Meredith Potts Fourteen Book Cozy Mystery Set

by Meredith Potts

  As a shiver ran down my spine, it was hard to keep my mind from assuming the worst. I had never felt so terrified in my entire life.

  I looked out into the distance. “She has to be out here somewhere.”

  Elizabeth groaned. “We’ve gone over her entire route twice. If she was here, we would have seen her.”

  I knitted my brow. “If she’s not here, then where is she?”

  My mother shrugged. “That’s the problem. I don’t know.”

  I grimaced. “She couldn’t just have disappeared.”

  My stepfather finally spoke up. “You say she can’t, but it looks like she did.”

  I shook my head. “She has to be somewhere.”

  Stress lines came to my mother’s forehead. “Yes. But where?”

  With a pained face, I called out at the top of my lungs. “Jessica!”

  I let her name hang in the air for a moment. When I did not receive a response, I yelled again. “Where are you?”

  My question echoed across the rolling hills. Unfortunately, it remained unanswered.

  Chapter Two

  Ten years later

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  Kelly O’Reilly looked awful. My guess was that a sleepless night was the culprit. The telltale signs of a lack of shuteye were there. Unflattering bags were under her blue eyes. Her wavy blond hair, which she usually wore down, had been pulled back into a ponytail. The contact lenses she usually wore were absent, replaced by a pair of glasses with big thick blue frames.

  If those peculiarities weren’t enough, I looked at her angular face and saw no sign of makeup. Granted, she didn’t usually wear much, just a little foundation on her cheeks, but her skin was completely untouched. In addition, the curvy twenty-eight-year-old looked jittery as she stood behind the counter of my family’s coffee shop.

  I knew all too well that getting proper rest was crucial when working at a fast-paced place like this. So as Kelly stood before me that morning, my heart went out to her. After all, she wasn’t just my employee. She was also one of my good friends.

  “Let’s just say it was a rough night,” Kelly replied.

  The evening must have been even more difficult than she was letting on. I had known her long enough to be able to tell just by looking into her eyes that something was really troubling her. In addition, during all the years we had been friends, I was used to her being very chatty.

  That morning, she abruptly stopped her explanation and pulled a compact out of her purse. She grimaced as she looked at herself in the mirror as if she hadn’t quite realized until right then just how different her appearance was from normal.

  Suddenly, I couldn’t help but feel a little self-conscious myself. After all, I hadn’t exactly spent a lot of time in front of the mirror that morning as I got ready for work. With a predawn wakeup call, I was barely able to drag myself out of bed, throw my work uniform on, and run a brush through my hair before bolting over here to open the shop. I quickly snuck a peek at my reflection in the mirror of Kelly’s compact to see if anything about my appearance was askew.

  Thankfully, the answer was no. My long brown hair wasn’t out of place. My hazel eyes weren’t bloodshot. There were no noticeable blemishes on my oval face. I was the same trim twenty-eight-year-old woman as ever.

  Now that I was confident that I didn’t look like a train wreck, I turned my focus back to Kelly. I certainly understood what she was going through. During my time slinging coffees for a living, I had been forced to put punctuality before looking my best more than a few times in the past. The phrase “beauty rest” had recently taken on a whole new meaning.

  It was not an exaggeration to say that working at a coffee shop could be a real grind when I didn’t get enough shuteye. On those poor-sleep days, I always kicked myself for not getting enough rest the night before. Unfortunately, my mind had a notoriously difficult time quieting itself in the evening. Sometimes I got to bed plenty early, but instead of falling asleep, I would just toss and turn while various thoughts swirled in my mind. Had that happened to Kelly last night?

  “I’m sorry. Did you forget you were working a morning shift?” I asked.

  Kelly shook her head. “No.”

  I waited for her to continue, but no words came. I had never known Kelly to be shy about sharing her feelings before. Perhaps she had gotten even less sleep than I thought. I glanced at her again, wondering if she would continue, but she did not elaborate.

  How peculiar.

  I didn’t know where her chatty attitude had gone, but it would be nice to get it back. Unfortunately, Kelly didn’t seem to be in any hurry to move the conversation forward. Seeing her this quiet was not only unsettling to me, but it also made me consider switching her to some afternoon work shifts.

  The problem was, who was there to plug into this work slot? This was one of those things that had never occurred to me until I took a management role at the coffee shop. From a scheduling standpoint, the morning shift was a nightmare. No one wanted it—not Kelly, not any of my other employees, not even me.

  Don’t get me wrong. I enjoyed my job. Being a part of the family business was a source of great pride for me. But, even though I loved my job as a whole, waking up before the sun did was one of the few sore spots of running this place.

  I pushed my employee-scheduling concerns aside when I saw Kelly fire up a double espresso for herself.

  Uh-oh.

  A single espresso usually did the trick for her. It was funny the details I picked up while I was on the job. It made me realize how habitual most people were, especially when it came to their caffeine intake. Through no intentional act of my own, I found myself memorizing the coffee preferences of both the regular customers and most of the employees that worked for me.

  Daily repetition had a way of grinding details like that in my memory. That was how I knew that Kelly was a single espresso kind of woman. So for her to be making a double was a big deal.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked.

  Before she answered me, Kelly downed the double espresso in one gulp.

  Yikes.

  Kelly wasn’t messing around. She needed a caffeine jolt and wasn’t going to speak up until she got it. A moment passed as she waited for the buzz to hit her system. There was a pretty incredible transformation that happened to people after they had finished their first cup of coffee in the morning.

  So often, customers and employees alike would stagger into the shop like zombies. But when that caffeine kicked in, their personalities changed in an instant. Not only would they perk up, but they would become abuzz.

  When that spike in energy level came to Kelly, she finally revealed the source of her troubles. “I was on my way home last night when I saw a light on at the old Watterson estate.”

  That statement sent a shiver down my spine—mostly because it didn’t seem possible. The estate was vacant and had been for decades. Not to mention the property was in complete disrepair. It was home to nothing more than cobwebs and weeds with perhaps a few rats and other four-legged creatures thrown in the mix.

  When I stood at the front gate of the property and looked at the estate from the street, it looked like nature was reclaiming the place. That was why the light being on inside the house was so preposterous. It had probably been decades since the electric company had shut off the power to the property.

  There was a very good reason for all of this. Unfortunately, the estate had a grisly history. Throughout much of the twentieth century, the Watterson estate was the pinnacle of luxury in town. It was a symbol of the Watterson family’s wealth. William Watterson had opened the first department store in town in 1921. On the back of the store’s incredible success, the Watterson estate was constructed four years later.

  Subsequently, the business, as well as the estate, had been passed down through the generations, eliciting envy from most of the town’s residents. All that changed a little more than twenty years ago when Joe Watterson came home early from w
ork one afternoon and walked in on his wife having an affair with their pool boy. In a fit of rage, Joe shot his wife and the pool boy before turning the gun on himself.

  No one had lived at the estate since that tragic day. Even more, it didn’t look like anyone ever would.

  Wanting to wash his hands of the place, the Wattersons’ only child, Xander, put the property up for sale shortly after his parents’ death, but received no offers. Even when he cut the selling price in half, the estate garnered no interest. Finally, Xander gave up on the idea of unloading the property and had just left it to rot.

  After wrestling with the haunted memories of his tragic family history, Xander Watterson had moved away from Treasure Cove a handful of years ago. As far as I knew, he had not returned to town, much less the estate, since. During that time, the place had been sitting vacant.

  There was no denying that the property was spooky. When I was a child, I got the creeps even walking by the front fence of the estate. Stories made their way around the neighborhood about how the place was cursed. There were whispers that it was haunted by Katie Watterson’s ghost. I wasn’t sure what my opinion was on haunted houses, but if they did exist, the Watterson estate would be the place most likely to be home to ghosts.

  Given the property’s sordid history, to hear Kelly tell me that she saw a light on in the place was inconceivable to me.

  After an extended period of silence, I only managed to muster a one-word reply. “What?”

  I was hoping that she was joking. The stiff expression on her face made it clear that she was dead serious.

  “You heard me,” Kelly replied.

  My eyes widened. “But that place has been abandoned for years. The only things living there are spiders and mosquitos.”

  Kelly stared long and hard at me. “Exactly.”

  I hated not giving her the benefit of the doubt, but her claim just sounded too impossible to be true.

  My breath shortened. “Are you sure about what you saw?”

  She nodded. “Don’t get me wrong. At first, I thought I was just seeing things. After driving by the house, I switched my car into reverse and pulled back to the front gate of the house to make sure it wasn’t just some illusion. Trust me, I sat on the street in front of the house for a good thirty seconds staring at the light, so I’m a hundred percent sure about what I saw.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “You said that you stopped at the front gate of the house. Did you get out of your car and go inside the gate to get a closer look?”

  Kelly arched her eyebrows. “Are you crazy? No way. I wasn’t about to set foot on that property.”

  “So what happened next?”

  “I heard a noise coming from the bushes just inside the gate. The rustling sound scared me so much that I nearly jumped out of my seat. I wasn’t about to stick around to see what had caused that noise.”

  My eyes were as wide as saucers. “I don’t blame you. I would have gone out of my mind, too.” I exhaled. “As you drove away, did you happen to look in your rearview mirror and see anything?”

  She nodded. “I did, but I didn’t see anyone or anything.”

  “That’s nuts.”

  Concern was all over her face. “It certainly drove me nuts. When I felt like I was a safe distance away, I called the police. I figured they could check it out in case someone was trespassing on the property.”

  “I wonder if the police found anything.”

  Kelly nervously tapped her fingers on the counter. “I wasn’t about to stick around to find out. I darted home and crawled into bed. Unfortunately, after seeing that light on, it took me forever to get to sleep.”

  I gave her a look of deep empathy. “I’m so sorry. That must have really rattled you.”

  A haunted look was in her eyes. “I was so rattled that my antianxiety meds didn’t do a thing. I tossed and turned in bed for three hours, concocting all kinds of crazy explanations for how that light could have been on.”

  I stared out into the distance. “What if Xander Watterson had just returned home after all these years?”

  I knew it was far-fetched, but it was possible. At least until I heard Kelly’s response.

  “At first, I wondered that myself. Then I checked Xander’s social media profile.”

  “And?” I asked.

  “He had posted a photo of himself earlier that night from a beach in Hawaii.”

  I exhaled. “So much for that theory.”

  Kelly’s eyes were filled with fear. “What if the place really is haunted?”

  I scrunched my nose. “There’s probably a much more rational explanation for what you saw.”

  Kelly put me on the spot. “I’m all ears.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know the answer.”

  “Neither do I. All I know is that it seriously freaked me out.”

  I scratched my forehead. “Did you hear back from the police?”

  Kelly shook her head. “No. Maybe they were too afraid to check it out.”

  I bit the corner of my lip. “I doubt that.”

  Kelly’s eyes darted back to the espresso machine. “Either way, I need another shot.”

  While my friend couldn’t wait to get her mind off of what she had seen the night before, I was both fascinated and terrified when I thought about what could have been responsible for that light being on at the Watterson estate. I also knew exactly what to do with my curiosity.

  My boyfriend, David Carlson, was a local police detective. If anyone could get to the bottom of this mystery, it was him. But with opening time at the coffee shop quickly approaching, I would have to shelve my questions about the Watterson estate until later.

  Chapter Three

  “That’s a nice-looking locket,” a curly-haired middle-aged woman said.

  The petite sixty-two-year-old wore a silver monogrammed bracelet on her left wrist with the name Edna etched into the metal. Everything about her screamed “tourist.” I didn’t say that just because I had never seen her before. Granted, Treasure Cove was a small town, but it wasn’t so tiny that I knew every soul who lived within the city limits.

  My assumption was based more on the fact that it was the heart of tourist season and Edna dressed the part of a vacationer. The stereotypes were all accounted for—flip flops, a map of the town poking out from her purse, the outline of a one-piece bathing suit visible under a white T-shirt. I saw a beach day in her future. I wished that I could say the same for myself.

  During the peak tourist season, there was little time to dip my toes in the water. Work came first. That was why I relished the offseason. Although my wallet had a certain appreciation for the high season. The money came easy then—and with good reason.

  Even though I had grown up in Treasure Cove, I never took for granted the spoils that I got to be around every day. The Cove—as the locals liked to call the place—truly was a treasure. It was a scenic town with equally beautiful picture-postcard views of the Pacific Ocean. There was more to Treasure Cove than just the beach, however.

  The board of tourism stocked the calendar with a menagerie of events. The Founder’s Day festival was held in April, a Lavender Festival took place in May, and a Pie Festival signaled the beginning of summer, followed by a Harvest Festival in October. Not to be outdone, the year came to a close with a Winter Celebration that made the chilly December temperatures bearable.

  Perhaps Edna would have such a good time on her beach vacation that she would return at some other point in the year to attend one of our many festivals. At that moment, it wasn’t a festival that fascinated her.

  Instead, her focus was squarely on a piece of jewelry that she had spotted around my neck. The heart-shaped locket was more than just a fashion accessory to me. The piece was near and dear to my heart. I wore it every day. As a matter of fact, the only time I took it off was on occasions when I knew that I was going to get wet. Even though it wasn’t the most financially valuable piece of jewelry that I owned, it was a priceless piece to me.
<
br />   While I had spent a great deal of time over the years admiring my locket, I didn’t enjoy the fact that Edna was staring at it like she wanted it for herself. If it were up to me, I would just go back to slinging coffees and finish out my work shift without any further mention of the locket.

  Unfortunately, I could tell that Edna wasn’t going to make it easy for me to do that. There was determination in her eyes. She looked like a woman who had a hard time taking no for an answer.

  I prayed that I was wrong, but even if I was right, I knew from a customer service angle that I needed to be courteous to her.

  “Thank you,” I replied.

  Edna’s eyes remained fixed on my locket. “Where did you get it?”

  Sigh.

  It was going to be one of those days, wasn’t it? When no matter how much I tried, I wouldn’t be able to keep the past buried. Was there anything I could say to get Edna to talk about another topic? I looked down at the locket as my heart grew heavy. With my emotions swelling, my thoughts became too jumbled to be able to think of a smooth way to change the subject.

  Edna was not pleased by my lack of an answer. “Miss, where did you get it?”

  I remained vague, which was exactly how I wanted to keep this conversation. “It was a gift.”

  There was a determined look on her face. “Do you know where I can get one?”

  I grimaced. “I’m afraid I don’t.”

  “That’s a shame. I would like to get one. Is there any way you can ask the person who gave it to you where they bought it?”

  Edna sure was pushy. She was so persistent that she didn’t notice how uncomfortable she was making me. If she had any awareness whatsoever, she would have seen that I had no interest in continuing this conversation.

  Edna kept staring at me, waiting impatiently for an answer.

  I just wanted to tuck tail and run, but Kelly was back in the storeroom at the moment, grabbing a few more sleeves of large coffee cups. With Kelly in the back, I was the only employee in the front of the shop. That meant that for the time being, I was stuck there talking with Edna.