshine either. Is Delilah okay?” I asked.
“She’s been stuck at home for the last few days. I’ve been staying in the other room but trying to bring her soup and keep her hydrated. Anyway, not why I came today.” Ava looked around the inside of our new home.
Things felt different now because Ava and I grew up as neighbors. When we got older, we bought cottages next door to each other. Then when Mick and I got married, he and I moved slightly out of town into an area that seemed to be out of range of future urban sprawl, for a while at least. This was the first time that Ava and I didn’t live right next door and could pop over whenever. Granted, Ava and I were only a ten-minute drive apart, but it was still a big change for us. But it made for a great bike ride to and from our homes now. I still picked Ava up for work when we had the same shifts, which was most of the time. But I missed her barging in multiple times a day. I never thought I’d say that.
“Wow, this place is a mess,” Ava said boorishly, looking around the open living room with the loft above. Then I saw her head swing in the direction of the open kitchen, my haven.
A long time ago, I found a spread in a magazine of a beautiful country kitchen done in old oak painted an antique green that had a vintage feel with grassy undertones. It reminded me of a granny smith apple. Later, when we were getting our new house ready, Mick had remembered me describing it and made a point to find that old edition of the Better Homes and Gardens magazine to make my dream kitchen come true.
There was a large bay window over the sink that overlooked our woods. The countertops were marble with a tannish hue that matched the light reds and pinks of the tile backsplash. The flooring was large tiles that matched those on the walls and had been laid individually by hand, showing the grayish clay grout in between each one. The tile led into the dining room that had a nook off towards the corner with a real, working antique cast-iron stove. The walls of the dining area were light gray stone with a white stucco ceiling supported by oak beams. A sliding glass door stood by the large oak table set we had in the middle and off to one side was a large bay window with a cushiony bench under it for reading—similar to the one we had recently added to Cast Iron Creations.
Ava strolled through the kitchen, looking around with an appreciative expression as she brushed her fingers along the marble counter and then moved to the dining room, feeling the stones of the wall, then sitting and looking out at the vista of blossoming crabapple trees. I loved the textures at work in this space and I could see she had noticed them too.
“I want to hold off organizing the kitchen until you have some time to come over and help me with it. Now, what did you come here to tell me?” I asked, tapping my foot.
“Oh, right, I’m not sure you should wait for me. I’ve got some serious investigating to do.” Ava stopped talking and clutched her stomach, trying to squelch a belch as her cheeks bulged out.
“Do you need—” I started to move toward her but she got a determined look on her face and held a hand up firmly.
“I’m okay,” she said, taking a deep breath and exhaling slowly. “I came here to tell you about the new bakery next to Mick’s place. I just heard who bought it.”
“Who?” I asked with a sinking feeling.
“Nina Sanchez.” Ava gave me a meaningful look that I didn’t understand.
I blinked several times. “Do I know her?”
“No. I don’t either, but—” Ava started.
Then it clicked in my brain. “Sanchez!”
Suddenly visions of gold nuggets and pirate ships filled my mind, taking me back to the Dominican Republic when Ava and I visited her family.
“Yep, now do you see why we need to investigate?”