by Dale Mayer
He looked around the bedroom and said, “Is there any chance you can sleep somewhere else tonight? We’ve made a hell of a mess of your room.”
“I can sleep in the spare room,” she said, “for tonight at least.”
He looked at the big closet. “I’m sorry, but do you mind if I dig around to make sure more isn’t there?”
“Be my guest,” she said. “I do know shelves are in back there. I don’t know why Nan would put the hangers in the front.”
“I think you’ll find, when you get this cleared out, a space in between the two sets of hangers to walk through. It’s an adaptation of a walk-in closet.”
“It’s chaos,” she said, chuckling.
His grin flashed. “It is at that.”
Just then she heard the mailman open the mail slot. Mugs barked like a madman. She sighed. “I have to go downstairs and salvage the mail. My dog has decided it’s something he should tear into.”
“Oh dear,” he said. “Go, go, go.”
She dashed to the front door, and there was Mugs, with a letter in his mouth. As he went past Goliath, Goliath swatted him on the face. Mugs growled and dropped the letter. Thaddeus raced between the two and snagged the letter and ran into the kitchen.
She raised both hands in frustration. “What’s gotten into you guys? Stop it.”
She cornered Thaddeus, who was still dragging the letter, way too big for him, up onto the kitchen table. She took it out of his beak and held it up high. “Stop! It’s my letter, not yours.”
At the commotion the appraiser had come down to see if she was okay. He stopped and smiled. “It is truly amazing that you live in this chaotic household.”
“Just not so good for the antiques,” she said with an eye roll.
He chuckled.
She opened the envelope. “Interesting. There’s no return address, and there’s no stamp.”
“Somebody dropped it into your mail slot for you then,” he said.
She nodded and opened it. There was a single sheet of paper. “Dear Bone Lady. Uh-oh,” she whispered.
I see that you’re very interested in cold cases, and you have such great talent in solving them. I wondered if you could help me with mine. My brother-in-law disappeared twenty-five years ago and has never been heard from since. I know I don’t have any right to ask, but, if you’re interested in a mystery, please call me. I do have some evidence, a dagger of Johnny’s that I found buried at the spot where he disappeared. I found it when I went to plant a new bed of dahlias, but I don’t know if it’s enough to even start investigating. I’m hopeful. Please call me.
After that plea, there was a phone number, and the letter was signed by Penny.
She stared at it in surprise. “Well, look at that. It sounds like we have our next mystery. Dagger in the Dahlias!”
That sounded perfect.
This concludes Book 3 of Lovely Lethal Gardens: Corpse in the Carnations.
Read about Daggers in the Dahlias: Lovely Lethal Gardens, Book 4
Lovely Lethal Gardens:
Daggers in the Dahlias
(Book #4)
A new cozy mystery series from USA Today best-selling author Dale Mayer. Follow gardener and amateur sleuth Doreen Montgomery—and her amusing and mostly lovable cat, dog, and parrot—as they catch murderers and solve crimes in lovely Kelowna, British Columbia.
Book 4 is available now!
To find out more visit Dale Mayer’s website.
Author’s Note
Thank you for reading Corpse in the Carnations: Lovely Lethal Gardens, Book 3! If you enjoyed the book, please take a moment and leave a short review here.
Dear reader,
I love to hear from readers, and you can contact me at my website: www.dalemayer.com or at my Facebook author page. To be informed of new releases and special offers, sign up for my newsletter or follow me on BookBub. And if you are interested in joining Dale Mayer’s Reader Group, here is the Facebook sign up page.
Cheers,
Dale Mayer
About the Author
Dale Mayer is a USA Today bestselling author best known for her Psychic Visions and Family Blood Ties series. Her contemporary romances are raw and full of passion and emotion (Second Chances, SKIN), her thrillers will keep you guessing (By Death series), and her romantic comedies will keep you giggling (It’s a Dog’s Life and Charmin Marvin Romantic Comedy series).
She honors the stories that come to her – and some of them are crazy and break all the rules and cross multiple genres!
To go with her fiction, she also writes nonfiction in many different fields with books available on resume writing, companion gardening and the US mortgage system. She has recently published her Career Essentials Series. All her books are available in print and ebook format.
Connect with Dale Mayer Online
Dale’s Website – www.dalemayer.com
Twitter – @DaleMayer
Facebook – dalemayer.com/fb
BookBub – bookbub.com/authors/dale-mayer
CORPSE IN THE CARNATIONS: LOVELY LETHAL GARDENS, BOOK 3
Dale Mayer
Valley Publishing
Copyright © 2019
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
ISBN-13: 978-1-773361-41-3
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