by Fiona Grace
Lacey flashed her a weary smile and took the evidence baggie. “I think you might be right.”
Just then, Lacey heard the internal door click open, and Eldritch Von Raven—aka Richard Bird—came strolling out. He’d spent a good few hours in jail because of her, so Lacey wasn’t surprised when he gave her a cold look. He went to the reception desk and was handed back his possessions that had been confiscated.
He was about to walk away, ignoring Lacey, when he did a double take. He must’ve noticed her shivering and rain drenched, and was overcome with curiosity.
He walked over.
“What happened to you?” he said.
“Long story,” Lacey said, her eyes on her milky tea.
“Why are you here?” he asked, clearly not satisfied with her evasive answer.
Lacey looked up and held his gaze. “I realized I’d made a mistake blaming you for killing Alaric and I felt a responsibility to put it right.”
Eldritch’s eyebrows twitched with confusion. He folded his arms. “Well. Yes. You did make a mistake,” he said, sounding uppity. “What did you do?”
“I put it right,” Lacey said, with a shrug. “I did what I was trying to do all along. I caught the killer. Madeleine.”
Beth nudged her with her shoulder. “Got her to confess and everything,” she said, with the air of a proud mother.
Lacey nodded and smiled shyly. After the night she’d had, she didn’t much feel like accepting any praise.
“Madeleine?” Eldritch repeated, looking astonished. “Madeleine killed Alaric? But why?”
“For the grimoire,” Lacey said. “She was convinced the book belonged to her ancestors, and that they were giving her signs or something.”
“She’s having a mental health evaluation at the hospital,” Beth interjected. “She’s exhibiting all the signs of an acute psychotic episode.”
Eldritch frowned deeply, like he just didn’t know how to process what he was hearing.
Just then, the cell phone he collected from the reception desk pinged. He glanced at it, then his eyes widened with surprise.
“Okay, nothing will surprise me now,” he said as he scanned whatever was on the screen. “I got word back from the authenticator. The grimoire was a fake all along.”
“It was?” Lacey asked, her eyes pinging open with surprise.
He nodded. “According to this email, it was just a prop from a movie.”
Lacey gasped. So Finnbar had been right?
Just then, the automatic glass doors of the station swished apart. Gina came hurrying in, Boudica by her side.
Chester leapt up at the sight of her and Boudica and ran to his furry companion.
“Lacey!” Gina cried, running to her.
The two friends embraced.
“What happened?” Gina asked. “You’re soaking!”
Lacey shook her head. “I’m fine. And Gina, this is important. The grimoire was fake all along. It was a movie prop from that seventies horror film Finnbar told us about. The curse you read was gibberish. You’re in the clear.”
“Thank goodness,” Gina said, clearly relieved. “And Madeleine?”
Lacey nodded. “She’ll be okay.”
Gina nodded solemnly.
Just then, Lacey caught sight of the clock on the wall in the reception area. It was almost five a.m. A deep yawn took hold of her, and she could suddenly feel every ache and twinge in her body as the adrenaline gave way to exhaustion.
“Hold on, where’s Tom?” Lacey suddenly asked her friend. “He didn’t come with you?”
Gina’s cheeks immediately went red. “I didn’t knock!” she exclaimed. “My mind was in a tizz! Didn’t you call him to say where you were?”
Lacey held up her phone. “My cell is a block of molten metal!” she exclaimed.
The two women gave each other wide-eyed looks.
“Quick, let’s go!” Lacey cried.
What on earth would be going through her poor fiancé’s mind when he awoke to discover her gone?
*
Dawn was rising as Gina drove up Lacey’s driveway. Lacey was surprised to see every light on in the house.
Tom wrenched open the door and hurried down the path. He was wearing his night clothes.
“Where were you? I just woke up and you were gone!”
He grabbed her and held her tightly.
“Long story,” Lacey said, folding into his arms. “I didn’t realize I’d been at the station for so long. I’m sorry. I would’ve called you but my phone is just a molten hunk of plastic.”
“Tell me what happened,” Tom said, his eyes wide with astonishment.
He led her into the cottage. It was warm and bright, and smelled of his signature pastry, and faintly of Chester, and of comfort and home. The relief was overwhelming. She loved it here. Loved this place with every fiber of her being. She never wanted to leave. Not even, she suddenly realized, for a lucrative auctioneering job at one of the world’s most revered auction houses…
“Do you want tea?” Tom asked, interrupting her thoughts as he guided her to the kitchen table like some kind of invalid.
She sank her weary, bruised body down into the dining chair.
“No, darling,” she replied, feeling herself choke up with emotion. Her voice cracked.
Tom turned to her with a look of concern. “Oh, but Lacey, my love. You’re crying!”
Lacey touched her fingers to her eyes. Indeed, her lashes were wet.
“I think they’re happy tears,” she told him.
“Happy tears?” he asked, sounding perplexed. “You just went through a terrible ordeal and you’re crying tears of happiness?”
“Because I just realized,” Lacey told him. “I never want to leave here. Not for all the money in the world. No job could ever tempt me away from what I have here. This perfect house. This perfect life. You.”
Tom smiled, looking touched.
“Tom, I’m going to turn down the Knightsbridge job,” she announced.
From the seat opposite, Tom hesitated.
“Maybe you should make that decision in the morning?” he said, finally. “Once you’ve had a nice warm bath and a cup of chamomile tea.”
He stood and headed for the kitchen.
Lacey decided it was best to let him play the mother hen. She knew now in her heart what she wanted, but convincing Tom of that at this moment in time would be impossible. She decided to drop the conversation for now and pick it up again tomorrow morning.
Just then, Lacey spotted a piece of mail propped up against the centerpiece. It was handwritten and addressed to her.
“Tom, what’s this?” she asked over her shoulder.
His teapot clattering ceased as he glanced over. “The letter? I’m not sure. It arrived yesterday but I forgot to tell you. I assume it’s that job specification pack you were expecting from the auction house?”
Curiously, Lacey turned back to the envelope and picked it up. It didn’t feel heavy enough to contain more than a single piece of paper.
For a brief second, she wondered if it was from her father. But no, the handwriting on the front was nothing like his.
She opened the envelope and retrieved the letter from inside, a neatly folded single sheet of paper.
Right away, the address in the top right told her the letter was not from the auction house in Knightsbridge at all, but from a museum in France. La Musée de la Sorcellerie.
Her intrigue spiking, she began to read.
Cease & desist.
To whom it may concern,
It has recently come to our attention that you claim to be in possession of a rare, ancient book, formerly belonging to a witch known in England as Violet Jourdemayne, and France as Violeta Ouvrier. We politely request you cease from continuing these claims. The real work is archived under lock and key here in a French museum. There is no evidence the Ouvrier family left France for England, nor that the witch you claim as your own was hanged in Ippledean. We take these slande
rous claims very seriously, and will seek restitution if you continue to appropriate our culture and claim it as your own.
Lacey’s mouth dropped open. She was stunned. So much for the grimoire being a fake; the museum was pretty much calling the entire Violet Jourdemayne story into question! And it sounded like they were blaming her for the whole of Wilfordshire believing the tale!
Tom came over with the teapot. The smell of freshly brewed chamomile floated out, giving Lacey an immediate dozy feeling.
“Well?” Tom asked. “Was it from the auction house?”
“Nope,” Lacey said, yawning deeply. “It was just another twist in this long, twisty tale.”
She reached across the table and took her fiancé’s hand lovingly. Her life was perfect. She should never have allowed herself to be tempted by the job offer. This was where she belonged.
“Tom?” she said, giving his fingers a little squeeze.
“Yes, my love?” he replied.
“What do you think about a Celtic harp for the wedding?”
EPILOGUE
“Are you sure you’re sure about this?” Tom asked.
Lacey held the big envelope in her hand. The job pack from the Knightsbridge auction house had arrived on her doorstep first thing that morning, but Lacey hadn’t even opened it.
“I’m absolutely positively certain,” she said with a nod.
Then she dumped it in the trash can.
The pack landed with a loud thud, reverberating through the metal.
Tom took her in his arms. “I guess that’s that, then,” he said. “The case is solved. Our future is decided. And there’s going to be a Celtic harpist at our wedding.”
Lacey leaned into him and grinned. “There’s just one thing missing.”
“Oh?” she heard him say.
“My father,” she replied. She peered up at his side profile. “Tom, I want to go and meet him.”
She’d been holding it back all this time, her plan to travel to the return address on the blank envelope her father had mailed her. Tom had been so skeptical that the envelope was a clue, she hadn’t wanted to bring it up to him again. He must’ve assumed she’d just dropped the whole thing, that she’d continue putting it off indefinitely. But she had not. The whole while she’d been dealing with Eldritch and Madeleine and Alaric Moon, it had been burning in the back of her mind. If her experience on top of the medieval ruins had taught her anything, it was that she was far stronger than she realized. If she could wrestle a half-mad young woman out of the flames of a bonfire, she could certainly visit her long-lost father.
Tom’s eyebrows rose halfway up his forehead. “You’re going there? Now?”
“To the address on the envelope,” Lacey said, with a decisive nod. “Now.”
“But—but—” Tom stammered.
“I’ve been putting it off for too long,” Lacey interjected. “It’s time to rip off the Band-Aid. I need to know. I need to know if he will be walking me down the aisle in two months’ time. And if not…” She shrugged. “Then I’ll ask Frankie to do it.”
Tom twisted his lips with anguish. “Lacey, I’m worried about you. You had quite a scare yesterday. Your bruises haven’t even all come up yet. Are you sure this is a good idea?”
“I’m positive,” Lacey said. “Even if he rejects me again, at least then I’ll know. I’m going to go to the address. I need to do this.”
“Okay,” Tom said, with a relenting sigh. “Just know I’m here for you, no matter what happens.”
Lacey took his hand and squeezed it. “I know you are.”
She pushed up from the breakfast table and whistled for Chester. He came bounding over to her, his tail wagging excitedly. Together, they headed out of the cottage and got into the car.
They drove for what felt like forever, through the lush green hillsides of England. There was no turning back now, as far as Lacey was concerned. She needed to do this. Madeleine had made her realize just how preoccupied she was with her own past, and how blind one could become by believing the wrong thing. The truth was, she had no idea why her dad had left, or why he’d broken off contact with her. It didn’t matter how many scenarios she came up with, there was only one way to ever know the truth. To ask him outright.
She turned down a small country road, barely wide enough for two cars to pass, the type with no markings and where the hedges encroach on each side trying to strangle you. It was as desolate as Lacey suspected from the type of man she presumed her father had become.
It was almost impossible to navigate. Her cell phone showed her in the middle of a field, though she was, of course, not. Clearly modern GPS had nothing to triangulate her against. She didn’t even have a signal.
This place was completely cut off from everyone and everything.
She drew up beside a locked cow gate.
“This can’t be the place,” she said to Chester. “There’s no way past.”
She spotted the stile beside the gate. There was a way—just not for a vehicle. She would have to continue the rest of the journey on foot.
She parked, tucking her car against the side of the road, and stepped out into the brisk countryside air.
The rain from last night had turned the vegetation to a lush green color, and there was something beautiful in the bleak, desolate landscape. It was just the sort of place Lacey’s favorite literary heroines would embark on tempestuous love affairs.
Chester slinked out of the car behind her, sniffing the air eagerly. Lacey was glad for his company. He was her most trusted companion.
With Chester sticking close beside her, Lacey climbed the stile and trudged along the footpath, which was little more than a bridleway trampled into the field by horses’ hooves. The grass on either side was long and dewy. It felt like a wild, forgotten place.
Finally up ahead, Lacey spotted a small stone cottage, set in an estate made up of corrugated iron farm buildings and wooden sheds—presumably shelter for the cows. Somewhere deep inside of her, Lacey knew this was the place. After all her years of yearning, agonizing, searching… she was finally right where she needed to be, right where her father was. It was a day she’d never thought would come, and she felt herself becoming disembodied, like she’d slipped into some kind of dream.
She made her way across the muddy ground, squelching, slipping, and sliding as she went. Her father had clearly gone to a lot of effort to be cut off from the world. Lacey felt like she was completing an obstacle course.
Finally, she staggered up to the door of the cottage.
With her heart pounding in her chest, she raised her fist to the wooden door and knocked.
For a long while, all was silent. The only noise Lacey could hear was the blood pulsing in her ears. Her heart was racing so much, even her hands seemed to be beating in time.
Then she heard noise from the other side. A scritching sound. The scraping of a dead bolt being drawn across. The click of a latch. Then a low, deep creak, like the sound of rusted metal, as the door was slowly pulled open from the inside.
In the gap in the door, the face of a man appeared. The face belonged to a stranger, Lacey noted, but a stranger she knew intimately at the same time.
There was no mistaking it. It was him. Her father.
“Hi, Dad,” she said.
A smile spread across his face. “There you are.”
NOW AVAILABLE!
FRAMED BY A FORGERY
(A Lacey Doyle Cozy Mystery—Book 8)
"Very entertaining. I highly recommend this book to the permanent library of any reader that appreciates a very well written mystery, with some twists and an intelligent plot. You will not be disappointed. Excellent way to spend a cold weekend!"
--Books and Movie Reviews, Roberto Mattos (regarding Murder in the Manor)
FRAMED BY A FORGERY (A LACEY DOYLE COZY MYSTERY—BOOK 8) is book eight in a charming new cozy mystery series which begins with MURDER IN THE MANOR (Book #1), a #1 Bestseller with over 100 five-star reviews—and a fr
ee download!
Lacey Doyle, 39 years old and freshly divorced, has made a drastic change: she has walked away from the fast life of New York City and settled down in the quaint English seaside town of Wilfordshire.
November has arrived, bringing the crisp weather, farms, and the promise of Fall holidays, and Lacey is thrilled to be auctioning off a rare and priceless letter. But after selling it to an eager buyer, the letter turns out to be too good to be true—it’s been forged, and the buyer wants his money back.
But the person who sold it to her is now dead.
Can the forgery and murder be connected?
Lacey, with her beloved dog, must solve the crime and unearth the source of the forgery before she herself is implicated and her business is taken away from her.
Book #9—CATASTROPHE IN A CLOISTER—is also available!
FRAMED BY A FORGERY
(A Lacey Doyle Cozy Mystery—Book 8)
Fiona Grace
Fiona Grace is author of the LACEY DOYLE COZY MYSTERY series, comprising nine books (and counting); of the TUSCAN VINEYARD COZY MYSTERY series, comprising six books (and counting); of the DUBIOUS WITCH COZY MYSTERY series, comprising three books (and counting); of the BEACHFRONT BAKERY COZY MYSTERY series, comprising six books (and counting); and of the CATS AND DOGS COZY MYSTERY series, comprising three books (and counting).
Fiona would love to hear from you, so please visit www.fionagraceauthor.com to receive free ebooks, hear the latest news, and stay in touch.
BOOKS BY FIONA GRACE
LACEY DOYLE COZY MYSTERY
MURDER IN THE MANOR (Book#1)
DEATH AND A DOG (Book #2)
CRIME IN THE CAFE (Book #3)
VEXED ON A VISIT (Book #4)
KILLED WITH A KISS (Book #5)
