Claire's Candles Mystery 03 - Coconut Milk Casualty Read online

  COCONUT MILK CAUSALITY

  CLAIRE’S CANDLES - BOOK 3

  AGATHA FROST

  CONTENTS

  About This Book

  Newsletter Signup

  Also by Agatha Frost

  Introduction from 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

  Afterword

  Newsletter Signup

  Also by Agatha Frost

  Published by Pink Tree Publishing Limited in 2020

  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

  About This Book

  Released: August 30th 2020

  Words: 49,000

  Series: Book 3 - Claire’s Candles

  Language: British English

  Standalone: Yes

  Cliff-hanger: No

  With the renovations complete, candles poured, and shelves stocked, Claire Harris is ready to stand behind the counter of Claire’s Candles and take her place as Northash’s newest shopkeeper.

  That is, until a menacing message spray-painted across the front of her candle shop on the evening before the grand opening douses the light of all her enthusiasm and hard work.

  When spray paint escalates to murder, and all the evidence points to Claire’s Uncle Pat pulling strings from behind his prison walls, Claire and her family can no longer keep their heads in the sand. Their monster in the basement isn’t content to remain ignored, and the longer they go without facing it, the more strained all their relationships become.

  And that’s before Claire discovers the connections between the old friendships, deep-rooted rivalries, and clandestine casinos that keep upping the ante and complicating the crime.

  When all the cards are on the table, will Claire be the one with the winning hand?

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  ALSO BY AGATHA FROST

  Claire’s Candles

  1. Vanilla Bean Vengeance

  2. Black Cherry Betrayal

  3. Coconut Milk Casualty

  4. TBA

  Peridale Cafe

  Book 1-10 Boxset

  1. Pancakes and Corpses

  2. Lemonade and Lies

  3. Doughnuts and Deception

  4. Chocolate Cake and Chaos

  5. Shortbread and Sorrow

  6. Espresso and Evil

  7. Macarons and Mayhem

  8. Fruit Cake and Fear

  9. Birthday Cake and Bodies

  10. Gingerbread and Ghosts

  11.Cupcakes and Casualties

  12. Blueberry Muffins and Misfortune

  13. Ice Cream and Incidents

  14. Champagne and Catastrophes

  15. Wedding Cake and Woes

  16. Red Velvet and Revenge

  17. Vegetables and Vengeance

  18. Cheesecake and Confusion

  19. Brownies and Bloodshed

  20. Cocktails and Cowardice

  21. Profiteroles and Poison (NEW!)

  INTRODUCTION FROM AGATHA FROST

  Hello there! Welcome to another installment of my Claire’s Candles Cozy Mystery series! If this is a return visit to Northash, welcome back, and if this is your first visit, welcome! Since this is the third book in a series with overlapping subplots, I recommend reading the first and second books in the series, Vanilla Bean Vengeance and Black Cherry Betrayal, although the mystery in this story can be enjoyed as a standalone (and I never leave a mystery hanging).

  Another note: I am British, and Claire’s Candles is set in the North West of England. Depending on where you live, you may come across words/phrases you don’t understand, or might think are spelt wrong (we love throwing the ‘u’ into words like ‘colour). If that’s the case, I hope you enjoy experiencing something a little different, although I believe that anyone speaking any variety of English will be able enjoy this book, and isn’t reading all about learning?

  Please, enjoy! And when you’re finished, don’t forget to leave a review on Amazon (they help, a lot), and to check out my other series, Peridale Cafe, which has over 20 cozy adventures for you to enjoy!

  CHAPTER ONE

  Ryan was stalling her. For the last twenty minutes, Claire had been perched on the edge of his bed, watching him pick out a shirt like his life depended on it, and yet he still hadn’t settled on one.

  “We’re only going to the pub for a drink,” she pointed out. “You’re not meeting the Queen.”

  “It’s a special night.” He pulled a blue shirt out of the small wardrobe, assessed it, and put it straight back. “We’re celebrating.”

  Claire’s stomach rolled like a barrel even as the corners of her lips pricked up into a smile. After months of delays and preparation (and unfortunately, a dead body in the attic), in the morning, her dream candle shop would open its doors for the first time. Nerves had riddled her for weeks, but that hadn’t stopped excitement fizzing alongside them like a child’s anticipation on Christmas Eve.

  “It’s only The Hesketh Arms,” she said, looking down at her simple outfit of a plain black t-shirt and a pair of slightly ripped, fitted jeans. “A pint at the pub the night before I open, you said.”

  “This one.” He pulled out a short-sleeved shirt on a hanger. “I like this one.”

  “That’s the first one you picked.”

  “Is it?” He held the white shirt at arm’s length and gave it a shake. “Just needs a little iron, and we’ll be on our way.”

  Claire assessed Ryan as he kicked up the small ironing board in the cramped room. He hadn’t looked her in the eyes since he’d planted her on the bed, and his cheeks flushed red every time she tried to hurry him. She’d known him since they were toddlers, and in the more than thirty years that had passed since then, he’d never learned to lie convincingly. It wouldn’t take much interrogation to crack him, but for now, she’d play along out of sheer curiosity.

  “Still no luck finding a house?” she asked as she looked around the dated bed and breakfast bedroom.

  “The rental property market in Northash has as much flow as the duck pond at Starfall Park.” He climbed over a suitcase and a pile of black bags to grab the iron off the windowsill. “Well, the houses in my price range, at least. As much as I’d love a four-bedroom detached cottage with a country view, the gym doesn’t pay that well. I keep searching, but nobody ever seems to leave this place.”

  Being a quiet, sleepy vi
llage with expansive country views, decent shopping, good schools close by, a large factory for employment, and a gorgeous public park, Northash had been the perfect place for families to flock to for generations. By this point, most of the village’s residents had been there since birth and weren’t in a rush to leave.

  “You left,” she reminded him, the words catching unexpectedly in the back of her throat.

  “And yet here I am.” He filled the kettle with water at the small sink in the corner of the bedroom, a grin lifting his freckled cheeks. “As glad as I am to be back home, I wish it were as easy to find places here as it was in Spain.” He sighed. “Although, that was probably because Maya’s family were so well connected. She had a cousin or an uncle in every sector, I swear.”

  Ryan laid out the shirt on the ironing board and attempted to mask his sadness with a half-smile, but Claire knew him better than that. Though much had changed in the long years without contact, Claire had never lost her urge to protect him. When she saw the familiar pained look in his eyes as he stared at the heating iron, she only wanted to shield him more.

  Ryan only looked like that when he mentioned Maya. Maya had lured Ryan away from Northash. He met her on a lad’s holiday when he was eighteen and rushed off to Spain to live with her without seeming to give it much thought. At the time, he’d only told Claire that Maya was beautiful and he had fallen in love with her. Claire lost more than a friend the day Ryan left.

  “The perfect house is waiting around the corner,” Claire assured him, not wanting to let the conversation linger in the sadness of the past. “But seriously, if we don’t set off soon, it’ll be standing room only. You know what the pub is like on Friday nights.”

  Steam hissed from the tiny holes as he ran the hot plate of the iron along every crease with military precision, flipping the shirt this way and that to attack it from every angle. Clearly, he wasn’t in any rush.

  “I suppose I’m going to have to start ironing my own stuff when I move out,” she mused aloud. “As it stands, I never have the chance. My mother washes, dries, shrinks, irons, and puts away my clothes before I even wake up.”

  “Your mother is of a different breed.”

  “I’ll tell her you said that.”

  “The second you want to start putting up the flat’s furniture, let me know,” he said, turning the shirt to work on the collar.

  “I will.” A yawn quivered Claire’s lips before ripping her mouth fully open. “Right after I get the shop opening out of the way. I haven’t had a second to think about the flat.”

  “Done!” he announced, swishing the shirt off the board. “Throw me that deodorant can on my dresser, would you?”

  Claire rolled back onto the soft double bed and plucked the deodorant from the cluttered bedside. She was pleased to see four of her recent candle prototypes that she’d given him for opinions, each burned to a different degree. She’d spent months getting her stock levels to a point she felt comfortable to open with, but she never stopped developing new scents when she had the time. Ryan seemed to love every candle she gave him to test, and while it wasn’t as helpful as the constructive criticism she pulled from her family, she loved that he wanted to be involved in the process.

  When she turned back and tossed him the can, he’d already whipped off the tight t-shirt he’d worn during his long shift at the gym. While he casually misted his armpits with the minty pressurised spray, her gaze fell on his washboard abs. She didn’t know where else to look, so she let herself linger there. She’d had months to accept that he wasn’t the little dumpling he’d been when he left. She was sure it would take another few years to fully accept the Adonis body he had somehow chiselled from the fluffy softness she remembered. Claire’s softness was still very much soft, and she had no desire to start chipping away at it.

  “Jeans, next,” he said as he buttoned up the crisp, short-sleeved shirt. “Won’t take two—”

  “These.” Claire plucked a pair of skinny black jeans from the scrunched up pile of clothing on the bed. “They’re tight enough that they don’t need ironing. You look good in them.”

  “I do?”

  “Sure.” Cheeks hot, she tossed them across the room. “Chop-chop.”

  Ryan caught the jeans and looked as though he was going to argue his right to spend the next half an hour umming and ahhing over every pair of trousers he owned. Claire left her seat on the bed and waited by the door. Determined not to stare at the backs of his muscled legs as he wriggled into the jeans, her eyes landed on a plastic bag jammed into the corner by the wardrobe. Bundled-together paintbrushes, some dirty with paint, poked out through the handle hole. Claire nudged the bag with her foot, revealing dozens of tubes of watercolour paints inside. A few had been opened, but most of the tubes were plump and un-squeezed. From this angle, she could see a tall wooden easel stuffed in the gap between the old mahogany wardrobe and the wood-chip wallpaper. Just as she shifted to see if a painting was attached, Ryan appeared between her and the wardrobe, fully dressed, the scent of his sweet aftershave thick in the air.

  “Are you painting again?” she asked, trying to step around him. “Let me have a look.”

  “It’s nothing,” he said, his pale cheeks flushing the deepest red before he turned her around to face the door. “C’mon, let’s go.”

  She pursed her lips. “Now you want to rush?”

  “I’m just trying it out again.” He closed the door firmly and twisted the key in the lock. “I haven’t painted in a while. Not since Mum died.” He forced the key into the tight pocket of his jeans and clapped his hands together before saying, “You’re right. The pub will be packed if we take any longer.”

  Ryan hurried down the floral hallway and bounced down the stairs, forcing Claire to follow. She wanted to push the subject, to see his work, but she could wait until Ryan was ready to talk about it, even if she did feel a little pushed out. Ryan had painted all through his childhood and teen years, and back then, Claire was always the first person to whom he showed his works in progress.

  Rather than leaving the B&B straight away, Ryan went to the doorway of the sitting room. Agnes and Jeanie, the twin sisters who owned the place, swayed in opposite rocking chairs, knitting. Nine-year-old Amelia coloured violently in a book at the coffee table, showing no care for the patterns or lines. Hugo, the quieter of the two at seven-years-old, was curled up in an armchair next to Jeanie, his face buried in his beloved handheld games console.

  If Ryan had a distinct look when he talked about Maya, he wore the opposite when he looked at his children. It reminded Claire of the way she looked at her cats when she caught them snuggled up at the bottom of the bed in the morning.

  “Thanks again for watching them,” Ryan said, patting the doorframe to get the sisters’ attention. “I won’t be out too late.”

  “It’s no bother,” Jeanie said, grinning over her knitting. “Always happy to help.”

  “It’s like running a nursery,” Agnes said, her tone bitter and less jovial than her sister’s.

  “Take your time.” Jeanie shook her head at Agnes with slightly pursed lips. “They’re no bother, honestly. Keeps me on my toes. You’ve been our only guests for a while, so you have our full attention.”

  Agnes rolled her eyes and looped the wool forcefully over one of the needles. Slightly under her breath, she muttered, “Speak for yourself.”

  “Can we come?” Amelia whined without looking up from her colouring book. “It’s boring here.”

  “I could put the television on?” Jeanie suggested.

  “No Netflix,” she moaned. “What’s the point?”

  “What about a card game? Or dominos?”

  “Don’t want to.”

  Agnes jabbed her needle into the next stitch. “Children are so ungrateful these days.”

  “Behave yourself,” Ryan commanded, including them both but focusing his finger on Amelia. “I mean it. I don’t want a repeat of last time.”

  “Fiiine,” Amelia
huffed, switching from a red pencil crayon to a green one. “I just wanted to see what would happen. It was Hugo’s idea anyway.”

  “Was not.”

  “The fish were quite fine after we returned them to the tank,” Jeanie said with a soft chuckle, shooting her sister a sharp look obviously intended to keep Agnes from uttering further complaints. “Kids will be kids. Now, go and enjoy the party!”

  Before Claire could say a word, Ryan pulled her away from the sitting room and steered her down the hall to the front door.

  “Party?”

  “What?”

  “She just said ‘enjoy the party!’”

  “Did she?”

  “Ryan . . .” Claire held onto the doorframe before he could push her out. “Did my mother put you up to this?”

  “It was supposed to be a surprise.” He exhaled, sounding a mixture of relieved and disappointed. “It was supposed to start at seven. Your dad sent me a text and told me to stall for half an hour.”

  “And picking out shirts was all you could think of?”

  “Worked, didn’t it?” He smiled a little. “Just try and act as surprised as you can because I think your mother might kill me if she finds out. She’s been planning this all week.”

  “Don’t worry,” Claire said, looping her arm through his, “I have my drama GCSE to fall back on.”

  “Didn’t you get a D?”

  “Details.”

  As they walked the short distance from the bed and breakfast to the village square under the last of the late spring sun, Claire couldn’t be anything but excited. Unmarried, childless, and, until recently, a simple factory worker, she had always felt like a failure when it came to her mother’s exacting standards, not that she’d ever actively tried to reach them. Only since acquiring the shop had she seen regular glimmers of pride in her mother’s eyes. Usually, Claire hated surprises, and parties in her honour were always the last thing she wanted to do to celebrate any occasion, but she was touched her mother had gone to such lengths.