Sunny Side Up

by Sonia Parin

  Sunny Side Up

  A Deadline Cozy Mystery

  Sonia Parin

  Copyright © 2016 Sonia Parin

  Smashwords Edition

  No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Epilogue

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  Chapter One

  “I’m not biting the bullet. I’m only taking a small nibble.” Eve Lloyd pushed back her sunglasses and stared at the bridge separating the island from the mainland. Once she crossed it, there’d be no going back. She’d been thinking of nothing else for the past twelve months.

  Talk about dragging her feet.

  Twelve months of trying to find another solution and this was the best she could come up with...

  Running away and hiding.

  “It’s only temporary,” she told herself and put her car into gear.

  The day her divorce had become final, her aunt Mira had put her arm around her and had urged her to come stay with her for however long it took to glue herself back together again. No conditions attached.

  Eve bobbed her head from side to side, her glossy brown hair sliding along her shoulders.

  On that day, she’d thought she’d never get over losing the man she’d assumed had been the love of her life. And while her aunt’s house came with all the perks of comfortable living, Eve had wanted to keep moving. Actually, she hadn’t had a choice in the matter. The restaurant she’d owned with her husband had needed a complete sink or swim makeover. It had been her way of moving on, her focus fixed on making a success of the business he’d ripped apart.

  At the time, coming to stay on the island would have felt too much like coddling... wrapping herself up in cotton wool and turning a blind eye to everything she had to face. Besides, she simply hadn’t been able to stop. Her instinct had pushed her to soldier on.

  Now, however...

  It had all finally caught up with her.

  She was done with the restaurant business.

  Time to start writing a new chapter...

  She’d stay two weeks... maybe a month. Long enough to figure out what she wanted to do and get her life back on track. Besides, she owed her aunt a visit. And...

  If worse came to worst, she might take her up on her long-standing offer to work for her. She could think of it as a working vacation, doing what, she had no idea. But it would at least be a solid block of thinking time, long enough to redefine herself and still have something to do.

  Dismissing the stray thought, she reached for her phone and searched for her aunt’s number, but instead of her aunt’s cheerful voice she got the answering machine.

  “Mira. I’m taking you up on your open invitation...” Eve ran the phrase through her mind and tried to think of what else she might add to the message. She’d last seen her aunt a year ago and before that...

  She received regular updates on Mira’s comings and goings. Her aunt had never learned the meaning of slowing down. In her early sixties, she spent the summer months alternating between cruising the Caribbean and Mediterranean, while winters were spent on the island working on her next bestseller. A romantic woman who lived by her own rules, Mira Lloyd, a.k.a. Elizabeth Lloyd, renowned author of sweltering historical romances, liked nothing better than to play matchmaker.

  Just so long as she stuck to doing it on paper.

  And if she didn’t...

  “I’ll kill you, Mira.” Her aunt had her ways and Eve didn’t think she was up to standing up to her antics. She could be quite devious... but not insensitive, Eve reminded herself. Then again, she’d already dropped a hint... but she hadn’t pursued it.

  Your happiness will be your best revenge.

  And in Mira’s opinion, you couldn’t have happiness without romance...

  Eve had chosen her own brand of revenge. Resurrecting the restaurant from the ashes of her ex-husband’s embezzlement.

  She should have been savoring the sweetness. After all, she’d won. She’d survived. Yes, but...

  Then she’d fizzled.

  Throwing herself into survival mode had left her wrung out.

  She straightened in her seat. “It’s now or never.” With a groan, Eve put away her phone and focused on the last leg of her trip.

  The watched the sun making its descent toward the horizon. Her gaze skated over the bay and lingered over the gentle waves reflecting echoes of the last glimmers of the day. After her long drive, she wanted to settle in before nightfall. But she didn’t want to arrive empty-handed.

  Driving along the picturesque two-lane road leading to the town, she tried to remember what the little island had to offer. If she could trust her memory, the Chin Wag Café excelled at pies and cakes, including their award winning blueberry extravaganza. Knowing her aunt favored the vegetable tarts and chocolate mousse cakes, she decided to make quick work of it and get some.

  She pulled into the first available parking space and climbed out, taking a moment to stretch her legs and get her bearings. And that’s when the feeling of having stepped into an alternative universe swamped her.

  Everything moved at a different rhythm here.

  A leisurely pace she could barely abide.

  Everyone knew everyone.

  With the summer season over, the weather had cooled down and the locals had the island to themselves again. She watched a family step out of a restaurant and stop for a chat with a young couple. A man driving by waved and called out a greeting to a woman sitting at a sidewalk café. This was all so far removed from what she knew, living in the city, with its hectic pace, never seeing her neighbors, never even getting to learn their names because they never seemed to stand still long enough for her to find out. Not that she’d ever had the time to socialize...

  “Are you lost?”

  Eve smiled to herself. It had only taken a few minutes to be spotted and slotted as an outsider.

  “No, I’m not. Thank you for asking.” She looked at the man and tried to place the face. Sixty something, maybe pushing seventy, well dressed and, despite the terse look on one half of his face, he came across as friendly as he could without appearing too suspicious of her. He lived in a house not far from her aunt’s and had earned the distinction of being the best gardener on the island. She hesitated. Growing up, she’d spent most of her summer holidays with her aunt. One year she’d—

  Not wanting to wear her guilt on her face, Eve took a deep swallow and tried to shake off the memory of stealing the man’s entire crop of roses to give to her aunt.

  “Do I know you?” he asked.

  “I’m...” She pasted on a confident smile, “I’m Eve Lloyd. Mira Lloyd’s niece,” she said and tried to recall the man’s name. Harold? Harry?

  “Henry Parkmore,” he offered as if reading her mind. “We haven’t seen you around in a w
hile. How long’s it been? Two years?” he asked, his tone carrying an accusatory edge.

  “Just about.”

  Henry Parkmore appeared to be considering his next question. Not wanting to face the inevitable ones about her ex, she smiled and excused herself.

  “Lovely to see you again, Mr. Parkmore. I’m afraid I have to rush off.”

  Crossing the street, she looked over her shoulder in time to see him stop a passerby and point at her.

  The fuse had been lit. It wouldn’t take long for word to spread now.

  When she stepped inside the Chin Wag Café, she made a point of avoiding eye contact with any of the customers and made a beeline for the counter. There’d be plenty of time to look around and reacquaint herself with some of the locals. Although, if she had her way, she’d spend her stay on the island sitting on a lounger with pen and paper. Somehow, she’d figure out what to do with the rest of her life. Even if the thought of having to start from scratch exhausted her.

  “Can I help you?”

  “Yes.” She placed her order and noticing a display of gourmet coffee and tea, she decided to splurge.

  As she turned to leave, another local approached her.

  “Eve?”

  This time she had no trouble recognizing the man. She took in his distinguished Cary Grant good looks and bright blue eyes that always sparkled with a hint of mischief. “Patrick McKenzie.”

  He gave her a small smile. “You remember.”

  She returned the smile with an added chuckle. How could she forget the man who’d been pining after her aunt all these years? A retired history professor with a talent for story telling. Eve had often wondered why her aunt had never taken to him. Now who was the matchmaker?

  “Of course I do. How are you?”

  “Very well. I heard about—”

  She raised a hand to stop him. “I appreciate the sentiment.” But she was done hearing them.

  “Yes, of course. Mira never mentioned you’d be coming. She often worries about leaving the house empty while she travels. I do the best I can to keep an eye on it. Good of you to come.”

  Eve frowned. “Is my aunt away?”

  “Well... yes. You didn’t know? She went on one of her trips. Said she had some serious thinking to do.” He shook his head. “Your timing is unfortunate.”

  Strange, Eve thought. Her aunt always let her know before going on one of her trips. She struggled to hide her disappointment. Eve had wanted a quiet break away from it all, but she hadn’t necessarily wanted to be alone.

  Chapter Two

  Eve dug around her handbag for her set of house keys. Her chat with Patrick McKenzie had turned into a sit down catch up meal at the local pub. She hadn’t been able to help herself and had rambled on about Alex, revealing everything there was to say about her embezzling ex and how wrung out she felt after throwing herself into the business of recovering her losses.

  Hearing Patrick say the man should be flogged for putting her through such an ordeal had given her an unexpected feeling of relief and satisfaction. Alex had been... was a charmer and no one could ever find fault with him. In her opinion, he deserved more than a flogging.

  “The man’s a candidate for murder,” Eve had said.

  She smiled as she recalled Patrick chuckling. She’d needed to let her hair down and have a free for all heart to heart.

  Very liberating, she couldn’t help thinking.

  But as good as it had felt to finally open up about her grievances, now the sun had set and she had to navigate her way to the front veranda of her aunt’s beach house in the dark.

  Taking only her small suitcase, she decided to get the rest of her luggage in the morning. She scrunched her way along the pebbled path regretting she hadn’t arrived in time to see the pretty blue house in the light of day.

  It always gave her a feeling of homecoming.

  As a teenager, she’d spent her summer months here while her parents traveled overseas on business. They’d both been in their late thirties when she’d come along, a surprise package they hadn’t counted on... or scheduled.

  As busy corporate lawyers, they’d led a hyperactive lifestyle trotting around the world. Eve had attended a boarding school and at sixteen had run away for the first time. Long hours of counseling had straightened her out and she’d eventually pulled up her socks long enough to graduate; the least she could do for her parents after they’d invested in her future. However, regardless of how much effort she put into her life, she’d ended up making a career out of disappointing them.

  She’d met her husband at a wine tasting show. Eve had been making her own way working for a catering company and still going through her self-discovery phase trying to find something that could hold her interest long enough for her to try to make a success of it. In the end, it had turned out to be marriage and a restaurant. She’d fallen hard for Alex and within a month had married him in a civil ceremony with only her aunt Mira to witness the then happy event.

  To this day, her parents hadn’t stopped being disappointed in the way she’d turned out, the food industry falling far below their standards. Her aunt, on the other hand, had always simply smiled, offering her support in whatever she did.

  Eve pushed the front door open and searched for the light switch. As she stepped inside, the fresh smell of the ocean followed her in.

  She made her way up the stairs to the bedroom that was always ready for her, the bed looking so inviting her knees wobbled and she almost collapsed onto it. Not yet, she thought.

  At the foot of the bed, she noticed a couple of colorful quilts that hadn’t been there the last time she’d visited, a sign her aunt had stuck to her plans to visit Amish country, something she’d meant to do for some time but had kept postponing in favor of one of her more exotic adventures.

  Without thinking about it, she strode over to the window and drew the curtains open. It was always the first thing she did when she arrived. The house sat right on the beach. Day or night, she could look out the window and take in the pretty view.

  A long bath later and with no catch-up chat to look forward to with her aunt, she settled in for the night with one of her aunt’s romance books and promptly fell asleep. Some time close to midnight, however, she stirred awake and remembered the pie and cake she’d left in the car.

  Hating to see good food go to waste, she scrambled out of bed and, throwing a sweater on, made her way downstairs in her pajamas. Still bleary eyed from sleep, she didn’t want to switch the lights on and stir herself fully awake. In any case, the square layout of the beach house made finding her way in the dark easy, although it helped to have the light of a full moon pouring in through the windows.

  Eve fumbled with the front door handle, and then remembered she hadn’t shaken off her city habit and needed to unlock it from the inside. As she turned to search the hallway table for the key, something caught her attention.

  Something moving.

  A shadow across the window.

  She held her breath and stilled, an instinctive reaction, she thought and most likely an overreaction. “It’s probably nothing but the breeze stirring a bush or a cat making its way home.”

  A very large cat?

  No, she thought and decided it was most likely her imagination. It would take her a couple of days to adjust to the quiet and solitude. Although, it wouldn’t kill her to take care. When she stepped outside, she drew her arms across her chest and took a couple of tentative steps, her eyes skating across the surrounding garden.

  When she heard a tree branch scratch against a window, she swung around looking one way and then the other, her eyes narrowed as she searched for a pair of luminous eyes. Her aunt didn’t own any pets, but the neighbors’ pets loved to visit.

  A seagull called out what sounded like a protest.

  “Just great. All I need now is the hoot of an owl.”

  She shivered. Her back teeth locked together and she quickened her steps, all her attention on reaching her car an
d scrambling back inside the house. She couldn’t explain the overpowering feeling of knowing there was something out there. Eve repeated the ‘something’ in her head because she didn’t want to think of there being a ‘somebody’.

  She also didn’t want to think she was being silly.

  She’d watched enough suspense movies to know bad things happened to the least suspecting.

  As she reached inside the car to retrieve the package, she thought she heard footsteps along the pebbled drive. And that, she told herself, was way too close for comfort. She sprung out of the car. Stretching her neck, she peered one way and then the other.

  Nothing. No one.

  She stood there, her breath slowing to a shallow inhale, her ears straining to pick up the slightest hint of disturbance.

  Again, nothing. Or probably something.

  She had no trouble imagining someone also holding their breaths and waiting to see what she did next.

  “Now you’re really being silly.”

  She scooped in a big breath and scanned the surrounding area again all the while thinking she should get scared. At least, until she had a reason not to be scared. However, good sense told her she hadn’t lived on the island in a while. She only needed some time to settle in and get used to it all.

  Back inside the house, she made a point of checking the doors and windows.

  “Only as a precaution,” she said out loud wanting to hear the sound of her voice over the silence that hovered around her.