A Novel Death: a Danger Cove Bookshop Mystery (Danger Cove Mysteries Book 10) Read Free

part of her statement seemed to be her talking to herself. I handed her a stack of flyers anyway. "Here, take these."
    She put them in her bag with the book and then smiled at me. "Do you have time for coffee?"
    I shook my head. "I don't. I have a haircut, and then I'm working until closing," I said. "I can get away for lunch, if you're free."
    "I'll be by around noon," she said. "It's so nice having you back home."
    She reached out and smoothed my hair with a smile that meant she was thinking of my dad. I had inherited his dark hair and brown eyes. Twenty years and she was still not over his sudden loss. I never knew if my presence helped or hurt her in that regard.
    "You should grow your hair long again," she said, tilting her head. "You look so pretty with long hair."
    With her left-handed compliment, my well of sympathy started to dry up a little.
    "I like it short," I said.
    "Maybe just a little longer," she said. "I hear a long bob is coming back in style."
    My chin-length bob was very chic, according to the expensive stylist, to whom I used to pay a lot of money for the world's most simple haircut. And it was easy. Wash, brush, and go. No muss, no fuss.
    I made a show of looking at my watch. "Oh, wow, I should get over to The Clip and Sip. Have fun at your garden meeting," I said, then grabbed my bag, waved to Burt, and left the store before my head exploded.
    It was taking some adjustment coming home to Danger Cove. Part of the problem was that it hadn't really been my choice. I'd had a perfect life in Seattle. I had a great job at HunTech, which was the technology start-up my boyfriend, Hunter, had founded. We'd had a fun social life, and things had been going so well.
    And then my grandmother had died, and Hunter had emailed me to say he wasn't going to go to the funeral with me, and by the way, he thought we should take a break from being exclusive.
    Maybe it was the fact that he'd broken up with me by email, or more likely, that he'd actually used this particular email chain to break up with me—but I hadn't handled it well. And unfortunately, in my haste to reply, I hadn't noticed that my email program had automatically filled in HunTechAll instead of Hunter, and the righteously angry response had gone out to the entire company. And then it had gone viral.
    I'd been unemployed by sundown. Also, single. Obviously.
    It had been a dark time.
    Frankly, finding out that I was also the sole heir to my grandmother's estate didn't make me feel one bit better. I loved her so much, and now I was living in her house and running her business. I could understand how my mother never moved on, seeing a small version of her dead husband across the dinner table every night. Being around Grandma Ruth's things was both comforting and a constant reminder of my loss.
    I was a good 15 minutes early for my haircut at The Clip and Sip. It was a little early in the day to enjoy the complimentary wine and liqueurs, so I settled in with a coffee and my new book while I waited for Cassidi Conti to finish with her earlier appointment.
    Cassidi was one of the newer additions to Danger Cove. The town hadn't changed that much since I'd gone off to college. It was still the same charming coastal town that I loved. Cassidi, a sunny, blonde Texas transplant, had recently taken over The Clip and Sip salon and was bringing a fresh sense of style to my hometown.
    It was nice being back in Danger Cove. I'd been gone for a little more than a decade, though I visited two or three times a year. I just wasn't yet sold on the fact that I was back here on a permanent basis.
    When I'd lost my boyfriend and my job, I knew that my cute one-bedroom loft in downtown Seattle would soon be out of my budget. My grandmother's bequest solved those problems—well, not the boyfriend one. But still, a solution had fallen into my lap, and I hadn't had much choice but to return to Danger Cove. It wasn't where I thought I'd be at this point in my life, but I was