Last Chance for Murder (Lisa Chance Cozy Mysteries Book 1)

by Estelle Richards

  She grinned and took a piece. Nero’s always served the most amazing bread. She had friends in LA that swore by cutting out carbs, but Lisa felt that if that was the cost of being thin, then the price was too high.

  “What about you? How’s retirement?” she said around a mouthful of delicious bread.

  “It’s good. It’s good. I still miss the kids sometimes, but I don’t miss the early mornings in the cold. Every year, it seemed to bother my joints more.”

  “And where are you staying these days?” Lisa looked down as she said it, feeling like she was prying into her father’s personal life. In reality, she wanted to do more than pry, she wanted to take a crowbar to the black box of her parents’ split and find out what went wrong so she could make it go right. Even if her own love life was a disaster, that didn’t give her parents any reason to stop being good role models.

  He looked at her like he knew what she was thinking. “I’m renting a room over Principal Dressler’s garage right now,” he said.

  “Oh, just a room?” she said.

  “It’s got a hot plate and a mini fridge, but it’s a pretty basic setup.”

  Lisa felt a twinge of disappointment as she realized the impossibility of staying with her dad in a single room with a hot plate and mini fridge.

  “So, um, what happened between you and—”

  “Penny?” Lisa’s mother had come in while Lisa was paying attention to the bread.

  “Lou?” Penny stood behind Lisa’s chair, gripping the back of the chair with her perfectly manicured fingers.

  Lou stood up to face her. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m having lunch with my daughter.” Penny’s voice was icy. “I could ask you the same question.”

  Lou’s eye slid down to Lisa’s face. His disapproval was apparent to her in the slight downturn of one side of his mouth.

  She blushed crimson. “I just thought that if we could all just talk things over, we could—”

  “We could what?” Penny said. “Learn to unring a bell? Unscramble an egg? Unbreak a marriage?”

  “Mom, please?”

  “Enjoy your lunch.” Penny turned on her heel and stormed out.

  Lisa twisted her napkin in her hands. She could see Nero hovering at the edge of the dining room looking worried.

  “I’m sorry, Daddy. I made a mess of everything.”

  He sat down and sighed heavily. She waited for him to say she hadn’t made a mess, but he just picked up another piece of bread and took a bite, looking into the middle distance as he chewed.

  “I just don’t understand.”

  “Sometimes things don’t work out the way you expect them to.”

  “But you’re my parents! You’ve been together forever.”

  He chuckled. “Not forever. And however long the past is, it still doesn’t guarantee the future.”

  “But, but… I mean, did this just happen?”

  “No.” He took another bite. “It had been building a while.”

  “But how long have you been living in this garage?”

  He thought a second, then said, “Not long. A month maybe.”

  “Then you’re hardly even moved out. You could move back in,” she said, clutching her napkin.

  “I don’t think that would work.”

  “But when I was here at Christmas, you seemed happy, normal!”

  “You and Dylan seemed happy at Christmas, too.”

  “But that’s different.”

  “Is it?”

  “But… We don’t… Maybe not.” Lisa’s shoulder slumped as she pictured the four of them singing Christmas carols in front of the fire, not knowing that neither relationship would survive the new year. “It’s just so depressing. I never thought you guys could fail like I could. I don’t know, like you were different.”

  “Like being your parents made us superheroes?” he said gently.

  She nodded. “Yeah.”

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart, but we’re just ordinary people, like anyone else.”

  “No, I’m sorry, Daddy. I shouldn’t have tried to trick you into having lunch together like some silly update of the Parent Trap.”

  He smiled. “I think you need a twin for that plot to work out.”

  “Yeah.” She looked at her lap. “I was really looking forward to Nero’s spaghettini with lemon, but now I feel like I need to go smooth things over with Mom. Do you mind?”

  “Go ahead,” he said. “But take some of this bread with you.”

  “It is delicious,” she said, grabbing a piece with each hand as she stood up. “What about you?”

  “I’ll try the spaghettini with lemon for you.” He grinned. “Don’t worry, I’ll think of you with every bite.”

  “Thanks, Daddy.”

  Chapter 5

  It was a brisk walk through downtown Moss Creek to get to Penny’s real estate office. The town square was looking its best, full of the changing leaves of autumn in the mountains. The Folly loomed over the west end of downtown, exuding an atmosphere both gloomy and inviting, like a particularly well turned out Goth kid.

  Lisa paused in front of the door to the real estate office. She was tempted to go next door to her aunt’s gallery and spend a few minutes relaxing with whatever her aunt’s latest art finds might be. But a sense of duty propelled her through her mother’s door.

  The bell chimed, and the receptionist looked up briefly from her phone. In that moment, Lisa could see there was nothing in the world that girl would like less than to have to speak to anyone. No wonder her mother wanted to bring Lisa in to replace her.

  She approached the desk. “Hi. I’m Lisa Chance, Penny’s daughter.”

  The receptionist didn’t look up as she grunted something that might have been ‘Hi’.

  “Is my mother in?”

  The receptionist sighed and looked over her shoulder at the closed office door. “I think she’s with a client or something?”

  “Would you mind checking? Thanks.”

  The receptionist sighed again. “She doesn’t really like to be interrupted?”

  Again, the girl’s eyes were drawn back to her phone as if by powerful electromagnets. Lisa was about to say something more when her own phone rang.

  She cringed. It was Dylan’s ringtone.

  She sat in one of the overstuffed waiting room chairs and answered. “Why are you calling me?”

  The front door to the office opened, and a slickly handsome man in a suit walked in, followed by an older fellow in a western shirt with a bolo tie and jeans that looked like they had been ironed. She recognized the older man as Jake Peterman, a local developer.

  “Hello to you, too,” Dylan’s voice poured through the phone in his usual caramel-sweet tones.

  She wished he didn’t still sound so good to her traitorous ears. “What do you want, Dylan?”

  The two men who’d just entered through the front door proceeded into a side office right next to Lisa’s chair. She turned away from them to pretend she had a touch of privacy on her phone call.

  “It’s a business-related call,” Dylan said.

  “What possible business could I have with you?” she snapped.

  In the office next door, the older man’s voice rang out, “What do you mean, Comstock is raising the price? I made a good offer, and he was set to accept it!”

  Comstock, Lisa thought, like the Comstock family that built the Folly? She found herself letting the phone droop away from her ear so she could eavesdrop. Dylan’s voice said a bunch of words that she didn’t quite make out.

  “He says it should be registered as a historic place, and that the historic nature of the house is worth more than the original offer.”

  That definitely sounded like it was about the Folly.

  “You don’t have to raise the offer if you don’t want to, Mr. Peterman. You made a perfectly reasonable bid, and you have complete control over what you want to do next.”

  “Hmph. I want that hornswaggler to sti
ck to the original agreement.”

  Lisa almost got caught listening in as they came out of the door again.

  “Why don’t you give it some thought and I’ll call you tomorrow?” the salesman said. He looked down at Lisa and gave her a very attractive half smile.

  “Lisa? Are you there?” Dylan’s voice broke into her thoughts.

  “Of course,” she said into the phone.

  “So?”

  “So what?”

  “So what should I do with the check?”

  “The check?”

  Dylan sighed. “The check. For the commercial going national. Can you pick it up or do I send it to you?”

  “Send it, I guess. Wait, the commercial went national?” Lisa realized she’d missed a bit of crucial detail in this conversation.

  “Yeah, that’s what I said.”

  “Oh my god. Oh my god! That’s like, a big check.”

  She could almost hear him shaking his head. “Yeah, like fifty grand.”

  “Fifty thousand dollars!” she yelped.

  The receptionist, the salesman, and her mother, now standing in the door to her personal office, stared at her.

  “Fifty thousand dollars,” she repeated at a whisper. “Can you overnight it to me?”

  He sighed.

  “I think it’s the least you could do after what I saw you doing with that tramp of an agent. In our bed.”

  “Fine, whatever.”

  “Send it to me at my mom’s house. I’ve gotta go.” She hung up the phone and stood up. “Mom? Can we talk?”

  Penny frowned at her daughter but nodded in the direction of her office. Lisa followed her in and closed the door behind her.

  The low mood she’d felt as she walked across the town square to grovel for her mother’s forgiveness had dissipated in the news of her windfall. Fifty thousand dollars! She could start her coffee shop with that money.

  “I don’t know what got into you, young lady,” Penny said. “Ambushing me in public like that.”

  Lisa was yanked back to the present and the need to mollify her hurt and angry parent.

  “No one would tell me what was going on, so I thought if I got you together in the same room we could talk it out,” she said. She cringed as she heard the whiny teenage voice come out of her mouth. Somehow, any conflict with her mother took her right back to high school.

  “You could have asked in private,” Penny snapped.

  “I did ask you! You blew me off,” Lisa said. “I didn’t know what else to do.”

  “You could think of this family’s position in this town, that’s what you could do. You of all people should know that other people’s personal lives are ripe for gossip around here. What if someone else had witnessed that scene?”

  “What scene? You came into your favorite restaurant, stayed a minute, and left again.”

  Penny narrowed her eyes. “You know perfectly well what scene. You need to start showing some loyalty to the people who’ve been loyal to you, Lisa Marie Chance.”

  Lisa sighed. Things were bad when her mother brought out the full name. “I’m sorry, Mom.”

  Penny sniffed and folded her arms.

  “Mom, I’m sorry! I shouldn’t have embarrassed you in public like that. I wasn’t thinking. It was selfish and wrong. Please oh please will you forgive me?”

  Penny’s face softened. “Oh, you don’t have to beg. After all, I’m your mother.” She reached over and gave her daughter a stiff little hug. “But I do have something to discuss with you.”

  Lisa looked at her, hoping it would be an explanation about the divorce.

  “No, not about that.”

  “Oh. I have something to talk about with you, too,” Lisa said.

  “Right, of course,” Penny nodded. “Now hear me out. You know I supported you in your Hollywood endeavor, even though I never thought it was a wise choice. Such a talented and intelligent young woman as you shouldn’t waste her time with something as silly as acting.”

  Lisa frowned. Even though the acting had turned out to be less fun or exciting than she’d expected, hearing her mother say ‘I told you so’ wasn’t something she enjoyed. But she gritted her teeth and tried not to interrupt.

  “You know I’ve always felt you would do well in the business. Yes, yes, I know, the fingerprint ID card and your record,” she said, waving a manicured hand to dismiss the concern. “But it’s been nearly a decade and you can apply for a waiver. I looked into it, and I think anyone would agree you’re not a recidivist or a threat to the community. It was a childish mistake.”

  Lisa sighed. The price she’d paid for that childish mistake was a high one. The six months in jail had left her with trouble sleeping, a fast right hook, and a continuing fear of confined spaces. The fact that her record kept her out of the family business was just a nasty little bonus.

  “Here’s what we’ll do. You’ll start working here, as a receptionist or handing out fliers or who knows, cleaning the office if we have to. We’ll get you that waiver. You’ll take an accelerated course, and then you could be licensed by next year.” Penny beamed at the thought. “Then we just need to straighten out your love life and we can really get you back on track.”

  “Mom.”

  “I have the perfect guy for you. Did you meet Brett?”

  “Brett?” Lisa scrunched her eyebrows together trying to remember.

  “No? Hmm. Anyway, I saw how you looked at him. Let’s go over to his office and I’ll introduce the two of you.”

  “Mom! I’m not ready to start dating again yet. Dylan and I just broke up.”

  “You can be friends first,” Penny conceded.

  “Mom, can I tell you my news?”

  “Of course, darling, go ahead.”

  “I’m going to start a coffee shop! Here in Moss Creek.”

  Penny looked confused. “A coffee shop?” she repeated. “In Moss Creek? Why would you do that?”

  “The happiest I’ve ever been was working at the Coffee Spot.”

  “Where?”

  “In Studio City. It felt like… it felt like home.”

  “Darling, this is your home.”

  “But does it really feel like home? Where can people gather in this town? Do you remember that book you had me read, A Town Like Alice?”

  “Sure, I remember it. It’s a great book.”

  “I guess that’s what I want to do. I want to open a coffee shop that acts as that kind of magnet for people, to make it feel like, well, like a town like Alice.”

  “Honey, that book is fiction.”

  “Mom, this is what I’m doing.”

  Penny frowned. “You don’t have to be rude. Besides, how on earth are you going to finance this thing? If you think I’m going to front you the money —”

  “No, I can afford it. I have enough to get started, anyway, and that should make it enough to get a loan for the rest.”

  “How do you have enough to get started?”

  “My commercial went national! Dylan is sending me the check. For fifty thousand dollars.”

  Penny’s face grew thoughtful. “That does change things. You can do a lot with a bit of start-up capital like that. Do you have a location in mind?”

  Lisa grinned. “I know the perfect place. And I think I just heard that it’s for sale.”

  “Really? Where is it?”

  “The Folly!”

  Penny closed her eyes and massaged her temples. “Oh, Lisa, hasn’t that place caused enough trouble in your life already?”

  Lisa’s resolve crumbled. “Can’t you just be supportive?” she yelled.

  She stormed out of the office. The receptionist stared at her with a blank bovine look. Penny followed her daughter and put a hand on her shoulder. Lisa stiffened.

  “In that case,” Penny said through a forced smile, “you’ll have to come right this way and meet Brett Lord.”

  “Mom, I already told you—”

  Brett’s office door opened, and the handsome young s
alesman gave them an appraising look.

  “Brett has the listing for the Comstock property,” Penny said. “Or should I say, the Folly.”

  Lisa’s mouth dropped open.

  “Lisa, this is Brett Lord. Brett, my daughter, Lisa Chance.”

  Brett glided out of his office with a professional smile on his face. He extended his hand to Lisa. “It’s so nice to finally meet you,” he said. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

  Lisa shook his hand and blushed, thinking of him overhearing her phone call with Dylan. What must he think of her?

  “It’s nice to meet you, too,” she choked out, aware of her mother’s gaze.

  Brett looked closely at her face, and then smiled at Penny over Lisa’s shoulder. “Thanks for the introduction,” he said, clearly dismissing his boss from a client conversation.

  To Lisa’s shock, her mother backed off.

  “Would you like to step into my office?” Brett said, opening the door wider.

  Chapter 6

  Lisa followed Brett in and perched in a client chair. It was strange how nervous she felt sitting in one of these chairs after a childhood spent playing in these offices and building secret forts with the furniture after hours while her mother did paperwork. Somehow, sitting here as an actual client felt different. New.

  Brett settled himself behind his desk and steepled his fingers. “I hope you don’t mind me pulling you away from your mother,” he said. “I hate to interrupt a touching family moment.”

  Lisa laughed. “No, I think we were done with the touching family moment part of things and ready to move right on to the getting on each other’s nerves part. Sometimes it’s hard having such an accomplished mother. I always thought I’d grow up to be just like her, but…” Lisa trailed off, suddenly aware of how much she was telling this perfect stranger.

  “She’s been a wonderful mentor for me since I joined the firm,” Brett said.

  “I can imagine.”

  “But you’re here to discuss the Comstock property, not my career path,” he said. “Let me just print out the information for you.”

  “Oh, well, I guess I know the property pretty well,” she said.