Back Room Bookstore Cozy Mystery Boxed Set: Books 1 - 12

by Susan Harper

  “Really?” she asked innocently.

  “Okay, ladies, let’s talk about this later,” Brian insisted. “Monica, do you mind?”

  “I’m on it,” Monica said and trotted off toward Tiff, who was still seated in her desk, typing away on her desktop computer. “Mind if I follow up with you, Tiff?” Monica asked.

  Tiff stopped typing and smiled up at Monica. “Sure, what’s up?” she asked, and it was at this point that Monica spotted a picture of Tiff and Isaac in a lovely frame sitting on her desk.

  Monica pointed to the picture. “Where’s that from?” she asked.

  “Oh, the office Christmas party last year,” Tiff said with a bit of dreaminess in her voice.

  Looking carefully at the photograph, Monica could see that Isaac looked a little bit uncomfortable in their matching Christmas sweaters. His smile was forced, and Tiff was squeezing him close as though she had coerced him into taking the selfie together. “Hey, Tiff, come here a second!” the editor she had been speaking with called from the office.

  “One second,” Tiff said, hopping up and trotting off.

  Monica glanced toward Tiff and seeing that her back was turned, she decided to take a look around the woman’s desk. Immediately, she realized something was off. Upon taking a glance at her desktop, she discovered that the only webpage Tiff had starred was Isaac’s conspiracy blog. Opening her top desk drawer, she found a few printed photos of Isaac that had clearly been taken without his knowledge. “What in the world…” she said, and she mistakenly nudged the mouse on the computer and minimized the internet by mistake. She jumped back in surprise, seeing another picture of Tiff and Isaac together—another selfie that had clearly been forced, evident from Isaac’s look of discomfort. “She’s… She’s totally obsessed with him…” Monica said uncomfortably.

  She peeked her head up from the desk, catching eyes with Brian, and waved him over. Tiff had wandered off to the bathroom, making this a good time for them to explore a bit. They had been given permission from the paper’s chief editor to rummage about the place, so Monica felt as though now would be a good time to look through things. She silently showed Brian the pictures and the blog page she had clearly been reading, and Brian gave her a silent look of concern.

  “Quick,” he whispered to her, and they started opening all of the drawers in Tiff’s desk before anyone else in the office caught on to what they were doing.

  In the second drawer to the right, Monica found a diary, and its contents were rather alarming. Every single entry was about Isaac. She had taped pictures of him on every other page, had written down his food allergies with notes for treats she could bring him into the office, and there was an entire entry about her intentionally stalking him while he went shopping for the company’s ugly Christmas sweater party and how she had bought a matching sweater and played it off as a coincidence. “This is so creepy,” Monica whispered, showing Brian some of the entries.

  “She’s been stalking him,” Brian said hoarsely. “Look at this. Right here, she writes about how she managed to get a copy of his apartment key…. She’s been in his apartment without him knowing.”

  “What in the world…” Monica said, feeling more and more disturbed by the second. “Uh-oh,” Monica said as they flipped to a page that had a picture of Holly taped inside with a long rant about her that sounded crazy.

  “Listen to this…” Brian said as he began to read. “She’s so ugly and stupid. Can’t keep a job to save her life. Now she’s working at a bookstore of all things. What does he even see in her? I dyed my hair to look like hers. Isaac told me it looked nice… Maybe I should try to look more like her?”

  “She’s absolutely crazy,” Monica said. “Just look at some of the drawings she’s done of him.”

  There were several drawings in the journal. One of which caused Brian to pause and smirk. It was obviously of herself and Isaac, and she had put a little green alien on her shirt. “That’s actually pretty well done,” he said, and Monica nudged him.

  “Now is not the time to be admiring her artwork, Brian,” Monica said.

  “She wrote about you in here too,” Brian said. “Been watching this Monica character carefully. I don’t think Isaac thinks of her as a potential girlfriend or anything, but I can never be too cautious when he starts spending too much time with another woman. He’ll see soon enough that we’re meant to be together. Just got to make sure no one else gets in the way of that. Eventually he’ll realize Holly is nothing compared to me. But there is something strange about this new woman he’s been hanging around. I saw her talking to her bike earlier this week like it was a person. Is that normal?”

  Brian snorted a bit. “Why were you talking to your bike?”

  “Shut up,” Monica said with a nudge. “What’s the newest entry?”

  Brian flipped toward the back of the journal, and Monica saw his eyes widen. “It’s… It’s a confession!” he said, slamming the book down and whipping out his cuffs, heading toward the back of the building where they had seen Tiff head off to only moments ago.

  Monica opened the journal to the latest entry, and sure enough there it was. She read it to herself as Brian headed toward the back of the building to find Tiff.

  “I didn’t mean to do it. It just happened, really, but I’m glad I did. I had really been looking for Jehu – he’s the one who had started the spat with Isaac. How dare they! They just hit my poor baby in the face. How dare they! I just had to say something – to do something. When I found Luke, I told him he was disgusting. That if he ever hurt my Isaac again that I’d find him. He called me crazy – me! Crazy! How dare he? Then he actually had the audacity to try to walk away. I kicked him, and when he turned around to say something I stabbed him with my pen – ha! That’s what he gets for punching my Isaac – for hurting him! Isaac is too sweet to fight back, but now I’ve made a terrible mistake. That stupid, stupid cop, Brian, arrested my Isaac for killing Luke! But, I have a plan. I’m going to see if I can’t point the police toward someone else. I’m not sure how I’m going to do that just yet, but I’ll find a way. I’ll find a way even if I have to go to jail myself in his place. Don’t worry, my love, I will find a way, I promise, to make this right. Maybe, if I’m lucky, I can find a way to pin this on that stupid Holly girl. He told me he loves her – how dare he! Well, I’m sure I can find a way to amend that.”

  Monica shook her head. This had almost been too easy. She had written out the whole thing and left it lying around for them to find. Looking up, she could see Brian suddenly coming barging up toward the front of the office building. “She’s gone!” he called.

  “Who?” Holly asked, just now heading over to Monica.

  “Tiff,” Brian said and pointed toward the journal. “Show her, Monica.”

  Monica handed Holly the journal, and Holly’s face grew red with anger and embarrassment all at once. “Where did Tiff go?” Holly demanded.

  Brian was pushing past them, darting out into the parking lot. “There was a window in the bathroom. Our killer is on the loose!”

  13

  Brian put out a BOLO on Tiff, and he also instructed the employees at the paper to call if Tiff returned. The three of them—Monica, Brian, and Holly—headed straight for the police station. Now that they had a written confession to the murder, they would be able to get Isaac released. With over half of the Bankstown Police out looking for Tiff, they felt that it would be okay for the three of them to focus on Isaac for a moment.

  When Brian arrived at the station Chief Tollr met them out front, and he shook Brian’s hand. “Good work, Brian,” the chief said, and Monica and Holly both smiled. They knew how hard it was to get a compliment from a troll.

  “Thanks, Chief,” Brian said. “But, really, you got these two ladies to thank over here. Monica is the one that found the journal.” Brian held out a plastic bag that had the important piece of evidence inside. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to put this in the case file and get my friend out of ja
il?”

  “Don’t worry, I’m not stopping you,” the chief said, and the four of them headed into the building.

  Monica and Holly took their seats at the bench in the waiting area, and the two of them were practically bouncing as Brian and Chief Tollr headed in the back to release Isaac. “He is going to be so thrilled,” Holly said. “I can’t believe we did it. Way to go on finding that journal, by the way. That’s just what we needed to make sure Isaac was cleared.”

  “Hey, you’ve done a good job too, you know?” Monica said. “We did this together. We found the real killer, and Isaac is going to be cleared of all charges. Now, we just let the police do their job and find where Tiff ran off to.”

  “Right,” Holly said. “And then we can focus on what to do with our little situation at my apartment. I hope we left it enough cookies this time to avoid going all monster on us again. That thing really creeps me out. So, serious question, tell me about Saint Nick.”

  Monica laughed. “Yeah, yeah. He’s real, Holly. Just probably not the same as the stories you are used to.”

  “Well, so far, flying reindeer are an actual thing,” Holly said. “Does he really use them to fly a sleigh?”

  “Yes,” Monica said.

  “So, that’s one for the mortals for getting that part of the story right. What about the elves? Do they work for him?” Holly asked.

  “That is also correct,” Monica said.

  “Building toys?” Holly asked.

  “That’s where you’re wrong. They don’t build toys,” Monica said, smirking. “But he does deliver gifts.”

  Before Monica could explain much further, Brian and the chief both came running through the station and into an office. Monica and Holly exchanged glances as the two men looked panicked. “Something’s up,” Holly said.

  “Definitely,” Monica agreed, and the two women jumped up off their spots on the bench. They hurried after Brian and the chief, the latter of which was yelling at an officer who had been in charge of the holding cells.

  “What’s going on?” Holly demanded, and the chief spun around and glared at them both.

  “Isaac’s not in his cell, and we’re trying to figure out if someone already released him after word came in about Tiff’s confession,” Brian explained quickly.

  “No one has gotten him out of that cell,” the third officer in the room said, looking anxious with the way the chief was hovering over him like he wanted to strangle him.

  “Okay, let’s look at the security cameras,” the chief said after taking a moment to breathe.

  The group all made their way to a backroom. They pulled up the cameras that monitored the holding cells, and they rewound until they spotted someone messing around Isaac’s cell. Sure enough, there was Tiff dragging an unconscious Isaac out of his cell. “What did she do?!” Holly wailed. “Did she knock him out?”

  “Um…” the officer who had been in charge of the holding cells muttered. “That woman was here earlier…dropped off some muffins… She had asked if I could give them to Isaac…”

  “Idiot!” the chief snapped, removing his hat and using it to repeatedly smack the man over the head, who jumped back in surprise, holding up his hand to avoid getting smacked in the face.

  “She drugged him!” Holly exclaimed.

  “Where are those little snacks she dropped off?” Brian demanded.

  The officer who had caused this fumble muttered under his breath, “I threw some in the breakroom.”

  Brian bolted, and Monica could hear him shouting from the breakroom as the rest of them darted after. There was a cop passed out on the table. “He’s okay,” Brian said, checking the man’s pulse. Brian went and picked up the little decorative box that the muffins had been delivered in. “Aw, man, she got him…”

  “What?” Monica asked, and Brian showed the little note was signed From Holly, the O scribbled as a little heart. “Dang… Yeah, he probably scarfed that down…”

  “I think he ate two of them,” the officer who was now in deep water with the chief said.

  “She drugged him and then waited until she knew he’d be passed out to sneak him out of the jail,” Chief Tollr said. “You are going to be lucky if you still have a job at the end of the day, Thomas! Now we’ve got a kidnapping victim. The papers are going to eat this up… As if we don’t have enough problems after that Kevin fellow escaped, now we got some girl snatching people right out of their cells!”

  “I’m sorry, Chief!” Officer Thomas said frantically. “I mean, she seemed sweet. I didn’t know her, and I thought she was the guy’s girlfriend just trying to cheer him up. I checked the muffins out, made sure she wasn’t hiding anything in them…”

  “She was hiding drugs!” the chief snapped, hitting Officer Thomas with his hat again. “All right, we need to let our officers in the field know that our murderer has a hostage now.” The chief turned and looked at the officer who was passed out on the table after having helped himself to one of the muffins. “Thomas, I’m going to leave him to you. Get him to a hospital, would you?”

  “Yes, sir,” Officer Thomas said, looking quite embarrassed.

  “Brian, find your friend before Tiff winds up getting him or someone else hurt,” Chief Tollr said, storming off and muttering under his breath about incompetent officers.

  Brian bypassed Monica and Holly, but both ladies followed close behind him. “You know we’re going with you, right?” Monica insisted.

  “I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” he said. “It would probably be safer if you two just hid out here until myself or one of the other officers finds Tiff and Isaac.”

  “No way,” Holly said. “Isaac is my best friend. I’m not going to just sit here and twiddle my thumbs if he is out there in trouble. We need to find him, and I’m going to help whether you like it or not.”

  “Fine, but we need to move,” he said, and the three of them ran out the door and hopped into Brian’s patrol car. “We need a game plan. We’re not going to find them by just driving around town aimlessly. Think, ladies, where are we going to find him?”

  Monica and Holly put their heads together, and they both agreed that perhaps she would go to her apartment. Brian spoke into his radio and confirmed that multiple officers had already searched Tiff’s apartment complex and were still on the scene. “Strike one, girls. Maybe his place?” Brian suggested, and he once again was told over the radio that Isaac’s apartment complex had been searched from head to toe. “Okay, he’s not there either… Where would she had taken him? I’m going to call research and see if they can find out if she or someone in her family has any other properties around here that she could have taken him to.”

  “I have a thought while you’re doing that,” Monica said and called the local paper and asked to speak to Isaac’s work buddy, Rufus.

  “Rufus here, you got a story for me?” His voice came in clearly as she had placed him on speaker phone.

  “Rufus, this is Monica, Isaac’s friend. He’s in trouble, and I need your help with something,” Monica said.

  “Anything, what can I do?” he asked, sounding alarmed.

  “You two ever have… I guess the word is guy-talk…about Holly in front of Tiff?” Monica asked.

  “Er… Maybe…” he said. “Why?”

  “Did he ever mentioned maybe a date idea or something special he would want to do for Holly?” Monica asked. Looking up, she saw Brian give her an approving thumbs-up.

  “Yeah, actually,” Rufus said. “He wanted to ask her to go to his grandparents’ cabin just outside town sometime. Take her canoeing or something? I told him to go for it and ask her, but he was all skittish about the whole thing. He wanted to take her to the cabin, have a fun day, and then surprise her with a romantic dinner—flowers and candles, that sort of thing—but I think he chickened out.”

  Holly’s face was bright red, but Monica didn’t have much time to worry about how embarrassed her friend was getting. “Do you know where that cabin is?” Monica
asked.

  “Yeah, his grandparents let me borrow it a while back,” Rufus said. “Need me to send you the address?”

  “Yes, please,” Monica said, and a text message came through rather quickly. “Thanks, Rufus.”

  “Bring my boy home, all right?” he said. “Be careful, girly.”

  “Will do, Rufus,” Monica said.

  “Good thinking, Monica,” Brian said. “You got an address?”

  “I do,” Monica said, passing her phone to Brian.

  Holly, who was seated in the back of the patrol car, looked at Monica with this puzzled gaze. “You think she would take him to that cabin just because he had talked about taking me there?” Holly asked.

  “There were some passages in her journal about trying to be more like you so that Isaac would notice her,” Monica said. “She wasn’t just stalking Isaac, she was watching you too.”

  “That is so creepy,” Holly said, shivering. “Isaac…talked about taking me on a special date night at his grandparents’ cabin?”

  “Looks that way,” Monica said.

  Holly covered her face. “We went to that cabin together a few weeks ago… I knew he was acting weird… He chickened out…”

  “Aww, man,” Brian said. “That’s rough.”

  “Now, Tiff thinks she can one-up you by forcing some romantic date night on Isaac,” Monica said. “In her head, she thinks if she can show him she’s better than you that he’ll come running to her.”

  “This is so nuts,” Holly said. “You really think she took him to that cabin?”

  Brian and Monica exchanged glances. “I think so,” Monica said confidently as Brian turned down a backroad.

  “I mean, there’s really only one way to find out,” Brian said, looking up ahead with a serious look plastered on his face.

  14