Plotting for Murder (Cozy Mystery Bookshop Series Book 1)

by Tamra Baumann

  Plotting For Murder

  Tamra Baumann

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2018 by Tamra Baumann All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 978-1-947591-073

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of Tamra Baumann.

  Published by Tamra Baumann

  Cover Art by The Cover Vault

  Printed in the United States of America

  Plotting for Murder

  Copyright © 2019 by Tamra Baumann

  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

  Also by Tamra Baumann

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  As I stare into a pair of gorgeous green eyes, ones I should be smitten with, they’re so attractive, all I can think is that whoever said life doesn’t always turn out the way you planned wasn’t kidding. I would’ve never guessed a few months ago that I’d be sitting across from an estate lawyer discussing my deceased mother’s trust fund—one whose funds she couldn’t access. Worse, I’d vowed I’d never live in the small town where I grew up, and six weeks later, I’m still here. A chef, trying to save my mom’s failing mystery bookstore, Cloaks, Daggers, and Croissants. At least there’s food in the store’s name. That’s something my culinary-loving heart can embrace.

  A commotion near the front of the bookstore interrupts whatever Gage the lawyer was saying that I wasn’t fully listening to, and we both turn to see what’s going on.

  “Is there a Sawyer Davis here?” a woman carrying a cute dog calls out.

  I raise my hand so the older woman built like a linebacker can spot me. “Right here.”

  The woman skids to a stop at our table and tosses a big bag at my feet. The little dog she’s holding looks like an adorable stuffed animal. Like a fluffy mini golden retriever, but with a white chin.

  “You’re a woman?” The lady with the dog tilts her head to the right, and so does the pup. Both seem confused about something. “Sawyer is a man’s name, isn’t it?”

  If I had a dollar for every time I’ve heard that, I wouldn’t be as broke as I am right now. “My parents were hoping for a boy, I guess. What can I help you with?”

  “I’m here to deliver your mini goldendoodle. He’s four months old today.” The woman thrusts the pup my way. “Your mother already paid in full. Everything you’ll need is in the bag.”

  This has to be some sort of joke. And not a funny one. “I’m sorry Ms.…”

  “Bertha, but everyone calls me Bert. On account of my overly large hands and feet for a woman.”

  It’s tempting to point out that Bert is a man’s name too, but I won’t. And it’d be sort of rude to agree with her on her manly body parts. Besides, I’m too busy having a ministroke over the dog. “There has to be some sort of a mix-up. My mother passed away six weeks ago.”

  “Nope.” Bert shakes her head as she thrusts the ball of fluff all the way into my arms. “Your mom ordered him three months ago. And I won’t take no for an answer. Zoe said it was a deathbed wish, and I’m not messing with a witch and a promise.”

  My mother hadn’t been a witch. She’d taught yoga and sold crystals in the back of her bookstore. Believed in the metaphysical and karma. Most called her an eccentric hippie. Hence the small mystery bookstore where everyone was always welcome to stop by, read a book in any of the cozy nooks she’d set up around the store, drink all the coffee, and eat all the croissants their hearts desired. All served on pretty china plates and cups. It’s a welcoming little shop my mother ran with love, but it makes very little money.

  Thinking of my mom chokes me up for the fifth time today, so I clear my throat and try to sound stern. “You don’t understand, Bert.” I try to give the dog back, but Bert has tucked her huge hands behind her back. “I can’t take care of a puppy. Since my mom died, I’ve had my hands full with an old house in a constant state of disrepair and this mystery bookstore I inherited. I’m a chef who doesn’t even read mysteries. I’m in so far over my head, I’m drowning in my own soup pot here.”

  Bert frowns. “But you read, right?”

  “Of course, but I prefer happy romances, not whodunnits with dead bodies around every corner. They scare me.”

  “I kinda like to be scared out of my wits.”

  Of course, she does. And she is doing a fine job of scaring me too. No way can I add a dog to my already chaotic life.

  Gage, the single blond lawyer sitting across from me adds ever so helpfully, “And Sawyer’s a landlord now too.”

  I throw a hand out toward Gage in a see what I mean gesture that’s falling on blind eyes and deaf ears. I hadn’t noticed until now how large Bert’s ears are too. No matter how big, they aren’t hearing my plea.

  The dog licks my chin, and I start to cave. Nope. Doesn’t matter how cute the pooch is. My head will explode if I add one more problem to my life. “Please, Bert? You can keep the money. Sell him to someone else. It’d be the most humane thing for the dog. He doesn’t need a person on the edge of a mental breakdown for an owner.”

  The little dog tucks his head under my chin and sighs. I think he already knows I’m practically a goner. I love all dogs. I just couldn’t have one in my apartment back in Chicago.

  Bert holds up her mitt of a hand like a traffic cop. “I’m not going against your mom. I need my muchachas all lined up just like they are, thank you very much.” Bert turns and walks away.

  I call out, “I’m pretty sure you mean chakras.” Then I look into a pair of soulful brown eyes begging me to keep him. Maybe my niece and nephew would want a dog? My sister could only kill me a little for giving the dog to the kids as a gift. How much trouble could a puppy be? “Does he have a name?”

  Bert stops and turns around. “Cooper. Now that I know you’re a female, I get it. Your mom told me the whole story about you and the sheriff. It’s a doozy, that’s for sure.”

  Of course, Mom named the dog after Dylan Cooper.

  Real subtle, Mother.

  Bert is almost out the door when she calls out, “There’s some piddle pads in the bag, but he’s due for a number two soon. Don’t dally, or your customers are going to be stepping in a pile of fun. Have a great day!” She disappears out the door.

  Gage is trying not to laugh, so I ask, “You knew about this, didn’t you?”

  He can’t hold back his grin any longer. “Yeah.” He reaches out and pats Cooper. “I told Zoe it might not be a good idea. That you’d be overwhelmed as it is. Then she told me why she ordered the dog knowing she wouldn’t be here to meet him. I couldn’t argue with her logic.”

  I lay a kiss on top of Cooper’s fluffy head where there’s a little white spot too. “My mother didn’t have a logical bone in her body.”

  “Maybe, but she had a big heart. She needed to know you’d have someone who’d love you unconditionally. Like she did.”

  Oh, man. Mother’s guilt�
�and love—are powerful things. Now I have no choice but to keep Cooper.

  Tears fill my eyes as I hug my new little dog tighter. I miss my mom so much. She could be the biggest matchmaking nut sometimes, but she loved me and my sister, Megan.

  “This is her way of telling me, again, to take Dylan back. But that is so not happening. Dylan’s more of a dog than Cooper.”

  Gage smiles while staring into my eyes as if searching for something. Then he says quietly, “I was wondering how you still felt about the sheriff. But are you afraid your muchachas might get out of sync if you don’t listen to your mom?”

  “Not in the least.” Is Gage flirting with me? I’m so rusty at dating, I’m oblivious sometimes. Probably not. He’s built, blond, and handsome, and he’d never be interested in an average-looking brunette like me who’s allergic to gyms. My workouts come from lifting pots with pork shoulders in them. Well, now maybe it’ll be cases of mystery books, but not if I can help it. I’m still determined to own my own restaurant one day. And I have a plan to get around the stupid trust rules.

  That’s where Gage the smart lawyer is going to come in handy. “Is there any way to break the trust my grandparents set up for my mom?”

  He shakes his head. “It was set up because your mom was so… To protect the money from her… You know what? Zoe was who she was, and it just didn’t jibe with what her parents wanted for her. Unfortunately, you’re going to be the one to pay the price. If you still want to keep the trust, that is?”

  Um, let’s think. Give up millions of dollars to go back to being broke trying to make it as a chef in Chicago? Or figure out how to outwit the trust? “I’ll keep it for now. Thanks.”

  Mostly to give my mother the revenge she so deserves against her mean brother, my uncle and the mayor of our little town, who already got his half of the trust but wants my mother’s too. My mother wasn’t normal, but she was good, kind, and someone to emulate. I feel like she was depending on me to put my uncle in his place, and I’m up for the challenge.

  On the other hand, I guess I can’t blame my grandparents for putting so many restrictions on the money they left my mom. At the time, my mother was being nightly sawed in half as a traveling magician’s assistant. And as a result of spending the rest of those nights in the same hotel room with said magician to save money, my sister and I came about. But they never married, which was probably a good thing.

  Gage says, “You don’t think you’ll have any problems with your father wanting a share? Not that he’s entitled, but it could cause some inconvenience if he decides to file suit.”

  “Oh, that’s right.” I lift a finger and finish off my fifth cup of coffee by ten fifteen in the morning. I really need to cut back. “You’re new in town. You don’t know the story.”

  Gage frowns. “I’ve been here eight years.”

  “Right. New in town. If you weren’t born in Sunset Cove, you’ll always be new. Anyway, my father once tried to get his share of the trust claiming a common law marriage. It was quite the fiasco. In the end, his bluff didn’t work, and nothing ever came of it.”

  Gage leans closer. “Is your dad really a traveling magician? Still?”

  I sigh inwardly. “Yep. Max the Magnificent. I’ll introduce you the next time he shows up unexpectedly to sleep on my couch and before he magically makes himself disappear again. How long he stays usually depends on how much cash I have on me.”

  When I tell people what my father does, they always laugh and think I’m kidding. It wasn’t any wonder why the kids of a hippie and a flaky magician never really fit in here. Sunset Cove, perched on the cliffs of Northern California, a bohemian tourist town just south of San Francisco, was meant to cater to those who loved art. And to the curious who couldn’t afford it but appreciated it.

  Digging through the bag Bert dropped at my feet I find a leash. “Mind if we continue this meeting at the park, Gage?” There’s a roll of plastic poop bags inside, so I grab two, just in case.

  “Sure.” He stands and waits while I get the leash attached to Cooper’s collar.

  However, Cooper doesn’t appear to be trained in the art of walking on a leash yet and thinks it’s a tug game. And he’s a better player than I am. He starts running for the door with the leash trailing behind. Seems I’m the untrained one here.

  Gage is faster, though, and scoops up the puppy. “No, you don’t, buddy.” He expertly tucks Cooper under one arm and holds the bookshop’s door open for me to pass through first. A gentleman and a lawyer.

  Is that an oxymoron?

  I call out to my emo goth girl assistant who I inherited along with the store. “I’ll be back in a few, Brittany. Please be nice to the customers.”

  Brittany looks up from her phone long enough to say, “Whatever,” then goes right back to what she was doing. Probably looking up how many shades of black her favorite lipstick comes in.

  The two of us need to have a chat one of these days.

  Gage and I walk across the street to the busy town square filled with tourists licking ice-cream cones in the warm July sunshine. He asks, “Why do you keep Brittany?”

  I shrug. “She reminds me of me at that age. Doesn’t fit in with the other kids at school. And she’s being raised by a single mom who can’t seem to hold down a job. She needs the money.”

  Gage puts Cooper down on the grass, and the dog wags his goofy long tail that sometimes curls at the end and starts sniffing. “You need the money too. I bet she puts off more customers than you keep.”

  Yeah. Brittany and I really need to have that talk. “Speaking of money. My understanding is that the trust can only be used for normal business expenses, for the upkeep of the commercial rental properties, and on my crumbling old house?” All the profits and rents collected go straight to the trust fund first. It’s rarely enough to cover all the monthly bills.

  “And for your health and education. Which prompts me to ask, how does a woman with an advanced engineering degree from MIT end up going back to school to become a chef?”

  “Math was easy for me, and they wanted females in such a male-dominated field. I thought it’d be a great opportunity to really do something with my life while Dylan figured out his. Unfortunately, when I was done, Dylan was still confused, and I found out engineering bored me to tears. I went back to the one thing I knew made me happy. Cooking. So, what’s to stop me from paying myself a million-dollar salary at the bookstore?”

  The dog finds a tree and lifts his little leg as Gage says, “There are restrictions and limits in the trust. You’ll find them near the end. So, what’s the idea you wanted to discuss?”

  I almost forgot this guy gets paid by the millisecond. Back to business. I’d fallen asleep from sheer boredom reading the complicated trust last night, but I have an idea to get my own restaurant. “It’s all outlined right here.” I hand him my plan to outwit my mean uncle.

  As he reads the document, a slow smile forms on Gage’s face. “So, the trust builds a restaurant. And I suppose this is all hush-hush so the mayor won’t know the new tenant will be you?”

  “See? That’s why they pay you the big bucks. You catch on fast. And even better, I can keep all the profits from that business because I’ll own it. As long as I pay the trust monthly rent to use the building and equipment.” Cooper bounds back and then does his second order of business right at my feet. “Yuck. This is going to take some getting used to.”

  Gage grabs the plastic bag from my hand and gallantly handles the cleanup for me. “Your uncle has to approve any expenditure from the trust over five thousand dollars. I’d guess you’ll need hundreds of thousands. It’s why your newly acquired commercial properties are in disrepair. Your mom hated dealing with your uncle.”

  My Uncle Frank, my mom’s only sibling, wants me to give up and go away so he gets all the money in the trust. It reverts to him if my sister or I don’t want it. My sister already said she wants nothing to do with the trust because she’s busy cutting open people’s brains, m
aking them better and getting paid more money than she can spend. I’m not letting the big bully win. “No problem. I’ll just have all the contractors bill me in four thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine dollar increments.”

  Gage two-points the little bag into a nearby trash bin. “You still need the permits, and the mayor has a say in that.”

  “That’s where you come in. If you can do all this for your very exclusive and private client, moi, who technically has millions in the bank but can’t use them without being really sneaky, I think we can pull this off.”

  Cooper and I stare at Gage as his forehead crinkles in thought.

  My stomach twists a little as I raise a hand and wave to my neighbor Bill, who’s riding his bike on the path that leads to the cliffs.

  Sunset Cove is a nice small town, with an idyllic square in the middle with a park. It includes all the typical touristy shops that sell art, ice cream, knickknacks, T-shirts, and more. It’s perched on the cliffs overlooking the ocean. Recently, there has been an influx of young professionals from San Francisco who like their microbreweries, which we have our share of now, and who want to raise their kids in a place that has no real crime. Where the neighbors care about the kids and who’ll tell you if little Jane or Johnny are doing something wrong. It feels plain nosy to the kids, but to their parents, it feels like raising their children in a loving village. And it’s part of the same reason I keep Brittany employed. To help her.

  Cooper and I wait patiently while Gage lifts a hand and rubs the back of his neck as he continues to read my plan.

  Finally, he says, “I actually think this might work. It’d mean lots of meetings between us, though. My schedule is already pretty full, so it might have to be over dinner and drinks now and then.” His smile makes his already handsome face even more attractive.