The Lies that Bind, page 1
The Lies that Bind
A Seaside Cottage Books Cozy Mystery
Karen MacInerney
Copyright © 2022 by Karen MacInerney
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Created with Vellum
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Murder on the Rocks Chapter One
More Books by Karen MacInerney
Recipes
Mississippi Mud Bars
Blueberry Boy Bait
Luscious Lemon Cookies
About the Author
1
There is nothing more perfect than a Maine summer day, when the sun is bright in the sky, the water is the color of cobalt, and the breeze is perfumed with the scent of salt air tinged with roses.
It was my first summer back in Maine since I was a child, and every day I woke up enchanted once again by the sound of the bell buoy in the distance, the cries of the gulls above the harbor, and the low grumble of lobster boats heading out for the day. Now, as I put a pan of Mississippi Mud Bars into the oven and glanced out the window at the bright morning, I thanked my lucky stars once again that I’d managed to find my way back to my favorite childhood haunt, Snug Harbor.
I had an hour before the bookstore I’d recently bought, Seaside Cottage Books, opened: enough time for a walk while the brownie base of the bars I’d just made cooled. I gave my customers a free cookie with every purchase, which meant I got to spend a lot of time experimenting in the kitchen. It was a fun idea, but a couple of months into owning the business, I was realizing I was going to have to expand my marketing beyond the kitchen to bring more customers in.
I sprinkled mini marshmallows over the warm brownies and popped them back in the oven, setting the timer for three minutes. As the marshmallows puffed, I grabbed my shoes and the leash from the hook by the door, calling Winston, my rescue Bichon Frisé, who was still snoozing in a sunbeam on my bed.
“Come on, lazybones,” I called as I walked into the bedroom, the wood floors creaking under my feet. Winston rolled on his back, presenting his tummy, and tilted his head. “No, you don’t get to stay here. We both need our exercise!”
By the time I managed to wrangle him into a leash and into the living room, the timer had gone off, and I pulled the pan of brownies—now with a puffy marshmallow top—back out of the oven and put it on a rack to cool while we walked. I’d finish it with a thick, fudgy frosting and try not to eat half the pan before the store opened. This particular recipe was popular with both the customers and me, and I’d made several batches over the past few weeks.
I had opened the back door and was coaxing a reluctant Winston down the steps to the beach path when my phone rang. I picked up as I got to the bottom of the steps; it was my friend Denise, who managed Sea Beans coffee shop.
“Got some free time this afternoon?” she asked.
“I do, actually,” I said. My assistant, Bethany, and my daughter, Caroline, were scheduled to take over the store from two to closing. “What did you have in mind?”
“I need to run something by you, and I thought maybe we could go blueberry picking and talk.”
“Everything okay?”
“It is,” she said. “I just… I’m not sure what to do about something. I can’t go into it now, but can I pick you up?”
“I’ll be free at two,” I said.
“I’ll swing by then,” she said. “Thanks.”
“I’m looking forward to it,” I told her, and hung up, wondering what she needed to talk about. Last I’d heard, business was good at the coffee shop, and the staff was doing great, but as I was quickly learning, all kinds of things could come up when you ran a small business. Low sales, for example, I thought with a twinge of worry. My last month’s receipts had been about twenty percent short of what I’d hoped, and since summer was the big season in Snug Harbor, I really needed to find a way to get customers in the door. As we walked down the path to the beach, I glanced over my shoulder at the cottage, which was nestled among trees at the top of a gentle hill. Although I loved that the store was a little off the beaten path—I didn’t have to listen to the questionable live music acts at some of the restaurants closer to the center of Snug Harbor’s lively downtown—traffic was definitely lighter than it would be if I were on the main street. I enjoyed lovely views of Snug Island and the harbor, instead of the back of another building, but the downside was that fewer people made it out to the fringes to shop and look for souvenirs. Was there some way to get customers to walk down to Seaside Cottage Books? I wondered.
I’d have to pick Denise’s brain about it, I decided as I brushed past the blooming roses—I still marveled at their deep magenta petals and winy scent—and paused as Winston decided to relieve himself on a rounded hump of granite.
The morning was fresh and clean and new. As I got to the beach, Winston sniffing busily and trailing just a bit behind me, I turned toward town, eyes sweeping the wet pebbly beach, looking, as always, for gleaming chunks of sea glass. As I walked toward town, I could hear the sound of dishes clattering from one of the several restaurants that backed the harbor, along with the low call of a horn as one of the bigger tourist boats left the dock—I was guessing it might be one of the birdwatching cruises, or a whale watch. Whale-watching was on my bucket list for the summer. I’d heard one or two occasionally came close to shore, and I’d spotted a few porpoises and dolphins in the harbor—always a thrill—but there was something magical about seeing those massive creatures slipping through the water. It always amazed me to think that they lived in another world, so close to and yet so far from our own.
Winston tugged at the leash, bringing me back to the beach; at the same time, I spotted a gleam of white against the gray of the rocks and the blue of broken mussel shells. I stooped down to pick up what looked like the delicate handle of a cup, smoothed with age; a part of the cup still attached to the graceful arch of white china. Who had sipped from this cup? And how had it ended up tumbled on the ocean’s floor?
I was full of dreamy ideas today, I thought as I tucked the treasure into my pocket. If only I could translate some of them into profitable action items. The anxiety over my business made me hungry for chocolate, or maybe a piece of coffee cake from Sea Beans, but even small extravagances weren’t in the budget at the moment. I’d have to settle for a Mississippi Mud Bar when I got home. Not that that was by any means a sacrifice.
A cool breeze ruffled Winston’s fur as he and I clambered over one of the granite boulders near the dock. Barnacles encrusted the weather-beaten piers, and seagulls called overhead, searching for an opportunity to grab a snack from an unwary tourist.
As I picked my way through the granite boulders with Winston at my side, a voice drifted over from the shore path above us. “What are you going to do with the body?”
I perked up.
“I figure we can weight it down and sink it,” a second voice replied.
I looked up to see who it was, but a clump of rosebushes obscured my view. It was definitely a man and a woman.
“We want it to turn up, though,” the woman said
“True,” he acknowledged. “Maybe we don’t bother moving it.”
“It depends on where we do it,” she said. “And how.”
As they spoke, I crept to one side, hoping to find a gap in the bushes. I caught a glimpse of brown hair glinting in the sunlight, and maybe a blue shirt, but that was it. How was I going to find out who these people were?
“Poison?’ he suggested
“How would we get it to her?”
“True,” the man said. “It bears thinking about. We have time.”
“Not too much, though,” the woman warned. “We’ve got to get on with it.”
“All unpleasant tasks grow when you put them off,” he said. “I guess you’re right.” As he spoke, I could hear the voice drifting away; I’d gone the wrong direction. I made a sharp turn and hurried to the other end of the rosebushes, hoping to catch a glimpse of the pair, but Winston darted in front of me as I was about to jump to another rock. I spun in mid-air, trying not to squash him, and my foot slid between two rocks, wrenching sideways. I yelped and sat down hard, then pushed myself back up, testing my foot gingerly as Winston eyed me with concern. It was sore, but not broken… if anything, a mild sprain. Limping just a little bit, I hurried as best I could toward where the voices had headed, but by the time I got to the end of the line of rosebushes, no one was in si ght.
2
I unlocked the front door of the bookstore at ten. I’d wrapped my ankle, iced it, and taken Ibuprofen. Although it wasn’t just like new, it was definitely feeling a little bit better. With Winston at my heels, I hobbled down the front walk with the blackboard easel advertising free cookies; I was hoping to lure passersby into the shop. Caroline pulled up in her car as I finished setting it up, waving as she turned into the driveway. I’d just limped back into the store when my daughter came through the back door, to be just about bowled over by an ecstatic Winston.
“Did you miss me, buddy?” she asked, squatting down and letting him cover her face with kisses. Her reddish-brown hair was braided, little tendrils escaping and curling in wisps against her pale skin; looking at her with Winston, I felt a wave of love for the young woman who used to be my baby girl. Then she scooped him up and hugged him. “Who’s my best boy?”
“He loves having you in town,” I said, feeling my heart swell with love at the sight of my nineteen-year-old daughter, whose face was now being bathed in kisses by Winston.
“You need a bath!” she said as he wriggled in her arms.
“I know,” I said. “If you’re up for it, I’d love it.”
“Maybe once I’ve had breakfast,” she said. “I picked up a bagel for you. Everything, right? With scallion cream cheese.”
“Thanks. I call it the ‘Date Repeller Bagel,’” I joked. Her face stiffened, and I regretted the comment immediately. My divorce from her dad was still fresh, and Caroline was having a hard time adjusting. Ted, my “wusband,” had been seeing a glamorous bestselling author for several months now; she was spending so much time at Ted’s house in Boston that Caroline had decided to move to Snug Harbor so she wouldn’t be confronted with the new reality every day. Now that I was seeing Nicholas Waters, whom I’d had a crush on twenty-five years earlier when I spent summers in Snug Harbor, it was getting a bit awkward for me, too. I was almost glad my small apartment didn’t have room to house my daughter; she was bunking with my mother, whose house wasn’t far away.
“I’m supposed to be going blueberry picking this afternoon,’ I said, attempting to change the subject. “Maybe you can make that lemon blueberry Bundt cake you made last summer?”
“Maybe,” she said, but the enthusiasm I’d briefly seen was gone. That seemed to be the case in general for Caroline right now; I was beginning to wonder if she should see someone. While her twin, Audrey, seemed to be adjusting well, my normally bright and energetic Caroline was not. She was taking a “gap year” from college, but she didn’t seem to have much of a plan, and seemed somehow to be adrift. She was working part-time for me, being trained by my assistant, Bethany, and theoretically looking for another job; unfortunately, until sales picked up, I couldn’t afford to hire her full-time.
“How’s the signing scheduling going, by the way?”
“I’ve got a local author scheduled for this Friday. Janice Morton’s her name; she writes a series of mysteries set in Acadia National Park. Bethany ordered the books, and they should be here Thursday.”
“That sounds fun,” I said. “I’ve never heard of her before. Are the books good?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “We e-mailed, and she said she was available, so we went for it. Bethany wrote a press release and is sending it to the paper. Have you put up the Facebook page for the bookstore yet?”
“Not yet,” I said. It was on the list of things that needed doing, but something about having to keep up with a social media page made me nervous. “Do you think you might take a crack at it?”
She brightened a bit. “Actually, that might be fun. Can I try?”
“That would be great,” I said. “We probably have to post things every day, though.”
“How about a picture of Winston with a new book every week?” she suggested. “Or a picture of the cookies you’ve got available?”
“That’s a terrific idea!” I said. “I really need to do something to boost sales. I love our location, but we’re a bit off the beaten path. We should probably sit down and brainstorm ways to get more customers in the door.”
“Have you considered selling something other than books?”
“Um… it’s a bookstore,” I pointed out.
“I know,” she said. “But… I don’t know. Souvenirs. Locally made crafts. Maybe some Maine-based blank books, and pens, and balsam sachets with quotes from Maine writers.”
“That’s really creative,” I said, but inside, I was wondering how to afford to buy all that merchandise.
“You could sell some of the stuff on consignment,” she suggested, as if reading my mind. “And I can get some fabric printed with the quotes and do some of the sachet sewing myself. Maybe start a cottage business.”
“It’s worth a shot,” I said, wondering at this change in my daughter. It had been this way recently: spurts of enthusiasm followed by apathy. Would this one last? “How do we find the people who do crafts?”
“Put it on the Facebook page,” she suggested. “Say you’re taking applications for people who want to sell things at the store. You take a cut, and if you have enough unusual things in here, it makes us more of a destination.”
“I don’t want to be a craft store though,” I said. “I still want to be a bookstore.”
“Of course, Mom,” she said. “How about groups?”
“What do you mean, groups? Bethany’s got a mystery writing group that meets every week.”
“Yes, but what about a book club? Maybe you could order special copies—signed, even—from the publishers. If you host it, people would come here, talk about the book, browse, and maybe buy some more books.” She bit her lip. “It would really create a community. You might even put a cafe in here…”
“All right, all right,” I said, putting my hands up; the suggestions were overwhelming, but I was thrilled to see a spark of enthusiasm in my daughter’s eyes. “I love all these ideas—they’re amazing—but let’s stick to one project at a time. As for a cafe? I barely have room for the books, much less a cafe.”
“You’d have to build an addition. Or maybe put some of it upstairs.”
“And live in a tent in the back yard,” I joked.
“The building next door is for lease,” she pointed out. The small shingle-style shop next door had been through multiple incarnations over the years; when I was a kid in Snug Harbor, it had been an ice cream store and an art gallery. Until recently, it had been a T-shirt store, but the owner had closed up shop at about the same time I moved to town. I hoped Seaside Cottage Books wouldn’t follow suit.
“Let’s start with a Facebook page,” I said. Renting a building and adding on space was definitely out of the question, particularly with the balance of the store’s books already in the red. “And write down all those ideas. I love your creativity… thank you so much for helping!”
“I’ll get right on it,” she said.
“I’m going to finish frosting the Mississippi Mud Bars now that they’ve cooled off,” I said. “Can you keep an eye on things down here?”
“Yes… but let’s get a good picture of those. They’ll be our first Facebook post!”
I’d iced and cut the bars (the fudge frosting was divine) and laid them on a pretty blue and white plate for Caroline to snap a few shots—she put a rose in front of the plate, to “style” it, and an open book beside it—and was stealing one for myself when two men walked into the shop, casting a speculative eye around at the sea glass-filled mason jars on the windowsills, the wooden bookshelves lined with colorful books, and the nautical-print cushions on the window seats. They didn’t look like tourists; instead of shorts and T-shirts, they wore slacks and expensive-looking button-down shirts, and had a decidedly businessy air to them. I’m not sure why, but something about the way they were looking at the store’s interior made my radar go off.
