Snowflake Bay Cozy Mysteries Boxset 1
Page 1
Book 1 –
Coffee, Angels, and Murder
This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
THE SNOWFLAKE BAY COZY MYSTERIES BOXSET 1
First edition. April 6, 2021.
Copyright © 2021 C. Farren.
Written by C. Farren.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Prologue – A few days earlier
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
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Book 2 – | Mrs. Claus Is Dead
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
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Epilogue
Book 3 – | Who Wants Maureen Dead?
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
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Comatose in Como Preview | Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
To my mum. She's my beta reader and loves getting to be the first person in the whole world to read my books.
Prologue – A few days earlier
Garrett closed the door to the coffee shop. Today had been the longest of his life. Anything that could go wrong did go wrong. His life was in tatters and there wasn’t a single thing he could do about it.
The Metropolitan was his labor of love, a coffee shop that did well despite not being Starbucks. It had been hard work but he’d done it. Snowflake Bay had their very own successful coffee shop, a local place. The people of the village loved it here. Now he might lose it all; his family and his beloved business. Everything.
He headed behind the counter and continued cleaning up. He might as well keep the place tidy. Keeping busy would take his mind off the disaster that was his life.
The noise of footsteps alerted him to a presence in the coffee shop.
“We need to talk,” said the voice.
Garrett couldn’t keep his anger in check. “What are you doing here?”
“I don’t want to be here,” they explained. “But...”
He decided to give them the benefit of the doubt for now. He was a decent man. He could let them talk. What did he have to lose?
Five minutes later Garrett was dead.
Chapter 1
“Am I boring you?” Cedric asked.
Wren regarded the man sitting opposite her, snapping out of her daydream. The two of them were in an inexpensive Italian restaurant that had the ambiance of a morgue. It was hardly Olive Garden. She wore a sexy black dress that had failed to even solicit a single compliment from her date and her new hairdo cost more than her shoes.
Outside it was raining heavily, giving the streets a shiny, wet glow.
“Yes, of course,” Wren answered. She struggled to recall what they’d been talking about. Her chair was very hard and uncomfortable. It was sending sharp pains up her spine. “The weather is quite chilly, no? Main Street looked it was about to freeze over!”
Cedric sighed. “I was telling you all about the new sealant gel we were using in our windows.”
He was wearing a jolly red sweater that stank of mildew and his hair was combed over. He was a hairy potato. He kept putting his hand on his stomach, as if forgetting it was even there. There was a decent man in there somewhere, she was sure.
“How could I forget?” Keeping the sarcasm out of her voice was almost torture. “Such a fascinating subject to talk about on a first date.”
He started going on again, and Wren tuned him out.
Why had I even agreed to go out with him?
She sighed sadly, realizing why. Cedric Roper was attractive, in a sort of Bob Hoskins meets George Clooney kind of way, but he was about as interesting as reading the back of a Corn Flakes packet. Still, it was an evening out and, as her gran used to say, never turn down a free meal, even if did smell overdone.
“I used to be married you know,” he explained. Wren perked up a little. This was information she didn’t know. “She didn’t like me talking about the business either. No wonder she left me.”
“I’m sorry,” she said.
He bit his lip, as if holding back something. “It’s been twenty years. I’ve gotten over it. Yes.” He looked down at his dinner. “I’ve gotten over it.”
Wren smiled, unsure what to say. Cedric was older than he appeared. He looked to be in his late thirties, but if he’d been married twenty years ago, he must have been a lot older than she’d imagined.
“Where do you see yourself in five years, Wren?” Cedric asked.
The question startled her. She’d never thought about it before. A job? Marriage? Kids? A 4K television in the bathroom?
I so want to get out of here, but it looks cold outside, and I’d probably freeze to death in this dress.
“I honestly don’t know.” The question made her feel lost. “I’d like to think I’d be in a better place than I am now.”
He nodded. “So, you’ve never considered marriage?”
Cedric was scoping her out for the future. He was actually seriously interested in her, and she was so bored to tears she imagined that watching paint dry was more exciting.
“I was married once too.” Wren stared at the remnants of the slightly burnt cheese sauce on her plate. The restaurant’s owner, Lala di Campo, was staring daggers at her from behind the bar. “But it was a long time ago.”
“It didn’t go well?” he asked.
She didn
’t like to dwell on the past. “I’m surprised you don’t know. It was the talk of the town.”
“I don’t listen to idle gossip.”
She had to end this now. She didn’t want to hurt this man’s feelings, but she had no choice. She had to be brutally honest.
“This is not going great,” Wren admitted. She looked him in the eye. He didn’t blink. “I think I’m going to just go home.”
“Do your cats need feeding?” he asked sulkily.
“I don’t have any cats!”
Wren stormed off, almost tripping over the carpet in her haste to escape. She tried to hold back the tears but they came anyway. The truth was, she did have a cat and she loved the silly little fur ball more than anything else in her life. A 35-year-old woman with a cat screamed out “old spinster” and she’d wanted to leave the table with a little of her dignity intact.
Even though I do have cheese sauce on my dress.
Fat droplets of rain battered her bare arms outside, reminding her that she’d left her coat inside the restaurant. She slipped quietly back inside, grabbed her coat, and ran back out as fast as her legs could carry her.
WREN STOOD ON THE EDGE of the docks, hugging herself to keep warm. The sea was calm, pretty even, as the rain turned into a light drizzle around her. It was peaceful here and she not quite ready to head home just yet. Going home meant accepting defeat and admitting that her love life truly was an epic disaster.
The marina was silent, most of the boats at the dock unused for years, ever since the fish stocks dried up. The fishermen had moved away soon after and the town’s economy had almost collapsed. The only good thing they had going for them was the Hollywood movie that had been filmed there twenty years ago. Tourists flocked here in the summer to immerse themselves in the place that a hunky merman rescued a drowned Nicole Kidman.
Wren laughed. Truth be told, she hated Love by the Sea. It was sappy and depressing and the tourists were a pain in the neck. She should know, she’d worked in the tourist center for eight years before things soured with her boss.
Don’t think about him. It’ll only upset you.
The wooden decking creaked behind her. Wren tensed, ready to defend herself. After being mugged once many years ago, she’d learned a little taekwondo at a women’s self-defense class. She still sometimes attended classes with her mother when she was bored. No one would get the upper hand on her ever again.
“Stay back,” she screamed. Her hands were weapons! “I have a mace in my bag and I’m not afraid to use it!”
The intruder was a tall man, wrapped up in a thick blue winter coat. The hood half covered his head, and the only thing she could make out in the dark and the light rain were a mesmerizing set of twinkling brown eyes.
“Sorry,” he said. His voice was deep, with a slight British accent. “I just needed a bit of fresh air. I didn’t mean to startle you.”
Wren crossed her arms. She didn’t sense any hostility from the man. His eyes conveyed to her simple curiosity and warm humor, nothing more. But what was he doing on the docks all on his own this late at night?
“You mean you’ve got mace, right?” he asked.
Wren was confused. “I beg your pardon?”
“You said you had a mace in your bag,” he said. “I presume you didn’t mean the medieval weapon that could cave in a bear’s skull?”
Wren grinned. “No, and I don’t have any mace either. My hands are my lethal weapons.”
God, I sound so corny!
“What are you doing out here so late?” Wren asked.
“I was just scoping out the area,” he said. He was staring out at the waves. “I’m thinking about buying a house in town. Is this a nice place to live?”
“It’s fine if you like boring.”
He held his gloved hand out. “I’m...”
The ringing of a cell phone interrupted his introduction. Wren wanted to scream in frustration but answered it. It was her mother, and it had to be urgent if she needed to interrupt her daughter on a date.
She was the one who nagged me into going on this date in the first place when I had misgivings about it. That woman really wants grandchildren. Or ready-made organ donors.
“Hello?” Wren turned away from the man. Her face was scrunched up in annoyance. Her mother could always find some way to annoy her. “What is it?”
“Gracie’s being sick all over the place and I tried to pick her up but she bit me and now she’s on the fridge and I think she might be dying!” her mother blurted out.
Wren groaned. Her mother had insisted on cat sitting, despite her misgivings. Felines and sixty-year-old housewives with cat allergies and a low tolerance for mischief didn’t mix.
“What did you feed her?” Wren asked.
“I was chopping up some onions to fry and I dropped one on the kitchen floor,” her mother explained. “I made a grab for it but Gracie just bit into the thing and started chomping down on it.”
“Onions are poisonous to cats! Oh, Mom...”
She told her mother she’d be back as quickly as she could and hung up. The man in the winter coat was gone.
“Oh,” she said. “He’s gone.”
It was the best conversation she’d had all year.
WREN PICKED UP HER precious cargo and gave her a kiss on the head. Gracie snuggled up to her chin, affectionate as always. The cat wasn’t in the least bit distressed, unlike her mother. She looked like she’d just survived the sinking of the Titanic.
“How is she?” Wren asked.
Her mother, Dorothy ‘Dot’ King, crossed her arms. “Evil incarnate is what she is.”
“I am never going on a date ever again.”
“Was it that bad?”
She played back Cedric’s monotonous voice in her head and shuddered. She’d had a lucky escape.
THE CAT MEOWED HER question again. Wren was too busy staring into a bowl of chocolate ice cream and enjoying the awful trashiness of her favorite soap, Sunset Cove. Was this what her life had become, eating garbage (albeit tasty, delicious garbage), and living her life through soaps?
She concentrated on the TV, pushing Cedric out of her mind. The hunky, bare chested hero, Favio, gripped his lover passionately. He looked deep into her eyes. “I’m going to take you to bed and make love to you all night long...no, all weekend. I won’t stop until we’re either dead or paralyzed!”
Sera tried to pull away, but you could tell she wasn’t trying too hard. Favio was the hunk of hunks. Any woman would be lucky enough to have him.
“But what about my husband, your identical cousin?” Sera cried.
“He won’t trouble us ever again.”
Favio leaned in for a kiss, just as the action switched to Jedd, Favio’s identical twin cousin. He was currently tied up on the deck of a sinking yacht, circled by sharks. He screamed for help just as the credits started to roll.
Wren stared down at Gracie. “No, my date went entirely as expected, as in really badly.”
Gracie meowed again.
She smiled and patted her little cat on the head. “What do you want me to say? It was worse than the date I went on with Keegan, and he came out of the closet half-way through.”
They were both sixteen when they thought it would fun to go on a date. They both had the same birthday, and had been friends since kindergarten, so why not? The date was a joke between them now, something trotted out when they were drunk or miserable. His love life was as disastrous as hers – probably worse come to think of it. Wren couldn’t understand it. Keegan was excessively handsome, six-foot six inches tall, a beautiful ebony Adonis. What man wouldn’t snap him up?
Gracie began cleaning her fur, her mistress’s pain all but forgotten. Sometimes she wished she could be a cat and put aside all her problems so easily. Maybe then she wouldn’t feel so alone.
No career. No ambition. No boyfriend.
“Perhaps I should become a nun.”
HER FATHER PHONED JUST as she was getting ready for bed. Sh
e’d put on her pink fluffy robe and Kermit slippers, and her Kindle was switched on and ready. All she had to do now was cozy up under the sheets and wish she was anywhere but here.
Wren answered her cell with a sigh. “Dad, what is it?”
“The game tonight looks like it’s going to be good,” said her father, Warwick ‘Wick’ King. There was a giddiness in his voice. “I think my team really have a good chance of winning!”
“That’s good,” she said, stifling a yawn. It was nice to hear her father happy, even if it meant potential trouble ahead. “How much money did you put on it?”
“Not much.” He was silent for a while. “About two grand.”
Wren was so glad she wasn’t drinking hot chocolate at that moment, otherwise she would’ve spit it out all over her clean sheets. Her father had a gambling problem, or was quite possibly verging on having one. It wasn’t serious, but every now and again he’d make a colossal mistake and end up losing a lot of money. She was worried about him, and her mother was tired of it. No wonder Mom spent so much time at her “friend” Anthony’s house.
“What if they have a bad game?” she asked, trying to be practical. She tried to stroke Gracie, but she tried to bite her. Her cat didn’t like being interrupted when she was having a bath. “Or what if the game gets called off because of the weather?”
“It won’t,” he assured her. He sounded too confident, like he didn’t really believe his own words. “You have to have a little faith in these things.”
“Dad...”
She loved her dad. She wanted to tell him that Mom was maybe having an affair and that his gambling was destroying his marriage, but she didn’t want to make him unhappy. Her father was the jolliest person she knew, so much so that he dressed up as Santa Claus to visit the kids at the children’s hospital every Christmas. Did she have the right to upset him?
“Are you dressing up as Santa this year?” she asked. “You know how much you love that.”
Yes, I know, I’m a coward, but I really shouldn’t interfere with my parents’ marriage. It’s not any of my business.
“Of course,” he said proudly. “I make a damn fine Santa if I do say so myself. Isn’t it a bit early to start thinking about Christmas? Halloween is only thirty days away. I can’t wait for the best decorated house competition! I’m going to win for sure this year.”