Blueberry Muffins and Misfortune Read online

  Blueberry Muffins and Misfortune

  Agatha Frost

  Published by Pink Tree Publishing Limited in 2018

  All characters and events in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © Pink Tree Publishing Limited.

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  For questions and comments about this book, please contact [email protected]

  www.pinktreepublishing.com

  www.agathafrost.com

  Edited by Keri Lierman and Karen Sellers

  Contents

  About This Book

  Newsletter Signup

  Also by Agatha Frost

  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

  Thank You!

  Dead in the Water - Chapter 1

  Also by Agatha Frost

  Newsletter Signup

  About This Book

  Released: May 8th 2017

  Words: 53,000

  Series: Book 12 - Peridale Cozy Café Mystery Series

  Standalone: Yes

  Cliff-hanger: No

  When Barker's book launch is ruined by the sudden appearance of a decade-old skeleton, Julia finds herself with another cold case on her hands. It quickly becomes evident that the skeleton belongs to Mabel Crump, the former manager of the library, but with Mabel supposedly having fled Peridale for a new life in Spain ten years previously, how did she end up there, and more importantly, why?

  With Mabel's family gathered in Peridale for the ninetieth birthday of her husband, Julia soon realises the Crump family are not all they seem. Did one of the Crumps kill Mabel, or did someone in Julia's family murder the former librarian? Between the skeleton, Barker's sudden rise to author fame, and an unexpected love rival, Julia must juggle the different sides of her life to piece together her most challenging case yet. With secrets and lies spanning back ten long years, can Julia crack the case before everything crumbles around her?

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  Also by Agatha Frost

  The Scarlet Cove Seaside Series

  Dead in the Water (Book 1) - OUT NOW

  Castle on the Hill (Book 2) - OUT NOW

  Stroke of Death (Book 3) - OUT NOW

  The Peridale Cafe Series

  Pancakes and Corpses (Book 1) - OUT NOW

  Lemonade and Lies (Book 2) - OUT NOW

  Doughnuts and Deception (Book 3) - OUT NOW

  Chocolate Cake and Chaos (Book 4) - OUT NOW

  Shortbread and Sorrow (Book 5) - OUT NOW!

  Espresso and Evil (Book 6) - OUT NOW

  Macarons and Mayhem (Book 7) - OUT NOW

  Fruit Cake and Fear (Book 8) - OUT NOW

  Birthday Cake and Bodies (Book 9) - OUT NOW

  Gingerbread and Ghosts (Book 10) - OUT NOW

  Cupcakes and Casualties (Book 11) - OUT NOW

  Blueberry Muffins and Misfortune (Book 12) - OUT NOW

  Ice Cream and Incidents (Book 13) - COMING SOON

  1

  Julia South chewed the edge of her lip while she watched Alfie work on fixing her oven. She glanced at the cat clock above the fridge, its swishing tail and flicking eyes letting her know she was late for Barker’s book launch at the library; it was already eleven, and the party started at half past ten.

  “Will you be able to fix it?” Julia asked anxiously as Alfie fiddled with something within the stove. “Why didn’t I double set my alarm this morning? Nothing good ever comes from hitting the snooze button.”

  “Re-lax, Miss S!” Billy exclaimed, slapping her on the shoulder as he also watched Alfie work. “We know what we’re doing.”

  “I know what I’m doing,” Alfie called from inside the oven, his voice bouncing off the interior walls. “You, my friend, are still my apprentice.”

  “I fixed Amy Clark’s wall all by myself,” Billy said with a proud nod. “And she said I did a ‘mighty good job’ too!”

  “The wall that you ruined in the first place when you decided to take my motorbike for a joyride while I was giving her a quote to fix her back wall.”

  “I didn’t break that wall,” Billy said quietly to Julia. “Some dimwits from the estate kicked it down for a laugh.”

  Billy had once been one of those ‘dimwits from the estate’, but he had turned his life around since being in a relationship with Julia’s foster daughter, Jessie. It had been two months since Jessie’s long-lost brother, Alfie, had moved to the village, and in that time, Alfie and Billy had set up their joint building business. Julia had not known if they could fix her oven, but she had had no clue of who else to call at such short notice on a Sunday.

  “I think I know what’s wrong,” Alfie said as he backed out of the oven before straightening himself up. “Looks like your heating element is frazzled.”

  “Can you fix it?” Julia asked, her teeth biting even deeper into her lip as she looked at the ten trays of unbaked blueberry muffins she had agreed to bake for the party. “If I turn up late with muffins, I might be forgiven for sleeping in.”

  “I can fix it,” Alfie said as he tapped on his phone, the tattoos on his knuckles blurring into an ink cloud. “It’s pretty straightforward. It’s just worn from overuse, and you probably use your oven more than the average person. Very clean, might I add. If it weren’t for the older model, I’d think it was new from the way it gleamed inside.” Alfie scrolled down on his phone before his eyes lit up. “Ah! It looks like you’re in luck. Found a shop that’s open and they have the right part in stock. I can whiz over on my motorbike and be back here in twenty minutes.”

  “Twenty minutes?” Julia echoed, her heart dropping. “Barker will never forgive me for missing his big day. Okay, so maybe I’ll have to be fashionably late. The muffins will take twenty minutes to bake, which means I’ll make it before the party ends and hopefully they’ll be so delicious nobody will notice they weren’t there from the start.”

  Alfie’s phone beeped, causing him to smile. He quickly typed out something before pushing away the grin and slotting his phone away.

  “That the mystery girl again?” Billy asked, elbowing Alfie in the ribs. “You’re like a love-sick puppy.”

  “Shut it,” Alfie said as he grabbed his motorcycle helmet from the counter and crammed it over his thick, dark hair. “Mind your own business for once.”

  Julia had seen Alfie smile at his phone the same way a handful of times over the last couple of weeks and had wondered if he was seeing someone special. He had not mentioned anything, so she had decided not to ask.

  After wriggling into his leather biker jacket, Alfie headed for the door, leaving Billy and Julia alone in the kitchen. There was a moment of awkward silence as they stared at the oven, and then at each other.

  “So,” Julia sta
rted, “how’s the business going?”

  “Brill, Miss S!” Billy tugged at the embroidered ‘A to B Builders’ logo, which stood for ‘Alfie and Billy’, on his paint-splattered navy polo shirt. “Beats being unemployed, and I’m learning a trade that my dad says will never go out of fashion. They can’t replace us with drones, can they? Me and Alfie have a laugh, too, which makes it not even feel like work.”

  “Find something you enjoy, and you’ll never feel like you’ve worked a day in your life,” Julia said, thinking about her café. “Although, I might be out of a job if people think I can’t deliver my orders on time, especially to one of the most important events of Barker’s life.”

  Just saying Barker’s name out loud made the guilt writhe within. After securing a lucrative book deal for the mystery novel he had written, Barker’s life had changed so much already, and there was still a day to go until the book was officially released nationwide. It had been Julia’s idea to have the launch party in Peridale, and the publishers had lapped it up. Considering the book was based on a murder that had taken place in the village, they had said it was ‘such a genius idea’ that they were surprised they had not thought of it themselves. Barker had been talking about the launch for weeks, and Julia could not believe she was missing it for two hundred raw blueberry muffins.

  “Why don’t I get on with it?” Billy suggested, nodding at the oven. “I’ll get the old thing out so Alfie can fit the new one when he gets back.”

  “Do you know what you’re doing?”

  “Sure!” Billy cried as he dug in the toolbox for a screwdriver. “How hard can it be? Alfie said it was straightforward.”

  “Billy, I think -”

  “It means the muffins will be done quicker,” Billy butted in, his head already bobbing into the oven. “It’s just unscrewing stuff. I learned how to do that on the first day. Trust me, Miss S.”

  Julia stepped forward, unsure of what to do as Billy rattled and grunted from within the oven. She looked at the blueberry muffin mixture sitting uncooked in the trays, and then at the clock again; she kept her mouth shut.

  “I’m back!” Jessie cried as the front door slammed, the cottage shaking a little as it always did when she returned home. “Didn’t think that old banger car of yours could go that fast, but she proved me wrong.”

  “You took my car?” Julia called into the hallway as Jessie hobbled towards her, white plastic bags in each hand. “Without asking?”

  “It was an emergency,” Jessie said, looking down her nose at Julia, her eyes narrowed. “I didn’t crash it. What was the point in putting me on the insurance if you didn’t want me to drive it?”

  “You can,” Julia said, glancing over Jessie’s shoulder through the open front door to make sure her precious vintage aqua blue Ford Anglia was in one piece. “I did say I wanted to be in the passenger seat until you were a little more experienced.”

  “I started driving last May!” Jessie cried with a huff. “Remember? Barker bought me the lessons for my seventeenth birthday. It’s already April, and I turn eighteen next month.”

  “And yet you only passed your test last week,” Julia reminded her as she glanced over at Billy. “After failing it seven times.”

  “I put the ‘P’ on the front of the car,” Jessie said as she dumped the plastic bags on the floor. “Sorry for doing you a favour! I won’t bother next time.”

  One of the bags opened, and a plastic tray of four blueberry muffins bounced onto the hallway rug. Julia looked up at Jessie, realising why she had been in such a hurry to leave when Billy and Alfie had arrived to fix the oven.

  “Just in case,” Jessie said as she picked up the plastic box. “You had a proper meltdown when you realised the oven wasn’t heating up. I went to a shop outside the village. Nobody will know.”

  “I can’t use these!” Julia whispered, staring at the processed muffins. “How many did you get?”

  “Fifty packs,” Jessie said with an excited smirk. “You owe me sixty quid.”

  Julia closed her eyes and groaned, the ticking of the clock echoing around her mind as each precious second slipped away.

  “Billy is fixing the –,” Julia started, but she was interrupted by an electric fizzle followed by the hallway lamp cutting off and the groan of her fridge as it powered down, “– oven.”

  Billy slid onto the kitchen floor, his face pale and the screwdriver brandished in his fist.

  “Good thing it has a plastic handle,” he said with a sheepish smile as he looked down at the metal end of the tool. “Maybe I should have checked if Alfie had turned it off first?”

  “Maybe,” Julia echoed through slightly gritted teeth. “What am I going to do now?”

  “Fuse box isn’t working,” Jessie called from the utility cupboard as she flicked the main switch up and down. “Well done, Bob the Builder. You’ve gone and fried the whole house! It’s almost like I knew you were going to muck it up!”

  “It wasn’t my fault, babe,” Billy muttered as he scrambled to his feet. “I feel a bit fizzy.”

  “Do you mean fuzzy?” Jessie asked with a roll of her eyes.

  “No, babe,” Billy said as he wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, which was still clamped tightly around the screwdriver. “Definitely fizzy.”

  Jessie scooped up the plastic bags and dumped them on the kitchen counter as Billy poured himself a glass of water with shaky hands. Jessie looked at Julia with a devilish smirk before nodding at the clean trays she had laid out for when the muffins were ready.

  “Go on,” Jessie whispered darkly. “Be naughty, cake lady. We could be there in ten minutes if we’re quick.”

  “I can’t,” Julia replied, another glance at the clock making her stomach flip. “It’s not right.”

  “I won’t tell if you don’t,” Jessie said as she ripped open the first plastic case. “What other choice do we have right now?”

  2

  Sunday afternoons in spring were usually spent gardening or enjoying the warm weather on the village green, but Peridale was deserted as Julia drove to the library. Balloons outside the village hall told of a ninetieth-birthday celebration happening inside, but when Julia rounded the corner to her final destination, it became clear where everyone was.

  “It’s a circus!” Jessie exclaimed as she stared at the parked cars lining the streets. “I didn’t realise so many people in this village owned cars.”

  “Me neither,” Julia said as she slowed down to look for a parking space. “We should have walked.”

  “With two hundred fraudulent muffins?” Jessie exclaimed as she craned her neck to join in the hunt for a parking space. “I only have two arms, you know.”

  “Keep your voice down,” Julia murmured. “If anyone finds out I didn’t bake them –”

  “We tell them I baked them,” Jessie jumped in, echoing what she had said when they had loaded the car with the muffins. “And tomorrow we drive to the tip and get rid of those plastic boxes. No evidence!”

  “It feels so secretive.”

  “We’d be good at getting away with murder,” Jessie mused, narrowing her eyes as she relaxed into her seat and slipped into her thoughts. “If we ever needed to, of course. Your brain combined with my wits would be an unstoppable combination.”

  “Let’s hope we never find ourselves in such a situation,” she said, distracted by her search for somewhere to park. “Do you think I can fit in there?”

  “Your car is the size of a shoe,” Jessie replied with a shrug. “So, yes.”

  But before Julia could fit her ‘shoe’ into the space outside The Comfy Corner restaurant across from the library, a shiny silver BMW with its top down zipped past her and straight into the space. Julia slammed on her brakes, her hand going down on the horn. A beautiful young woman in her twenties wiggled out of the car in a pristine white blouse tucked into a tight pencil skirt. Despite the horn, she only glanced in the direction of Julia’s car before bending down and smoothing out her sleek, yel
low-blonde ponytail in the wing-mirror. When she was satisfied that every glossy hair was tightly secured, she whipped the ponytail over her shoulder like a dressage horse performing a trick. She reached over to the passenger seat and plucked out a large, black leather handbag, which she tossed over her shoulder before running out into the road without looking. Her calves were as shiny as her hair and as smooth as marble, which made Julia look down at her own less glossy legs.

  “Run her over!” Jessie cried, slamming her hands on the dashboard. “Teach the brat a lesson!”

  ‘The brat’ pointed her electronic key over her shoulder. The BMW beeped, its lights flashing before the soft roof began to glide up.

  “Oi!” Jessie called after frantically winding down the window. “Are you blind? That was our space!”

  The young woman flung her head around, her ponytail following like it was connected to the small of her back with a concealed magnet. She arched a brow, her bee-stung lips pursing a little. Instead of responding, she took one look at Julia’s car, which was at least fifty years older than the BMW, and rolled her eyes. She dropped her keys into her large bag and disappeared into the library.

  “Give me your keys!” Jessie cried, holding her hand out. “I’m going to carve my name into her door!”