Groundwork for Murder

by Marilyn Baron

  Table of Contents

  Excerpt

  Praise for this book and its authors…

  Groundwork for Murder

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Books by Marilyn Baron

  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

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Epilogue

  A word about the authors…

  Sharon Goldman is an award-winning artist

  Thank you for purchasing

  Also available from The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  The man grabbed her hand.

  “Let go!” Alex shrieked.

  “Alexandra, wait.”

  Startled, Alex twisted painfully in the man’s solid grip as she gave him a closer look.

  “Do I know you?”

  Alex focused on his face, which was vaguely familiar, and tried hard to bury the image of the rest of the man’s body, which, although she’d only been exposed to a flash of flesh, was oddly disturbing. And when she did, she got another shock.

  “P-Professore Anselmo?”

  The man released her hand and came out from behind the shelter of the bushes, smiled shyly, and nodded.

  Although she hadn’t recognized his accent earlier, there was no mistaking his identity. But the last time she’d seen him, his smile had been almost smug and his mouth had been busy doing more than smiling. She’d buried the recollection of their last encounter so deep even she wasn’t clear about the details of just how far they’d gone and how far she had been prepared to go.

  It was hard to reconcile the man of her dreams with this nasty-looking person standing in front of her. Professore Dominick Anselmo had been her college art teacher, her inspiration, her secret crush, until he’d been exposed for improper behavior with his graduate assistant and expelled from the university. The scandal had rocked the Art and Architecture Department and blasted a rift in Alex’s personal world.

  “Professore?” she repeated, her jittery voice rising a level. “What are you doing here?”

  Praise for this book and its authors…

  “Baron and Goldman offer a bit of everything in this superb novel. There’s humor, infidelity, murder, mayhem, and a neatly drawn conclusion.”

  ~RT Book Reviews (4.5 Stars)

  ~*~

  “This book is a funny, clever, compulsive read. It’s kind of like Michael Connolly meets chick-lit and this is the lovechild! The book was very well constructed and lavishly styled. The plot was intriguing and kept the reader guessing.”

  ~Andrew Kirby

  ~*~

  “What a great read! I was immediately drawn in by the characters and enjoyed the ride. I especially love books, like this, that offer unexpected twists and turns along the way.”

  ~T. Segal (5 Stars)

  Groundwork

  for Murder

  by

  Marilyn Baron

  &

  Sharon Goldman

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

  Groundwork for Murder

  COPYRIGHT © 2019 by Marilyn Baron and Sharon Goldman

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Contact Information: info@thewildrosepress.com

  Cover Art by Debbie Taylor

  The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  PO Box 708

  Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708

  Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com

  Publishing History: Self-published, 2013

  First Crimson Rose Edition, 2019

  Print ISBN 978-1-5092-2737-2

  Digital ISBN 978-1-5092-2738-9

  Published in the United States of America

  Dedication

  This book is dedicated, in loving memory,

  to our father, George Meyers,

  and to our brother, Paul Meyers.

  ~~

  Acknowledgments

  We wish to thank our families—our husbands and our daughters—for their support. And no, we didn’t base the character of Mark Newborn on our husbands.

  Books by Marilyn Baron

  Paranormal

  SOMEDAY MY PRINTS WILL COME

  ~

  A Psychic Crystal Mystery Series:

  (Paranormal Romantic Suspense)

  *SIXTH SENSE, Book One

  HOMECOMING HOMICIDES, Book Two

  KILLER CRUISE, Book Three

  THE VAMPIRE NEXT DOOR, Book Four

  ~

  Women’s Fiction

  *STONES

  *SIGNIFICANT OTHERS

  THE WIDOWS’ GALLERY

  ~

  Romantic Suspense

  LANDLOCKED

  *THE ALIBI

  *GROUNDWORK FOR MURDER

  ~

  Historical Romantic Thrillers

  UNDER THE MOON GATE and the prequel, DESTINY: A BERMUDA LOVE STORY.

  *STUMBLE STONES: A NOVEL

  *THE SIEGE: A NOVEL

  THE SAFFRON CONSPIRACY: A NOVEL

  ~

  *Award Winner

  To find out more about Marilyn Baron’s books, visit her website at: www.marilynbaron.com

  Chapter One

  The Wild Thing in the Bushes

  Alexandra Newborn hurried past what her husband Mark called the Great Wall of China, an imposing oak cabinet that housed her grandmother’s fine bone china, her own Christmas pattern, and her latest purchase—a set of designer labeled dinnerware from her favorite department store—Blossom’s, which they were still paying for. According to Mark, she was single-handedly trying to jumpstart the U.S. economy.

  Blossom’s was Alex’s Cheers. Everybody there knew her name. They called her in advance to notify her of sales. She was a premier customer. An ultimate insider. She was entitled to unlimited complimentary gift wrap and free local delivery as well as other special store services. The salespeople there appreciated her. She even got a birthday card from Stephen, the domestics specialist, and she was on a first-name basis with Scott, the general manager. She was trying her best to wean herself away from her shopping addiction, but her shopping habit was a hard one to break.

  Alex’s gaze skipped over the clutter—the half-squeezed tubes of paint, the bills and junk mail littering the kitchen countertops, and
the clothes and purses the twins had haphazardly scattered around the living room. One day she was going to get organized.

  Rabbit droppings left a Hansel and Gretel trail across the worn green carpet from the girls’ “had-to-have” pet, Joplin, who was now Alex’s responsibility when Ella and Emory were away at college—a responsibility she didn’t mind. Joplin was much more than a pet. She was a companion that helped Alex get through the lonely days while the girls were away. Alex reached down to stroke Joplin’s soft, dappled fur. The animal’s unusual coloring made her look more like a cow than a rabbit.

  On her way to the door, Alex picked up a pair of black flats and hurled them into the pile of shoes in the foyer that overflowed the wicker basket she had purchased to house them—more shoes than any good end-of-season shoe sale. One day she was going to repatriate those shoes to the proper closets or donate them to charity. Okay, so she wasn’t exactly Suzy Homemaker. But in Alex’s mind, being a good mother meant spending quality time with her kids, not just picking up after them. She was proud of how the girls had turned out. And she was proud of her work as an artist, even if her husband didn’t appreciate her talent.

  She smoothed her hands over the top of Mt. Laundrymore, the carefully folded and stacked tower of laundry, stored under the staircase, which was waiting to be distributed. Now that the girls were home for spring break, the pile had grown exponentially.

  Frowning, her eyes rested on the unfinished, unframed canvases leaning against the wall; there was no time to complete them and no space left to hang them. Space was at a definite premium in the Newborn household.

  So was civility.

  The clutter barely bothered Alex anymore, registering only as a subconscious blip, but it set Mark’s nerves on edge. What grated on her nerves was that Mark didn’t seem capable of putting a dirty dish in the dishwasher, clearing the table, changing a roll of toilet paper, or even removing his clothes from the laundry pile after she had carefully folded them. Chores were not in her husband’s job description.

  Alex liked order, especially on the canvas, but clutter was just part of the never-ending circus of chaos she had to contend with every day. And most of the mess was hers. Painting was a messy business. Lately, the clutter seemed to be painting her into a corner. She wondered what it might be like to seek refuge in one of her landscapes, varnish over it, and vanish forever.

  Alex opened the door to the garage just in time to wave goodbye to Mark as he backed down the driveway in his sporty new red convertible—a fortieth birthday present to himself.

  She walked to the flower bed by the mailbox and picked up the newspaper on the pavement. The neighborhood was silent, except for the background chatter of birds. She couldn’t see a soul on the street. The sun peeked through a wispy stack of clouds against an otherwise clear French-blue sky. The light was just right. It was going to be a beautiful day, a great morning to set up her easel and canvas on the deck and paint her backyard landscape.

  As she returned to the house, a noise shifted her attention toward the azaleas near the front door. It sounded like a trickle of water. Then it grew louder, like a distant waterfall. Had she forgotten to turn off the hose? Irresponsible behavior, since the upscale golf development in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, a stylish beach community east of Jacksonville, was under severe watering restrictions. Mark certainly hadn’t left the hose on. Like the inside, the outside of the house was not Mark’s jurisdiction. Mark was more concerned with his personal space.

  The steady stream of water continued to flow. Alex moved in carefully to investigate, angling her body deeply into the bushes. As she leaned down to turn off the hose at the source, something rustled in the surrounding thicket. A big something. A raccoon? Possibly a squirrel on steroids? She’d had it with those flower-eating deer. Who knew Bambi could be so destructive? Hopefully it wasn’t one of those huge feral pigs that had been plaguing the neighborhood. If it was, she needed to be armed with more than a newspaper to defend herself. She could almost detect the ominous outline of the wild thing’s shadow.

  Brandishing her newspaper, Alex advanced on her prey. Jolted by a sudden flash of movement, she dropped the paper and froze. The breath caught in her throat. Her heart thudded madly in her chest just like Joplin’s did whenever the rabbit encountered a stranger. She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out, as she spied the man, a creature of sorts, shirtless, pants unzipped, relieving himself on the wall of her house.

  “Oh, my God,” Alex gasped.

  Startled, the intruder jumped, spinning to face her as he shouted out his apologies in rapid fire bursts of Italian.

  “Mi dispiace,” he repeated. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” The man’s sunburned cheeks colored as he closed his briefs and hurriedly zipped up his dirty blue jeans. But it was too late. She couldn’t unsee his naked image.

  Panicked, Alex whirled around and covered her eyes but couldn’t get the sight of the man’s bare chest and his grip on what had looked like the nozzle of a bulging garden hose, but obviously wasn’t, out of her mind. Or the unmistakable stench of fresh urine.

  “I apologize. I was—”

  There was no need for a further explanation of what the man was doing. Giving a name to it would have made things infinitely worse. Alex inched back in retreat when what she really wanted to do was rush into the house, lock the door behind her, and call the police. Something stopped her. She ventured a nervous look back at the man. Following her instincts, she stood her ground.

  The man looked guilty. He also looked positively humiliated, and for a moment, Alex chastised herself for putting that look on his face. Perhaps she had been unnecessarily harsh. Maybe she was rushing to judgment.

  But these days, you had to be cautious. There had been a rash of break-ins in the neighborhood recently. Someone had stolen a set of golf clubs from a garage across the street. And an intruder had grabbed a priceless heirloom diamond ring and necklace from an elderly woman two blocks over.

  An unemployed lawn man had just been convicted in the brutal assault of a wheelchair-bound woman in the next subdivision. Did this man have murder on his mind? She may have just interrupted another burglary in progress, moments before the perpetrator prepared to smash the glass in her front window. A sinister-looking steel tool, an edger, rested against the brick wall.

  “What are you doing in there?” Alex whispered hoarsely, clenching her shaking hands. “I mean, besides the obvious. Who are you?”

  Inside, her girls were sound asleep, snug in their beds, unaware of the possible danger lurking outside their door. Her husband was gone, and this man had surely just seen him leave. She was the grownup here. It was her responsibility to protect her family. She didn’t have a cell phone with her or she would have dialed 911. But this man didn’t know that.

  “I’m going to report—” she threatened, temporarily immobilized.

  “Don’t call the police,” the man pleaded. “I’m with Reed’s Yard Service, and I need this job.”

  Alex wondered if urinating was part of his job description. Ponte Vedra Beach was in the middle of a drought, but this was ridiculous. Next, she supposed he was going to try to tell her this was some kind of new irrigation technique.

  Now that she’d somewhat recovered her composure, she remembered seeing the lawn man around the yard, but she hadn’t really noticed him. Lean but muscular, unshaven, with long, dark hair, she’d dismissed him as one of a number of nondescript yard people, itinerant painters, and day laborers, mostly immigrants, who serviced houses in her upscale neighborhood.

  As an artist, Alex’s website portrayed her mission as “painting the beauty of light on everyday things in nature that other people walk by and never notice.” That’s just what she had done to this unfortunate-looking lawn man. She’d looked at him but not really looked at him. Looked through him, looked around him, looked every which way but at him. And she realized she was still staring at the man rudely.

  Then fear got the better of her. She had
to get to her girls. If she ran now she could make it to the door before he made his next move—if there was a next move. Her eyes signaled her intentions before her legs could move.

  The man grabbed her hand.

  “Let go!” Alex shrieked.

  “Alexandra, wait.”

  Startled, Alex twisted painfully in the man’s solid grip as she gave him a closer look.

  “Do I know you?”

  Alex focused on his face, which was vaguely familiar, and tried hard to bury the image of the rest of the man’s body, which, although she’d only been exposed to a flash of flesh, was oddly disturbing. And when she did, she got another shock.

  “P-Professore Anselmo?”

  The man released her hand and came out from behind the shelter of the bushes, smiled shyly, and nodded.

  Although she hadn’t recognized his accent earlier, there was no mistaking his identity. But the last time she’d seen him, his smile had been almost smug and his mouth busy doing more than smiling. She’d buried the recollection of their last encounter so deep even she wasn’t clear about the details of just how far they’d gone and how far she had been prepared to go.

  It was hard to reconcile the man of her dreams with this nasty-looking person standing in front of her. Professore Dominick Anselmo had been her college art teacher, her inspiration, her secret crush, until he’d been exposed for improper behavior with his graduate assistant and expelled from the university. The scandal had rocked the Art and Architecture Department and blasted a rift in Alex’s personal world.

  “Professore?” she repeated, her jittery voice rising a level. “What are you doing here?” All the old feelings came flooding back. She had often daydreamed about Nick Anselmo, mostly while she painted. To see him here, literally in the flesh, was a shock in more ways than one.

  “I’m your lawn man.”

  “Is this some kind of a joke?”

  “It’s no joke.”

  “I don’t understand. What happened to you?”

  “Life.” This accompanied by a slight European shrug.

  Nick Anselmo had been larger than life in presence and in reputation. He was a world-renowned artist whose paintings hung in all the best galleries and museums, and in private collections across the world. After he was fired, he had literally fallen off the face of the earth. And now he wasn’t painting landscapes, he was planting them.