The Armstrong Assignment (A Janet Markham Bennett Cozy Thriller Book 1)

by Diana Xarissa

  “Let’s take a walk in the garden,” he suggested.

  Doveby House had extensive gardens, and the pair often spent hours walking hand in hand through them. It was cold outside, but dry. Janet put on a coat, and she and Edward went out through the door from the kitchen.

  “What if Mr. Jones is early?” Janet asked as they began to stroll slowly along a random path.

  “He’ll be exactly on time, either this morning or tonight,” Edward told her. “It isn’t like him to be anything less than crystal clear as to his intentions, but I reread the text and it does simply say ten o’clock.”

  “As we’ve no plans for the day, it doesn’t really matter what he meant,” Janet replied. “What do you think he wants?”

  “I’m fairly certain he has a job for us. The question is, do we want to go back to work for him?”

  Janet sighed. “I am rather enjoying our life of leisure here, but it can be just a tiny bit dull.”

  Edward chuckled. “There are other options besides staying here or working for Mr. Jones. We could simply travel the world. I own several properties, and you’ve never been to any of them. We could fly to New York City tomorrow and stay in my flat there for a week or two or three.”

  “I forgot that you own houses and flats elsewhere. It’s odd that I haven’t been to any of them.”

  “I should have said that we own other properties,” he replied, putting emphasis on the word ‘we.’ “They’re as much yours as they are mine now that we’re married. I didn’t think you’d agree to travel with me before the wedding, but now that we are married, we should visit each of our homes. Perhaps you would prefer to live somewhere other than Doveby Dale.”

  Janet looked around at the gardens and at the large house. “I can’t imagine living anywhere else, even though this has only been home for a few years. When Joan and I were teaching and living together in our little cottage, I never imagined that we’d one day call such a beautiful house home.”

  “But you should have a chance to see what other options are out there. We should visit all of my properties and then discuss which ones we want to keep and which ones we should sell.”

  “Sell?”

  “I bought properties all around the world so that I would have somewhere reasonably nearby to go when I needed a break. If I was working in the US, for instance, I’d stay in my flat in New York City once in a while, either during or after an assignment. Now that I’m retired, I probably don’t need a flat in New York City, but if you find that you like the flat and the city, we can keep it and holiday there regularly.”

  “Are you terribly wealthy, then?” Janet blurted out, slowly twirling the large diamond and sapphire engagement ring he’d given her.

  “I’m quite comfortable,” he replied. “We should sit down and discuss finances, as well. For one thing, I should be contributing something towards household expenses while we’re here.”

  “I believe Michael is covering some of the expenses that come with having such a large house. One of these days, we may have to go back to welcoming guests if we’re going to keep paying all of the bills.”

  “There’s no need for that,” Edward told her. “If Joan wants to start having guests again because she enjoys having them here, then that’s up to her, but I can contribute enough to the household coffers to keep the bills paid without having to open the doors to paying guests again, if Joan is happy with that.”

  “We haven’t really discussed it,” Janet admitted. She and Joan hadn’t had many opportunities to talk to one another for some time. Michael had proposed on Valentine’s Day, nearly a year earlier. Janet felt as if she and Joan had talked of nothing but wedding plans from then until Joan’s wedding. After the wedding, Michael had moved into Doveby House. Janet had still been adjusting to his constant presence when Edward had proposed and everything had changed once again.

  “Maybe it’s time for a long conversation between us and Joan and Michael,” Edward suggested.

  Janet nodded. “Michael may be too busy with what’s happening across the road to talk, though,” she said.

  Michael Donaldson had worked as a chemist. At one time, he’d owned the small chemist’s shop in the village, but he’d sold it to a large chain when he’d decided to retire. He’d been widowed for years before Janet and Joan had moved to Doveby Dale. He and his first wife had never had children, and Janet had been told that he’d sold his business for a large sum that had left him very comfortable in his retirement.

  Janet also knew that he had insurance that was helping to pay towards the work that was being done to make his house habitable again, but she doubted that the insurance would pay enough to get the house back to Joan’s exacting standards. No doubt both Joan and Michael would be grateful if Edward started contributing towards the household expenses on top of what Janet already gave her sister from her retirement income.

  “Of course, we may not have much time for that conversation, not if Mr. Jones has an assignment for us,” Edward added.

  “What could he want us to do?”

  “It could be anything from delivering a package to someone to breaking into a fortress, finding a hostage, and getting the hostage out safely. In over forty years of working for the agency, I never did the exact same job twice. Even jobs that sounded the same always ended up being very different.”

  “Oh?”

  He laughed. “I brought people here, to Doveby House, on multiple occasions. Delivering someone to a safe house seems a fairly straightforward job, doesn’t it?”

  Janet nodded. She’d already known that Edward had formerly used Doveby House as a safe house. That was what had brought him to Doveby Dale a short while after she and Joan had purchased the property. At the time, he’d insisted that he’d made a booking with Margaret Appleton, the previous owner. After some discussion, Janet and Joan had agreed to let Edward stay, not knowing that he’d been sent to search the house in case Margaret had left behind anything that would connect Doveby House to Edward’s agency. It had been at the end of the stay that Edward had told Janet about his job and also told her that he was interested in a relationship with her.

  “Surely that was pretty much the same job every time,” Janet said.

  “It was never as simple as it sounded,” he told her, shaking his head. “One woman I brought decided that she wanted me to stay with her, in her bed. It took a great deal of effort to persuade her that we weren’t well suited.”

  “James Bond would have just slept with her,” Janet said.

  Edward laughed. “If James Bond worked for my agency, he’d have been let go the first time he slept with someone associated with an assignment. It works in books and the movies, but not in the real world.”

  Janet nodded. “But that only happened once?” she asked.

  “One of the men I brought here decided that he wanted to sleep with Maggie,” Edward recalled, using Margaret’s nickname. “I had to convince her to turn him down, which wasn’t easy. Maggie loved men, but he was about to be shipped off to Mexico for an extended stay and I didn’t want her to try to follow him.”

  “My goodness.”

  “And then there was the man who tried to burn some important documents in his room,” Edward sighed. “He nearly set the entire house on fire. Maggie was furious, and it cost the agency a small fortune to make things right again.”

  “Which room?” Janet asked.

  Edward winked at her. “You won’t find a single trace of what happened.”

  They walked around a corner and then stopped in front of the carriage house.

  “Is Joan still considering turning this into a small self-catering unit?” Edward asked.

  Janet shrugged. “We haven’t really discussed that lately, either. I don’t know that either of us has been inside since the body was found. It’s, well, it’s just creepy.”

  “So you don’t know if the ghost has gone or not?”

  “We don’t, but he or she should still be there. As I understand it,
the ghost has been there a lot longer than the body had been.”

  “We should investigate,” Edward suggested.

  Janet sighed. “You can investigate.”

  “You don’t want to come inside with me?”

  “I don’t know,” Janet told him. “As I said, it’s creepy in there.”

  “Where is the key?”

  “On the hook by the back door. You’ll need a torch, too.”

  “I thought you got the electricity problems repaired.”

  “We had the faulty electricity disconnected and a proper line run from the house, but that doesn’t mean that the ghost won’t switch off the lights when you’re in there.”

  “I’ll be right back,” Edward told her.

  Janet sat down on a nearby bench and pulled her coat tightly around her. She hadn’t really noticed the cold breeze while she and Edward had been walking around, but now that she was stationary, it seemed to want to blow right through her.

  “Hello.”

  The voice came from behind Janet, and it made her jump.

  “Stuart,” she gasped as she jumped up from her seat.

  “I didn’t mean to frighten you,” he said quickly. “I thought you would have heard me coming.”

  “I was lost in thought,” she told him.

  Stuart Long was a retired gardener who’d found that retirement didn’t really suit him. He spent nearly all of his time maintaining the gardens at Doveby House in exchange for a small stipend and unlimited tea and biscuits. It was his house that had burned down back in June and, for some time after the incident, he’d stayed at Doveby House with the sisters and Michael. When it became obvious that it was going to be some months before reconstruction on the house was even going to begin, Stuart had bought himself a tiny cottage about half a mile away.

  He was still at Doveby House nearly every day, even during the winter months, working in the garden, but he was enjoying having his own space again. In addition to having his house rebuilt, he was in the middle of a messy legal case involving the woman he’d thought was his wife. Janet knew he didn’t like talking about her or the case, so she forced herself to be polite and not bring it up as he joined her on the bench.

  “How are you?” he asked her.

  “I’m fine. How are you?” she replied.

  “I’m fine and, for the first time in a long time, I think I actually mean it,” he replied.

  Janet smiled at him. “I’m glad to hear that.”

  “I finally have my cottage exactly the way I want it, and I’ve been thinking about simply staying there even after the house is rebuilt.”

  “Oh?”

  “I don’t need a three-bedroom house, not when I’m all alone. And I’m not in any hurry to have anyone else in my life, either. After my time with Mary, I think I’d rather be alone for the rest of my life.”

  “Never say never,” Janet told him.

  Stuart laughed. “My daughter says that, too, but she also insists that she has to approve of any woman I meet.”

  “That may be for the best,” Janet suggested, knowing that Stuart had been estranged from his daughter while he’d been married to Mary. The two women had disliked one another, and Mary had forced Stuart to cut all ties with his daughter not long after they’d married.

  “Here we are,” Edward said as he approached, waving the key to the carriage house.

  “What do you need in the carriage house?” Stuart asked.

  “Nothing,” Janet told him. “Edward was just wondering if it’s still haunted.”

  “It is,” Stuart told her. “I don’t keep anything in there any longer, not since you built my shed for me, but I do check on it every once in a while. I’ve been locked inside at least a dozen times in the past three months. That’s why I always keep the spare key in my pocket.”

  Janet looked at Edward. “See? We don’t need to go inside.”

  He chuckled. “But we could,” he suggested.

  Stuart laughed. “I’ll stay out here and let you out when you get locked in,” he offered.

  Edward crossed to the door and unlocked it. He pulled it open and looked back at Janet. “Coming?”

  She sighed and got to her feet. Edward stepped back to let her go first and then followed her into the building. Janet pulled the cord that switched on the light and then glanced around the large, empty space.

  “I was thinking that we could have this turned into a very comfortable space for just us,” Edward said in a low voice. “We would only need a small kitchen, more for snacks than proper meals. There’s plenty of room for a large luxury bathroom and we could have a loft built above this level for our bedroom.”

  Janet had already seen the plans that Joan had had drawn up for the space, so she could easily picture what Edward was suggesting. “Would you be happier out here than you are in Doveby House?” she asked.

  He pulled her close and kissed her gently. “I’m happy wherever you are. I just thought you might prefer a bit more privacy and that you might want to have your own home here in Doveby Dale. It was just a thought.”

  Janet sighed. “I suppose a lot depends on how much time we’re going to be spending in Doveby Dale.”

  Edward glanced at his watch and sighed. “There is that,” he said. “It’s nearly ten. Mr. Jones could be here any minute. We’ll continue this conversation after he’s gone.”

  When they stepped back outside, Stuart grinned at them. “It looks as if the ghost didn’t mind your visit,” he said.

  “This time,” Janet muttered.

  “But that’s a fancy car,” Stuart said, nodding towards the road behind them.

  Janet turned around and stared at the huge black limousine that was making its way towards Doveby House.

  “That will be our visitor,” Edward said. “Ready?” he asked Janet.

  “Not at all,” she said as he took her hand and began to lead her back to the house.

  Also by Diana Xarissa

  The Janet Markham Bennett Cozy Thriller Series

  The Armstrong Assignment

  The Blake Assignment

  The Markham Sisters Cozy Mystery Novellas

  The Appleton Case

  The Bennett Case

  The Chalmers Case

  The Donaldson Case

  The Ellsworth Case

  The Fenton Case

  The Green Case

  The Hampton Case

  The Irwin Case

  The Jackson Case

  The Kingston Case

  The Lawley Case

  The Moody Case

  The Norman Case

  The Osborne Case

  The Patrone Case

  The Quinton Case

  The Rhodes Case

  The Somerset Case

  The Tanner Case

  The Underwood Case

  The Vernon Case

  The Walters Case

  The Xanders Case

  The Young Case

  The Zachery Case

  The Isle of Man Ghostly Cozy Mysteries

  Arrivals and Arrests

  Boats and Bad Guys

  Cars and Cold Cases

  Dogs and Danger

  Encounters and Enemies

  Friends and Frauds

  Guests and Guilt

  Hop-tu-Naa and Homicide

  Invitations and Investigations

  Joy and Jealousy

  Kittens and Killers

  Letters and Lawsuits

  Marsupials and Murder

  Neighbors and Nightmares

  Orchestras and Obsessions

  Proposals and Poison

  Questions and Quarrels

  Roses and Revenge

  The Isle of Man Cozy Mysteries

  Aunt Bessie Assumes

  Aunt Bessie Believes

  Aunt Bessie Considers

  Aunt Bessie Decides

  Aunt Bessie Enjoys

  Aunt Bessie Finds

  Aunt Bessie Goes

  Aunt Bessie’s Holiday

/>   Aunt Bessie Invites

  Aunt Bessie Joins

  Aunt Bessie Knows

  Aunt Bessie Likes

  Aunt Bessie Meets

  Aunt Bessie Needs

  Aunt Bessie Observes

  Aunt Bessie Provides

  Aunt Bessie Questions

  Aunt Bessie Remembers

  Aunt Bessie Solves

  Aunt Bessie Tries

  Aunt Bessie Understands

  Aunt Bessie Volunteers

  Aunt Bessie Wonders

  Aunt Bessie’s X-Ray

  Aunt Bessie Yearns

  Aunt Bessie Zeroes In

  The Aunt Bessie Cold Case Mysteries

  The Adams File

  The Bernhard File

  The Isle of Man Romances

  Island Escape

  Island Inheritance

  Island Heritage

  Island Christmas

  The Later in Life Love Stories

  Second Chances

  Second Act

  Second Thoughts

  Second Degree

  Second Best

  About the Author

  Diana started self-publishing in 2013 and she is thrilled to have found readers for the stories that she creates. She spent her childhood and teens years wearing out her library card on a regular basis and has always enjoyed getting lost in fictional worlds.

  She was born and raised in Erie, Pennsylvania, and studied history at Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania. After years working in college administration in both Erie and Washington, DC, Diana moved to the UK following her marriage.

  While living on the Isle of Man, Diana had an opportunity to earn a master’s degree in Manx Studies, focusing on the fascinating history of the island. Eventually, she and her husband and their two children relocated to the US, where they are now settled in the Buffalo, New York, area.

  She also writes mystery/thrillers set in the not-too-distant future as Diana X. Dunn and Middle Grade and Young Adult fiction as D.X. Dunn.