Pride and Premeditation
Magical Bookshop Mystery #5
Samantha Silver
Blueberry Books Press
For Kathy and Cale: may your marriage be filled with love and awesomeness.
Thank God Kathy’s not marrying that dude that picked her up for their (only) date in head-to-toe denim.
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
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
23. Epilogue
Also by Samantha Silver
About the Author
Chapter 1
In the short time since I moved to Sapphire Village, I had discovered I was a witch, learned how to do magic, had some otherworldly soul-sucking creatures come after me, killed a couple of them, and yet this was—hands down—the most terrified I’d been since coming here.
I was about to try hosting a book club, and I had no idea what to do.
I had never been to a book club, for one. It seemed like the sort of thing classy women who lived in the suburbs with nannies to take care of their kids, did as a social event while they drank a glass of fancy wine, and I had never been that type.
My drinking habits still consisted of occasionally getting so trashed I’d wake up in the morning wondering where I was, and I had bought wine that came in a box far more recently than I cared to admit.
But, I ran a bookstore now, and a couple of weeks earlier I’d had the brilliant idea of deciding to run a little book club for local women. I had ordered from Vasile–the vampire who supplied me with tons of cool-looking editions of old books, be they first editions, leather-bound copies, or what–ten copies of Pride and Prejudice and put up posters all around town advertising the upcoming club.
Soon enough, all ten copies of the book had been bought, and now I was waiting to see if, a week later, any of the people who had bought them were actually going to show up to talk about the books.
Was I even doing this right? I had no idea.
A part of me worried that no one was going to show up. I was going to have an empty store, with nobody wanting to discuss Mr. Darcy or Elizabeth Bennett and their love story. Maybe I should have picked something a little bit more modern for the first book club. Maybe something like Into the Water, by Paula Hawkins? Maybe people would have been more into reading something like that.
“Are you sitting there overanalyzing every decision you’ve made in your life again?” a voice asked as the bell over the bookshop entrance began to ring. I snapped out of my internal questioning and grinned at Cat, my cousin, with her pastel purple hair, carrying a tray full of delicious-looking cupcakes from her shop.
“Am I that obvious?”
“You are. You’re standing in the middle of the store, staring away at nothing, biting at your bottom lip like you forgot something at the grocery store. I’ve told you, it’s going to be fine. People are going to show up. You’re trying to make sure everything is perfect, when it doesn’t have to be.”
“I don’t even want it to be perfect. I just want people to show up. Oh God, what if one person shows up? That would be worse than zero, don’t you think? It would be so embarrassing if just one person came.”
Cat shot me a pained look. “What’s embarrassing is you sitting there going over everything that could possibly go wrong. You planned this well, people bought the books, and they got the bookmarks that tell them when to come and enjoy free cupcakes. I think you’re underestimating just how much people are enticed by free food.”
“I hope so,” I said as I made my way over to the counter to help Cat place the cupcakes on a serving tray. I had spent most of the day re-arranging the furniture in the shop so that all the little chairs, loveseats, bean-bag chairs, and other assorted comfortable seating areas were now in a haphazard circle in the middle of the room, with a large table in the middle with plenty of space for books, coffee and cupcakes.
Thanks to magic, the actual moving of the furniture wasn’t an issue, but I had moved everything around approximately one trillion times to make sure it was perfect.
“These cupcakes look amazing,” I said to Cat as I carried the first tray over. The warm aroma of fresh baking wafted toward me as I placed the tray down on the table, not able to resist grabbing a S’mores cupcake and taking a bite.
Cat laughed. “Taste testing?”
“Absolutely,” I replied with a grin.
“There’s S’mores there, as you’ve obviously figured out. There’s also lemon cupcakes with a lemon-raspberry buttercream, the ones to the left of those are a chocolate cupcake with peanut butter buttercream, topped with chunks of mini Reese’s cups, and then there’s some gluten-free, vegan chocolate and lavender ones,” Cat said, pointing to each of them.
“They look incredible, as always,” I smiled. Cat ran a cupcake shop in the village, and boy had she ever mastered that particular art. “Thanks again for sponsoring my book club. I hope people actually show up to eat these baked goods.”
“Oh, they will. Again, you had them at ‘free cupcakes’, even if they don’t remotely care about Jane Austen,” Cat said with a wink. “I’ve got another tray to get–some confetti cookie dough cupcakes, and lemon meringue–and then I’ll grab the coffee and come back.”
“Ok, I’ll keep overanalyzing whether or not the bean bag chair needs to be ten inches further to the left,” I replied, and Cat grinned.
“Or you could just try relaxing for once. It’s going to be fine. I promise.”
To my immense relief, just after the clock struck six, two of the women who had bought the copies of Pride and Prejudice came in, each with their copy of the book under their arm. Thank goodness there were two of them!
“Hi! I’m Alice,” I said warmly, inviting them in. “Please come on in and make yourselves comfortable.”
“I’m Polly,” the first woman, a tall, graceful blonde said, holding out a hand with a smile, which I shook. “Thank you so much for doing this. I’ve been saying for years we should organize a book club in Sapphire Village, but no one had ever done it up until now.”
“Well, it would be better if this was like, a movie night or something,” the other woman, an average-sized brunette, replied. “I had never actually read Pride and Prejudice, only seen the movie. I think the movie was better, to be honest. I’m Vanessa, by the way.”
“It’s nice to meet you both.” I said as a third woman began making her way to the doorway and the pent-up stress inside of me began to melt away. Things were going to be fine.
Cat slipped in behind me as I was introduced to Vicky Holly, a teacher at the local school who had loved Pride and Prejudice for years.
“Oh, and there’s a kitty in here!” Vicky squealed with pleasure, giving Muffin, the grey tabby who had belonged to my Aunt Francine, a quick pat on the head.
An older woman named Olivia, who had a bit of trouble walking, made her way in next, followed by another younger blonde with tight curls named Iris, then Maddie, Cat’s employee, made her way in with a shy smile. Finally, a short, plump woman in her thirties that I knew as Michelle Dawn joined the group, and it looked like we were ready to go.
I took a second to appreciate the sight in front of me: a handful of women, sitting comfortably arou
nd, with cupcakes and coffee for everyone, getting ready to have a pleasant discussion about one of literature’s greatest classics.
“Hi everyone,” I greeted. “I was thinking maybe we could start by going around the circle and introducing ourselves? Just give your name and a little bit about you.”
“I’m Michelle, I work at Pickles’ Pizza down the street,” Michelle began. “I love reading, obviously, and I’m also addicted to Stranger Things.”
Everyone’s eyes turned to the woman on her left, Victoria Holly. “Hi, I’m Victoria, but you can all call me Vicky. I teach at the elementary school here in town, my degree is in English, and I love reading and my cat.”
The older woman next to her cleared her throat before starting. “Hello, all of you. I’m Olivia, and I’m a retired bookkeeper. I’ve lived here my whole life, with my husband Eric, and let me just say how lovely it is to see such a lively group of young women so interested in reading.”
Next was Iris, who seemed quite shy. “Hi, there. I’m Iris, and um, I don’t really have much to say about myself. I worked on the mountain up until recently, and I like reading romance books.”
“I’m Vanessa,” the next woman said. “I try to work as little as possible, but I have a great fiancé, Kyle, who takes excellent care of me. I also love romance, though I’m more of the movie type. My friend Polly here made me read the book.”
“And I’m Polly,” she replied in turn. “I work at the elementary school with Vicky, teaching the sixth grade. I love books, I love reading, and I absolutely adore Jane Austen’s works. I also like to ride my bike in my free time.”
“I guess it’s just me then,” Maddie said with a smile. “I’m Madison, but everyone calls me Maddie. I work at Cat’s Cupcakes, which was how I heard about this book club. To be honest, I don’t read as much as I should, and that’s why I joined. I figured this would force me to actually make time to read.”
“Great,” I beamed around the room, just as a half-transparent form of a voluptuous woman with striking red hair appeared next to me.
“Wow, this sure is a group of boring-looking women,” Aunt Francine’s ghost said as she floated around the group. I gritted my teeth; obviously I couldn’t answer, but it was entirely obvious that she was just jealous she’d never thought of this idea herself when this had been her bookshop.
Cat narrowed her eyes at Aunt Francine and, making sure no one was looking at her, pointed meaningfully up the stairs. Aunt Francine scowled and floated off up to the apartment above the bookshop, presumably. I had a feeling she’d be back; she was definitely going to want to know how the book club went.
“All right, so I presume everyone here has read the book?” I asked, and a murmur of assent came from across the room. “Great! So the first thing I’d like to know is what you liked best about this book?”
“I just love how fun it is,” Vicky gushed first. “I love how Jane Austen writes, and the way the whole book overall just gives you a warm and fuzzy feeling, even though in reality a lot of the plot, the way the sisters all have to find rich husbands, is somewhat depressing.”
“I appreciate Jane Austen creating the template for the modern romance novel with this book,” Olivia chimed in afterwards. “While I think some of the dialogue comes off as being perhaps a bit stilted, I don’t think she’s appreciated well enough for having essentially created a genre.”
I nodded and looked around the room.
“I liked how Mr. Darcy had to change in the book, to win Elizabeth’s affection,” Maddie said quietly.
“Well I’ll be honest, I didn’t like it all that much. It was quite hard to read, wasn’t it?” Vanessa said. “I mean, I get it, it was written like five hundred years ago or something, but that’s not really an excuse. It felt like reading Shakespeare in high school, which was a real chore.”
I saw Vanessa’s friend Polly wince next to her, but hey, not everyone had to like reading. At least she was here, right?
“I think that as language evolves, it does become more difficult to read what comes from the past, and I think it’s admirable that you put forth the effort and did it, despite the fact that you found it difficult,” Olivia said, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Thank goodness Vanessa wasn’t about to be made into a pariah for her opinion.
I was just starting to think that maybe, just maybe this whole book club thing was going to go off without a hitch after all.
Chapter 2
“I can really relate to Elizabeth, and the way she doesn’t really change anything for Darcy,” Vanessa piped up. About ninety minutes had passed since the start of the book club, and it was going swimmingly. We were now discussing what characters each person could most relate to, and I couldn’t get the goofy smile off my face as I realized that this was working. It was really working!
“I’m personally a bit more of a Lydia,” Michelle admitted. “Like, if you can picture her in modern times, she would totally be the girl on Snapchat and Instagram all day, and that is absolutely me.”
Suddenly, Vanessa began coughing somewhat violently.
“Are you ok?” Polly asked her, turning to her friend. Vanessa waved her off, but the coughing didn’t stop.
I rushed over to the sink at the back of the shop and got Vanessa a cup of water, but as I made my way toward her, she suddenly had a violent spasm and hit the glass out of my hand. It fell to the ground and shattered.
“I’m calling 9-1-1,” Cat announced, pulling out her phone.
“What do we do?” Maddie asked worriedly, looking around.
“No one here’s a doctor, are they?” I asked, but was met with shaking heads in response.
Meanwhile, Vanessa was obviously getting worse. Her breathing was shallow, and she clutched at her abdomen in pain.
“Here, lie down,” I said. “The ambulance will be here soon.”
“It’s going to be ok, Ness,” Polly told her, taking her friend’s hand. Suddenly, Vanessa’s eyes widened, she inhaled sharply, and then she stopped breathing.
“Ness? Ness?” Polly began to shriek. I didn’t need to be a doctor to know Vanessa was dead. Gently but firmly, I led Polly away from her friend.
“Come on over here,” I told Polly. “You don’t want to see her like that anymore.”
“Is she ok? Tell me she’s going to be ok.”
I looked over my shoulder as I led Polly toward the back of the shop. Cat had made her way to Vanessa and was taking her pulse. She looked up, caught my eye, and shook her head.
Vanessa was dead.
“I’m sorry, Polly,” I said softly. “Vanessa is dead.”
Polly’s wails filled the room as the others all huddled together, away from the body. Every face in the room was pale, and I couldn’t blame them. No one expected to come to a book club only to have someone die on them.
“She must have choked on something,” Maddie said.
“But it had been ages since she’d had a bite of cupcake,” Olivia replied. “She had eaten one of the gluten-free ones, but she finished it ages ago.”
“She did have a sip of coffee a minute or so before it started, but no one chokes on coffee,” Vicky added.
“Maybe she had a heart condition, or something. Although, she was quite young for that,” Olivia pointed out.
I focused on Polly, whose shoulders heaved as she grieved for her friend. I rubbed her back, hoping the paramedics would get here soon; I had a feeling Polly was going to need a sedative of some sort.
Cat caught my eye, a worried expression on her face. I couldn’t blame her; this was definitely not what we had wanted for our first book club, especially for Cat who had supplied the food and drinks. Although, from what everyone was saying, it sounded like there was no way Vanessa had choked on a cupcake. And what Olivia had said was right; I had seen Vanessa eating one of the gluten-free cupcakes, but she had to have finished it over half an hour ago, and the empty wrapper still sat on her plate. She hadn’t gotten another one since.
A cou
ple of minutes later the ambulance arrived, and the EMTs confirmed what the rest of us already knew: Vanessa was dead. They covered her with a sheet, before eventually, the EMTs asked us to stay put.
“What’s going on?” I eventually asked one of them, a young man with dark skin and kind eyes.
“You’re the owner of this place, and the one running the book club, right?” I nodded. “I’m afraid we’ve had to call the police.”
“Really?” I gasped. “Why?”
“It looks as though this woman may have died under suspicious circumstances.”
“You think she was murdered,” I whispered, and the man nodded, looking around furtively.
“I do. Please, keep this news to yourself, and do your best to keep everyone here until Police Chief Griffin gets here.”
I nodded. “I will. It obviously had to be poison then. Do you know what she was poisoned with?”
The man shook his head. “I don’t want to make any premature assumptions. We may be wrong, in any case. It may not be murder at all. But we just need to be sure, and so we need everyone here to be interviewed before they go home.”
Luckily, everyone seemed too stunned to go anywhere, so my new job to keep everyone here until Chase came by was pretty easy. About five minutes later, the chief of police in town–and my boyfriend–walked through the front door, all business. His hair was combed to the side, his normally-glittering blue eyes hard and serious as he looked around the room. His hard-set jaw was firm; there was no sign of the smile that made a cute little dimple appear in his cheek, but I did notice the corner of his mouth twitch and his eyes soften slightly as he looked at me.
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