Craft Circle Cozy Mystery Boxed Set

by Stacey Alabaster

  "I do love her," Brandi said, cuddling Casper.

  "Then just put her down. Please."

  Casper was whimpering in her arms and I knew that Brandi was torn. She didn't really want to hurt the dog, but she was capable of anything.

  "Why did you do it, Brandi?" I asked. "Why did you kill Erika?"

  "I didn't mean to," she whispered. "But she was going to turn me into the cops." She stopped and gave Ryan a death glare. "Just because I stole her stupid bracelet." She looked at Brenda and started sobbing. "But I only did it for you, Auntie Brenda. So that you could win the competition."

  Brenda's mouth fell wide open. I was in shock. Brandi really thought her aunt had a chance of winning? She did all this for those lime green vases?

  "That's it," Ryan said, moving forward with the cuffs in his hands.

  "No!" I screamed, worried about Casper.

  But Brandi dropped her before she ran, and Casper, finally free, ran straight to me while Ryan chased Brandi into the back yard.

  "Casper!" I fell to my knees as she ran to me and I scooped her up into my arms. "Oh, I've missed you so much, little princess! I bet that Jasper can't wait to see you either!" She licked my face, and I let out a long sigh of relief. "I was really starting to think I might never see you again," I admitted, standing up.

  It was all going to be all right now, though. I stood and watched, Casper still licking my face, as Ryan cuffed Brandi. With this to add to his resume, he was no doubt a shoe-in to get the promotion.

  Brenda walked back to me, looking like her legs were about to buckle beneath her. She came over and managed to pet Casper with shaking hands. "I'm glad you've got your dog back," she whispered.

  I couldn't help feeling bad for Benda. For once, the town gossip was going to be the talk of the town. And I had no idea how she was going to take it. I reached over and placed my hand on top of hers and squeezed it. No matter what anyone in this town said about her, I was going to stand by her side. I knew what it felt like to have no allies here.

  Brenda looked up at me in surprise.

  "This wasn't your fault," I said. "Don't blame yourself."

  Brenda stared out the window. "I always knew the Pottsville Arts and Crafts Festival was going to be the event of the year," she said, as she watched her niece get led to the police car. "I just never knew it was going to end like this."

  Epilogue

  "I suppose a congratulations is in order," I said, holding up my glass of champagne. My entire kitchen and dining room was full of people. Well, it was half full of people. It was slow going, but with Brenda on my side, I was starting to make friends in Pottsville. And I wasn't letting anyone speak badly of Brenda or her family. I was her little attack dog. At least, I would be until this whole thing died down.

  Ryan laughed and spun around in his suit. "Thank you," he said, taking a glass of champagne.

  "You did good," I said as we clinked our glasses together. "You deserve this promotion."

  Ryan nodded toward the small gold statue sitting on my coffee table. "Do I need to congratulate you as well?"

  I shook my head, a little embarrassed. "Brenda got that for me. She still says I should have won. She bought it from the trophy shop and had it engraved and everything."

  "That's sweet of her."

  I took a swig of champagne. "She has her moments."

  Ryan frowned. "You know, you could still go about getting Lisa disqualified. Do you want me to look into it? From everything you've told me, she deserves to get the trophy taken away from her. She might have even broken some laws."

  I shook my head. "I'm sure you have far more important things to concentrate on, Detective." I sighed. "Let Lisa keep her trophy. It can't mean that much to her, knowing how she got it." I glanced down at the trophy on my coffee table. It was only a quarter of the size of Lisa's, but it was worth far more.

  Ryan cleared his throat. "I still feel like I should address the elephant in the room."

  I looked around. "I don't see any elephants." I took a sip of champagne, waiting for him to continue.

  "I'm sorry," Ryan said. "I should never have suspected you, George. And I should never have put our friendship in jeopardy like that."

  I shrugged a little. "Well, we're even now. I did accuse you of murder once, remember?"

  Ryan nodded. "Yeah. I remember that very clearly."

  "Let's make a pact to never accuse each other of murderous crimes ever again."

  Ryan laughed. "Sounds like a deal to me." We clinked our glasses together.

  "What is that noise?" Ryan asked.

  I spun around to see Casper clawing against the glass sliding doors, desperately trying to get in. "I think she wants to join the party," I said, raising an eyebrow. "Don't worry. The yard is secure now. She can't run away again."

  "Let her in," Ryan said with a laugh. "Dogs are welcome at any party in my honor."

  I walked to the doors and pulled them open, Casper almost getting stuck as she ran in before the gap was wide enough. She jumped into my arms and I laughed while Jasper ran over and licked both of us. It was good to have my little family reunited. I petted them both and looked up at my guests, laughing and drinking champagne. I was finally starting to feel at home in Pottsville.

  A Finely Crafted Murder

  Chapter 1

  I felt as though I had just seen a ghost.

  Not a literal ghost, because the person I'd seen was not a figure I thought was dead. But a figure that I thought I had buried long ago in the past. One that was dead to me. And it had made my heart stop, as well as my feet, in the middle of the street.

  The wild winds which had been tormenting Pottsville for days whipped my short, curly—still blonde but greying just a little on the eve of my forty-first birthday—hair into my eyes, while my rowdy dog yapped at the wind as though it was something he could chase.

  By the time I pushed my hair of out my face and tried to focus, the figure had disappeared into a shop. I am inquisitive by nature, but I didn't want to chase after the strange figure. It would only be tempting fate. If it really was him, then it was better to put my head down and pretend I had never seen him. And if it wasn't him, then there was no sense in chasing after ghosts.

  The wind blew suddenly and widely, scattering fallen leaves all over the pavement. Jasper pulled on his leash, trying to chase after them.

  Perhaps it is just a coincidence. Maybe it's just someone who looks like him.

  Because it wasn't possible for my ex-husband to have tracked me down. Right?

  But there were only 1,500 full time residents in the town, and it was very unlikely that he knew someone else in Pottsville. And I'd never known him to be into arts and crafts. Then again, once upon a time, neither had I.

  And it was a craft shop—one that I own—that I was attempting in vain to get back to, but the wind was blowing with so much force that it pushed me in the opposite direction.

  "What are you barking at, Jasper?" He was refusing to behave or to respond to my directions. Just like the wind, he wanted me to go back in the direction I'd just been, wanting me to chase after that mysterious figure.

  Jasper seemed overly excited, almost like he had picked on a familiar scent, but that wasn't possible. Jasper had never met Adam.

  I'd only adopted Jasper from Pottsville Pet Rescue a few months earlier. And Adam and I had been married...geez....it was so long ago I could barely remember.

  Finally we reached the door and shelter from the wind. I turned the sign I'd put up—"back in ten"—over, now that I was, indeed, back. Even though it had actually taken me twenty minutes to go to the bank and get lunch.

  Jasper was still barking at the door, trying to get back out, as though he wanted to chase that man—that ghost—down the street.

  "You don't even know Adam. And it wasn't him anyway," I added quickly, wanting to correct myself, even if it was only to my dog. Jasper was a border collie and highly intelligent. If he thought something was up, then it made me un
easy.

  "Just...go take a nap in your bed," I said, pointing toward his cushioned dog bed in the corner. I brought Jasper into the store with me most days. He wasn’t the most independent dog and if I left him at home, I tended to come home to chewed up sofa cushions or a ripped up back lawn, depending on where I left him.

  Jasper did as he was told, which was unusual, but he didn't sleep. Instead he remained guarded, his eyes fixed on the front window.

  It just wasn't possible. How could Adam have even found me, hidden away out here in Pottsville? We didn't even have high internet speeds, thanks to the fact that we were hours from the nearest city; I had absolutely no online presence anyway. None of my other ex-husbands had found me out here and they were all a lot savvier than Adam.

  "And more to the point," I murmured out loud, even though it was only Jasper there to listen to me. "WHY would he have tracked me down?"

  "Who has tracked you down?" a voice called out.

  I jumped, thinking that Jasper had suddenly learned how to answer back. And suddenly acquired a middle aged female voice. But it was only my assistant manager, Brenda. I hadn't even expected her to come in that day; it would have been more helpful if she'd been there to cover my ten—sorry, twenty—minute break.

  "No one," I said quickly, arranging a display of ribbons that sat on the front counter. "I just thought I saw an old, familiar face."

  "Those look terrible," Brenda said, then she scolded me. "You're doing it all wrong! You're tangling all the different colors together! Here, let me do it." She tutted loudly as she pushed me out of the way. I heard her muttering, "I have to do everything myself around here."

  "Have fun," I said, picking up my purse and grabbing Jasper's leash. I was as restless as he was and needed to find out if it was Adam, once and for all. That required action. Standing around staring out the window wasn't going to cut it.

  It was time to face the storm.

  I'd only just stepped onto the curb when I immediately regretted my decision. There were flashing lights and a loud siren, and I jumped out of the way as a police car swerved around the corner, nearly knocking Jasper and I clean over. I was less concerned about myself than I was about Jasper—I quickly leapt in front of him and pushed him out of the way. Luckily the car missed both of us, if just barely, and sped away. As my heart rate was returning to normal I strained my neck to try and see who had been driving.

  Ryan.

  I shook my head and tutted a little. I was going to have to give him a stern talking to when we next went out for a drink.

  Jasper pulled on his leash and barked loudly. He was yanking me along the pavement in the wrong direction again. This time he wanted to follow Ryan. This dog really needed to make up his mind.

  "We're not going to chase the police car, Jasper," I said to him, feeling a little embarrassed that I had so little control of him on a busy street while I tried to ignore the judgmental looks. Jasper wasn't a bad dog at all, but whoever his humans were before me, they hadn't trained him very well and he could be boisterous. He certainly had a mind of his own.

  I glanced over my shoulder to the shop where the stranger, which I was absolutely, completely, one hundred percent sure couldn't have been Adam, had disappeared into. "Jasper, come on," I said, trying to lead him the right way, but he was darn insistent on following the police car.

  "Fine!" I said, giving in and letting him have his way. "It wasn't as though it was Adam anyway."

  And to be candid, I did kind of want to see where the police car was headed. I kind of had a taste for crimes and mysteries and solving them. The way the car had been speeding, I was sure that whatever had gone down must have been serious, and I wasn't above some rubber necking.

  Maybe I could even give Ryan a bit of a helping hand. I had experience with police matters, after all. I wouldn't exactly say the small town police force was incompetent at their jobs...exactly. Some of the force, like Ryan for instance, was smart and perceptive. But others weren't entirely on the ball. I'd only been in town for two months and thus far, I'd solved two murders before the police managed to even arrest the right suspect.

  But surely this police car, traveling out of the center of town, wasn't heading toward anything as serious as a murder scene.

  My craft shop was in the center of Pottsville, the central business district, so to speak. Rents were relatively high as it was a popular street and Pottsville was a well-known tourist town, especially for artistic types and those interested in antiques and crafts.

  But outside the main part of town, the rents were much lower, and for a good reason: they didn't get the foot traffic or the tourist love. It was hard work trying to rent a shop outside of town and a lot of these fading store fronts sat empty and the ones that did make a go of it struggled.

  The police car was stopped in front of a craft store. One of my rival stores, I supposed, though I never worried too much about Julie and her store, stranded all the way out here. Two blocks out of town in Pottsville was the same as being two suburbs out, if Pottsville had been a city.

  "What’s going on?" I asked a man standing beside me as I looked at all the broken glass covering the pavement.

  "What does it look like? Some lowlife broke into the shop." The man shook his head. "Not that there'd be anything much of value in a craft shop."

  I ignored that rude comment and moved away to someone a little more pleasant. I whispered to the tall woman with the red rimmed glasses that was peering into the craft store. "Do you know what’s going on?" I asked her. She smiled and was about to respond, but then, to my utter dismay, Jasper jumped up onto her white trousers, leaving behind brown dirty paw prints.

  "Oh my goodness, I'm so sorry!" I said, mortified as the woman gasped and backed away, telling me to get my dog under control.

  Well, we were all out of friends at the crime scene. Looked like we were just going to have to find out ourselves. I stepped gingerly over the pavement, avoiding the broken glass and making sure that Jasper's paws didn't get anywhere near it.

  I stuck my head in through the broken glass. The lights in the shop were off so it was a little hard to see, especially since the dark clouds hiding the sun weren't helping me that day. I could see, though, that the cash register was open and there were items—beads, paper, scissors—scattered all over the ground, as though the robber had been caught and hurried to get away. I let out a slightly disappointed sigh. I supposed I wanted something a little more interesting than just a run of the mill robbery, as terrible as that sounded.

  "Come on, Jasper. It's just a break-in," I said, wanting to get away before we made any more enemies. The woman with the dirty white pants was muttering to someone else nearby, pointing at the two of us.

  The crowd started to disperse when they realized they weren't going to get much more of a show. A little broken glass, a few stolen items... With the wind and storm brewing, people needed more than that to keep them outdoors and away from their cozy fires.

  Suddenly there was a scream from the back of the store. We all turned our heads and stared at each other. "What was that?"

  Jasper pulled so hard that his lead escaped my grip and he was free. He sprinted in the direction of the screams, through the window and over the spilled items on the ground. "Jasper!" I screamed, running after him.

  The shop was dark and I almost tripped as I raced to try and get my unruly dog back. I banged straight into the wall at the back of the shop. Jasper leapt up against it and clawed at it wildly, barking and trying to get through the other side.

  There was a door. I opened it.

  I probably shouldn't have.

  There was Ryan, kneeling over something white on the ground—a sheet covering up something—while a blonde woman I didn't recognize, wearing a police uniform, stood over the same thing with an expression of shock.

  Ryan turned around sharply, his face shocked and angry when he saw me. "George, get back," he said, holding his hand up.

  "Please, control your dog,"
he shouted.

  Talk about embarrassing.

  Jasper ran all the way up to whatever the sheet was covering and grabbed the corner between his teeth before Ryan or I had a chance to stop him.

  He yanked the sheet back to reveal the unthinkable.

  A dead body. A woman, with marks around her neck like she had been strangled.

  Ryan stood up and grabbed Jasper’s leash, handing it to me. "George, get out of here," he said fiercely. "And take Jasper with you."

  Jasper trotted along beside me on the pavement, his tail between his legs. If I'd had a tail, it would have been hanging in a similarly downtrodden way. I didn't think there was much chance of Ryan and I going out for that drink any time soon.

  And, considering the way the woman with the ruined white trousers had shaken her head and muttered toward the others as we'd left the crime scene, I didn't think there was much chance of making friends in Pottsville any time soon either.

  "I guess it's just you and me again Jasper," I said, laughing a little. Oh well, maybe it wasn't such a bad idea to give up on making human friends, and it was probably a very wise choice to give up on men. I mean, did I really need to add yet another husband to the list?

  I laughed again as I thought about Adam, shaking my head as I bent down to pet Jasper, who was wagging his tail again. "You would have liked Adam," I murmured, looking up at a gap between the dark clouds. "He always loved dogs as well, as I recall..."

  I'd been young, in my early twenties, and sure I knew everything about the world. Sure that I knew everything about love. Sure that if I got married, it would last forever. But Adam, as bright as sunshine as he was on the outside, had a side that was dark and grey. When I'd left, it was because those clouds had come in and covered the brightness completely. I'd had no choice.

  I shivered a little. "Let's go home," I said decisively. Brenda could close up the shop. I needed to be by the fire with a glass of red and forget about everything that had happened that day.