Peridale Cafe Mystery 23 - Raspberry Lemonade and Ruin Read online

  RASPBERRY LEMONADE AND RUIN

  THE PERIDALE CAFE SERIES - BOOK 23

  AGATHA FROST

  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

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Thank You!

  Newsletter Signup

  Also by Agatha Frost

  Published by Pink Tree Publishing Limited in 2021

  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: July 27th 2021

  Words: 58,000

  Series: Book 23 - Peridale Cozy Café Mystery Series

  Standalone: Yes

  Cliff-hanger: No

  Though Julia South-Brown knows the imminent sale of Wellington Manor means everything to her father Brian and his wife Katie, the process hasn’t been all sunshine and roses for the village of Peridale. James Jacobson, the cutthroat property developer interested in the manor, also wants something else . . . to turn Peridale’s library into a hot new restaurant.

  And James isn’t the kind of man who takes no for an answer.

  As clouds both literal and figurative gather on Peridale’s horizon, Julia’s caught in the middle. Is it possible to successfully play both sides? Can she save Peridale’s beloved library while also helping Brian and Katie secure the sale of the property that’s been weighing them down and draining them dry for years?

  The task might be daunting, but a little impossibility has never scared her off before.

  Of course, there’s also the small matter of a garden party and a gun . . .

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  ALSO BY AGATHA FROST

  Claire’s Candles

  1. Vanilla Bean Vengeance

  2. Black Cherry Betrayal

  3. Coconut Milk Casualty

  4. Rose Petal Revenge

  5. Fresh Linen Fraud

  6. Toffee Apple Torment (NEW!)

  Peridale Cafe

  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

  22. Scones and Scandal

  23. Raspberry Lemonade and Ruin (NEW!)

  24. Marshmallows and Memories (PRE-ORDER)

  Other

  The Agatha Frost Winter Anthology

  Peridale Cafe Book 1-10

  Peridale Cafe Book 11-20

  Claire’s Candles Book 1-3

  1

  T he rain soaked Julia’s jacket as she ran through the village. She kept her handbag above her head, not that it was doing anything in the way of keeping her dry. It did, however, force her to keep her gaze on the uneven slate paving stones as her new shoes – burgundy Oxfords with black laces and a hint of a heel – splashed through the puddles. After the day she’d had, she’d well and truly broken them in enough for this unexpected sprint.

  Comfortable, very.

  Waterproof, not at all.

  The forecast had called for this downpour every day for a fortnight, and yet every day of the previous two weeks had been rainless. However, nobody had been calling the weather dry. The blanket of grey clouds smothering them had kept Peridale humid enough to leave everyone a little glistening lately. Only the villagers fearing for their gardens had kept their fingers crossed for rain. Julia wouldn’t have minded a summer devoid of clouds, not that she recalled a year they’d been so blessed. She’d picked a lousy day to dress without checking the forecast, but at least the rain was warm.

  Skidding around the corner, she looked up for the first time. A soft glow from The Comfy Corner, currently Peridale’s only restaurant, met the glow from the library, artificially warming the gloomy street. Around the same time just the day before, Julia had been at her cottage, playing in the garden with Olivia under a perfect blue summer-evening sky.

  She sped towards the library’s double doors, zooming past her grandmother as she stalked behind the ‘SAVE YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY!’ posters plastering the windows.

  “Without an umbrella, Julia? Really?” Dot pulled her through the doors. “Your car hasn’t broken down again, has it?”

  Julia lowered the useless bag and scraped her wet hair from her face. Water squelched through the lacing holes of the Oxfords. She hoped they weren’t ruined; they’d been a present to herself.

  “I thought I could dodge it,” she said, peeling off her soaked jacket and hanging it over a chair; she’d need it for the way back. “My car hasn’t broken down, thank you. Katie’s was blocking me in.”

  “Old banger like that. Nobody would be surprised if it did.” Dot craned her neck and looked through the narrow bit of glass left bare by the posters. “If Katie was blocking you in, I assume she’s not coming?”

  “Pulled out of our group at the last second.” Julia dragged her impossible-to-deal-with-when-wet hair into a ponytail. “The gossip is getting to her.”

  “Probably for the best.” Dot nodded. “Then we’re just waiting for Evelyn and Shilpa.”

  “Don’t suppose you have anything I can dry myself with?”

  “I don’t. Neil?” Dot called to the front desk. “Do you have a towel behind there? Julia’s soaked to the bone.”

  Neil, the manager of the library and Julia’s brother-in-law, looked up from his blank trance behind the counter. He blinked at Julia, evidently noticing her for the first time; her bursting in from the rain hadn’t been enough to grab his attention. The bleak look dragging down his face didn’t bode well for whatev
er was behind this emergency meeting of Peridale’s Ears.

  “These are all we have,” he said, pulling out a stack of blue paper towels from under the desk. “Sorry.”

  Neil sank back into his trance state, staring at – or through – the desk. Intentionally or not, he ignored her attempts at thanking him with a smile as she took the pile. Maybe that was for the best. They hadn’t spoken since she’d directed stern words his way at the previous week’s late-night ‘save the library’ strategy meeting at Dot’s.

  “What’s this news, Dot?” Amy called from one of the tub chairs arranged in a circle around a coffee table as she fanned herself with a magazine. “I’m terribly anxious about all of this. Can’t you just tell us now and the others when they get here?”

  “We’ll wait for everyone,” Dot affirmed, with a glance at her delicate wristwatch. “It’s only fair. We’ve waited this long for news.”

  News.

  Dot’s delivery was even graver than it had been earlier in the day, when she’d asked Julia to meet at the library once the café closed. Though the exchange had happened no more than two hours earlier, Julia had little else to occupy her as her busy summer Saturday at the café wound down. In the months since they’d formed, Peridale’s Ears had met at the library many times – though rarely so last-minute. Then there was the whispering. Dot seldom shied away from announcing their group’s plans and meetings at top volume, attempting to rouse a full café to join their cause, often clutching a clipboard with another petition sheet to sign. Earlier, Dot had carried no clipboard, and she’d left as soon as she’d quietly delivered her instructions over the counter.

  As she saturated paper towel after paper towel to dry down her clothes, Julia watched her gran pace. Dot’s eyes never veered far from her watch. This sight wasn’t uncommon, though Dot had tried to rein in her obsession with punctuality when members of their neighbourhood watch were running a little late. She sometimes succumbed to light clock-watching, but today was different. Frustration was absent. Though Julia hoped she’d read too much into Dot’s delivery at the café, it seemed hope was entirely what was missing.

  “Why is it for the best that Katie doesn’t join us?” Julia asked, picking up the echo of what her gran had said earlier. “Please tell me you haven’t started thinking about Katie like that, too.”

  “You know I’m firmly on her side,” Dot said, her delivery as sure as her wording, “but you know what people are saying. It might confuse our efforts. We’ve been trying so hard to save the library, and . . .” Her chest deflated. “Well, it might not matter who joins now, to be honest with you. Still, it’s better if we’re not seen playing both sides.”

  Playing both sides.

  Julia didn’t know who had first uttered those three words in that order, but they’d stuck like an overbaked sponge to an ungreased cake tin, forming an entirely false narrative around Katie selling her ancestral home – and, more specifically, the man to whom she was selling it.

  “Amy, if you want a vanilla slice, just take one,” Dot called, leaving the window for the first time since Julia’s damp entrance. “I put them out to eat. You don’t have to wait for . . .”

  Her gran’s volume dropped to the whisper of someone remembering they were in a library, despite it being closed. If the hours being slashed had been the earthquake, the sudden private purchase offer made to the council had been the aftershock.

  Nobody had felt it more than Neil. Julia offered him another smile. The hint of embarrassment in his expression said that he was remembering their last interaction. Five glasses of sherry had been the catalyst for Neil’s mind switching from saving the library to finding blame for its demise. The finger had pointed squarely at Katie, who, thankfully, hadn’t been in attendance to receive his tirade. Julia hadn’t let him leave without trying to set him right, though his drinking three sherries more than everyone else had made it impossible for her to get through.

  Knowing this wasn’t the time to unpack what had happened, Julia put the pile of scrunched-up paper towels in the bin next to the counter and left her brother-in-law to his thoughts. She crossed the length of the near-empty library as the rain beat down on the roof above. She patted Johnny, typing furiously at a table next to the circle of chairs, on the shoulder as she passed him. Her grandfather-in-law, Percy, wasn’t present. She suspected he was on dog-watching duty at home. The dogs came to the meetings when a little chaos was welcomed, but today’s meeting had all the levity of a wake.

  Julia found her husband, Barker, in the Mystery and Thriller aisle. She didn’t say a word as he peered through the glasses perched on his nose, making his way to the bottom of the page. He was already multitasking enough by managing to read and rock the pram back and forth as Olivia slept inside. Knowing better than to disturb a napping almost-eight-month-old, Julia kissed her fingers and placed them on Olivia’s soft cheek.

  “She went out like a light when the rain started,” he said, slotting a bookmark between the pages. He looked at her. “You’re all wet.”

  “Am I?” Julia glanced down at her clothes. “Hadn’t noticed.”

  Barker laughed, a peculiar sound given the current miasma of doom and gloom permeating their surroundings. He transitioned into a quieter cough as he popped the book into one of the pram’s many pouches.

  “How did it go?” he asked after a kiss.

  “How did what go?”

  “Your first Saturday back at the café.”

  “Oh, yeah.” She looked down at her new shoes and wriggled her soaked toes through the leather. “It was fine until . . .” Peering through a gap in the books, she saw her gran had returned to her post at the window. “Don’t suppose you know why we’ve been summoned?”

  “No idea.” He parted the books in a different place and pointed at Johnny, still deep in whatever he was speed-typing. “He knows, I’m sure of it. When I was getting ice cream at that van parked next to the green,” he moved in closer and whispered, “I saw Johnny on the phone. He hung up, went straight to Dot’s, and she came straight over and told me about this meeting before disappearing into the café.” He cleared his throat, pulling her gaze from Johnny to him. “Your first day?”

  Julia inhaled, and despite the grey clouds in the library being heavier than the ones currently soaking the village, she smiled. Up until Dot had arrived to whisper over the counter, she’d been having a great day.

  “I picked the right time to go back,” she said, smile widening. “Katie would have been swamped on her own. Busiest Saturday of the year so far. Though we’ll have to figure out what to do with all the flowers people brought in. I wasn’t expecting such a fuss.”

  “The village has clearly missed you.”

  There was a moment of silence as they looked down at their daughter, grumbling in her sleep. Julia had a feeling she knew what was on Barker’s mind.

  “I’ve missed it too,” she said, running the back of her index finger along Olivia’s fuzzy cheek. “There’s something novel about being a Saturday girl in my own café.”

  Barker seemed to relax, all but confirming that he’d been worried about Julia catching the bug to return. As much as she loved her café and its customers, she intended to take off as much of Olivia’s first year as she could. Her daughter’s development sped ahead with every passing month, and Julia didn’t want to miss a thing. Just yesterday, Olivia had pulled herself upright, using a chair for balance. As it had happened at a quarter past one, Julia would certainly have missed it had she been at work.

  Leaving Barker to his book, Julia dropped into the chair next to Johnny. He immediately stopped typing and hunched over the laptop as he dragged down the screen.

  “Something tells me that’s not top-secret wedding planning,” she whispered, nudging her old school friend in the ribs.

  “My next front page.” He pushed the screen to within millimetres of fully closing. “And if you’re here to extract information, Barker has already tried. I promised your gran I’d let h
er tell everyone the news.”

  Johnny’s delivery was as grave as her gran’s had been, knotting Julia’s stomach into a ball. She was all but waiting for them to confirm the truth she’d spent two hours convincing herself wasn’t the case. She wanted to push an answer out of him, but the door burst open, and a giant pink golf umbrella ducked inside.

  “Shilpa or Evelyn?” Johnny asked.

  “Evelyn,” Julia guessed.

  The giant umbrella lowered, revealing neither.

  Katie scanned the library as she shook out the brolly, oblivious to the distress on Dot’s face as she watched on. Katie’s expression lit up when she landed on Julia. She passed the desk and gave Neil the warm smile reserved for family to whom you were tangentially related but not all that close. Neil answered with a tight line of acknowledgement that was neither smile nor frown, a greeting more suitable for a stranger entering the library.

  “You were right!” Katie announced, her volume indicating how little she frequented libraries. “I shouldn’t care what people think when I know they’re wrong. It’s not my fault. I didn’t know James was trying to buy the library when we accepted the offer for the—”

  The door opened again, admitting Evelyn and Shilpa huddled under the same tiny clear umbrella. In a pink and yellow tie-dyed kaftan rebelling against the day’s gloom, Evelyn was dry from the shoulders down. Shilpa, in pale blue, looked as though she’d run through the rain to catch up with Evelyn after finally shutting up the post office for the day.

  Shilpa and Evelyn assessed the room, though they met Katie with vastly different looks. Evelyn beamed, clapping her hands together as she always did whenever new members (only Neil and Barker, so far) joined their group. Shilpa stared the same way Neil had done, though Julia suspected this was the look Shilpa reserved for customers she suspected of shoplifting.

  “Is Katie to join us?” Evelyn asked. “I had a feeling we’d be getting a surprise today.”

  “You’re about to get a surprise, alright,” Neil said, sending another glare in Katie’s direction. “That’s everyone here, isn’t it, Dot? I want to get this over with.”