A Berry Deadly Welcome_A Laugh-Out-Loud Kylie Berry Mystery Read online

  A Berry Deadly Welcome

  A.R. Winters

  Contents

  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

  A Berry Deadly Welcome

  Copyright 2018 by A. R. Winters

  www.arwinters.com

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental.

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  A Berry Deadly Welcome (A Laugh-Out-Loud Kylie Berry Mystery)

  When Kylie Berry moved to the small town of Camden Falls hoping for a fresh start, she never expected to be accused of murder.

  But the despicable Rachel Summers is killed - apparently by Kylie's brownies!

  Now it's up to Kylie to uncover the real murderer, all while dealing with the quirky inhabitants of the lovely town she's starting to call home.

  Chapter 1

  Come on, come on." I gripped the steering wheel with white knuckles. My car was out of gas. Rather, my ex-husband's car was out of gas. I had "borrowed" it to make the trip from Chicago, Illinois down to Camden Falls, Kentucky. I'd had to make the trip somehow, and I'd been too broke to buy a bus ticket.

  I rocked back and forth in my seat a couple of times, trying to will my momentum into the car. I knew that wouldn't help it inch forward off the road and into the curbside parking spot, but I did it all the same. I couldn't stop myself.

  "Just a little more!" The engine gagged, coughed, spluttered and then bucked before rattling and dying. That was okay, though. When it bucked, the car lurched forward that little bit more that I'd needed to get it off the road. I wasn't going to have to abandon it with its butt end sticking halfway out into the road.

  I eyed the road around me. It was huge. It wasn't eight lanes huge or anything like that. There were only two lanes, one coming and one going, but the main street of little Camden Falls could have accommodated four tractor trailers driving side by side. Even with so much room, the traffic was slow and lazy, cars meandering instead of rushing. There were two and three car-lengths between each car that passed. I was used to seeing cars in Chicago drive headlight to bumper, but that wasn't happening here.

  On top of that, there were almost no people. I eyeballed around thirty or forty people walking around. They walked in small groups or alone, but always spread out with plenty of distance in-between.

  I turned my attention toward a pickup truck that was driving past. The truck's driver nodded his head at me and then lifted his palm in a small side-to-side wave. Panic flooded me, and my heart skittered and jumped as badly as the engine had a moment earlier. My ex probably already had a warrant out for my arrest, and it would be just like him to hire someone to keep an eye out for me.

  I twisted to see if anything was coming from behind and then jumped out of the car. It was a pearl white Mercedes S-Class, and I'd probably never get the chance to drive anything like it again—especially if my ex had me put in jail. If that happened, I wouldn't even need to worry about how I'd look when I renewed my driver's license. I wouldn't need to worry about where my next meal was coming from or where I was going to sleep tonight.

  "Maybe I should get arrested." I couldn't keep the hopefulness out of my voice as I glanced around, but I didn't see any police. "Live to fight another day," I said with a scowl before forcing my features to relax. I didn't want to get wrinkles.

  Popping the trunk of the car, I used all of my not-impressive strength to lift a navy canvas suitcase out of the trunk. Then, I hesitated, looking wistfully between the car keys I held in my hands and the car. With a sigh and a shoulder shrug, I did what I had to do. I clicked the lock button on the key fob, and then tossed the keys into the trunk and slammed the trunk's lid down. I'd gotten this far, but tempting fate wasn't my style.

  I pulled up the suitcase's telescoping handle and started walking, dragging the suitcase behind me on its tiny wheels. The name tag attached to the handle flopped and jiggled as I walked, listing my name in block letters: KYLIE BERRY. It was my maiden name, not the name I'd left behind with that dirty, rotten piece of pond scum I used to call a husband. No, Kylie Berry was a good name, and it, the suitcase and its contents were all that I owned. But that would be enough. It had to be. I'd figure out the rest as I went, and where I was going now was my cousin's cute little café. When she'd invited me to come down to "help her out," I'd jumped at it. If it meant one less night of having to sleep at the women's shelter, then I was game.

  I paid attention to the people around me as I walked. All around me were a myriad of tennis shoes or flat sandals, various types of denim, a few Walmart-style short skirts, and a lot of t-shirts. I was wearing a black polka-dotted sleeveless, torso-fitted dress with a flared skirt, gold high-heel pumps, and I knew from experience that my shoulder-blade length fire red hair would be shining in the afternoon sun.

  I didn't fit in, but I didn't see anyone picking up any rocks to throw at me, so I figured that must be okay. A man exited a store with a green awning twenty or so feet ahead of me wearing what had to have been a thousand-dollar suit, and no one paid him any attention either.

  "Things are going to be okay," I mumbled to myself. Yet my feet were not convinced. Camden Falls' Main Street seemed to go on forever, and my pretty gold pumps soon pinched my feet in ways that made me work hard to hide a limp.

  A group of barely twenty-somethings sauntered through a door a little ways ahead of me laughing, and one of them was holding a to-go cup of what looked like iced tea.

  My heart sped up but my feet slowed. This was it. My new beginning. My second chance. I'd be the best waitress, assistant, whatever I could be to Sarah. And hopefully, Sarah would make room for me on her couch until I crawled my way back up to standing on my own two feet.

  This would work. I would make it work.

  Chapter 2

  I won't lie, when I reached for the glass-front door with the scrawling script "Sarah's Eatery" on it, my hand was shaking, but I kept my eyes bright and an excited smile on my gloss-painted lips as I pulled the door open. A little bell jangled, announcing my entrance.

  That's when I stepped into cousin Sarah's "tiny" little café, and my smile slipped as my mouth fell open. It was huge! I had imagined some ten foot by ten foot space with as many little round tables and chairs as could be crammed into it per the laws of physics, but instead what I found was spatial extravagance. There was room to walk between the tables. People could have conversations without the absolute certainty that the words they spoke were being overheard by the person sitting two inches behind them. A ladde
r on top of another ladder would be needed to reach the ceiling. And it had big, sunny windows on two sides, all along the wall that faced Main Street and all along the wall that faced the corner side street, making it look even bigger.

  "Wow." I felt like I was Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. I'd been swept up from the churning bustle of Chicago and dropped right in the middle of a magical place where people could stretch their legs, lean back in their chairs and prop their arms behind their heads without worrying about blocking the path of another.

  "Kylie!" Sarah exclaimed.

  I turned my head to the left, toward Sarah's voice and a grill-style bar. Over the bar was a large banner that read, "We'll miss you!" with Sarah's name taped on at the end on a large piece of colorful construction paper. Sarah had her hands thrown up in the air as if to celebrate, and all of the patrons at the bar were swiveled around on their stools to stare at me.

  Sarah didn't exactly come running from around the bar to greet me. It's more like she bounced. She was wearing denim overalls that were rolled at the ankle, a sleeveless tee with a scoop neck, and cute little white canvas shoes without socks. Her eyes crinkled heavily at the corners from her enormous smile, but it looked good on her.

  "Hey!" She threw her arms around me in a warm, snuggly hug. Her hair smelled like apples with a hint of grilled cheese. "I knew you'd make it in time."

  "Hi," I said, with a panic-smile plastered on my face. "You going somewhere?"

  Sarah sighed and got dreamy-eyed. "I just couldn't wait a minute more to go join Jon in Seattle. All my stuff is packed and ready to go."

  Breathe. Keep breathing, I told myself while another little voice inside my head screeched, Homeless! You're going to be sleeping on the streets!

  I should have kept the car keys. I could have at least slept in it. A crowbar. I could break into the trunk in the middle of the night. And the trunk was roomy! No one would have to see me sleeping in the car. I could use the clothes in my suitcase to make a cozy little bed for myself.

  "That's great." My voice barely wavered, but I felt a cold sweat breaking out on my upper lip.

  "Come on," she said, grabbing my hand and pulling me along behind her. "I want you to meet the regulars. This going away party was their idea."

  I eyed them, wondering if one of them would take over the café. Then I wondered if they would give me a job. Back in Chicago, I had transformed my ex-husband's heating and air installation and repair shop from a business that was barely making it into one that was thriving. We had even expanded to take on complex HVAC installation and repair for large building complexes. I'd secured service contracts with three different hospitals that brought in hundreds of thousands of dollars. But when we split up, he poisoned every well of goodwill I had built for myself. None of our friends would take my calls, and I suspected that he'd even bribed a cop to falsify my information with a police record so that I couldn't pass background checks. I hadn't been able to get a job anywhere with anyone. Almost overnight, I'd become an outcast and a penniless leper.

  I made him, and he ruined me.

  "Hi!" I said with the biggest, brightest smile I could muster. I lifted my hand to wave a greeting, but it was trembling worse than when I'd opened the door of the cafe and I quickly dropped it back down to the side of my thigh.

  Whoever these people were sitting in front of me, I needed them. I didn't know why yet, but I knew that my future depended on them. Nobody liked the stink of desperation, though, so I had to keep my situation to myself.

  "This is Jack, Brad, Joel, Agatha and Zoey," Sarah said as she did a Vanna White and pointed to each one with an extended arm as she called out their names. There was a murmured chorus of friendly but subdued hellos.

  I did a quick analysis of each. Jack was a tall, fit, forty-something businessman in a nice suit with shiny, immaculate, stylish, expensive-looking leather shoes. His skin was the color of hot cocoa, and he was definitely the frontrunner in my guess of who was the café's new owner.

  Next to Jack was Brad. Handsome, handsome, handsome Brad. I had to force myself not to stare at him, or lean into him, or tell him that I wanted to have his babies. Brad had baby blue eyes that looked as though they could have a woman undressing before she ever realized what her traitorous hands were doing. Yet when he smiled, leaned forward and extended his hand to shake, all I saw in his face was a sweet boy who was happy to meet his friend's cousin. But that beguiling boyish face of his was tempered into something much more imposing because of the law enforcement uniform he was wearing. On his shoulder was a black, gold, and white patch that said, "Kentucky State Police."

  I was sure that the sweat on my upper lip grew even worse when I shook his hand.

  Next to Brad was Joel. He raised the palm of his dinner-plate-sized hand in greeting and said, "Hi," while wearing a big smile that I could only describe as that of a sexy goofball. And, the way he said even the word "hi" with a thick accent, making it sound as if it was two syllables instead of one because of a brief E sound that he added to the end. He was dressed in a flannel shirt over top a white t-shirt and khaki pants. There was a gentleness in his eyes and in his way of being that soothed my nerves and lulled me into the sense that everything was going to be okay, yet his powerful physique was that of someone who was driven and passionate about life, someone who liked to win. I got the impression that coming in second place would never be good enough for that man.

  Next to Joel was Agatha, a woman who maybe weighed 110 pounds if her pixie-cut white hair was sopping wet. The cascade of necklaces, earrings, and bracelets the octogenarian wore could have added a few extra pounds, though. Her dress was free-flowing yet elegant, and though she wasn’t wearing East Indian attire, I got the impression that she would have been able to walk down any street in Kolkata with the air of an ancient and powerful goddess. Her small, dark, wise eyes edged on beady, but their small size seemed to concentrate the strength with which she could look inside my soul.

  I swallowed when I shook her hand, and hoped that I would be able to keep my humiliating circumstances to myself, but I felt as though she already knew them and had accepted them without judgment.

  Finally, there was Zoey, a young Asian woman with flawless honey skin who looked to be somewhere between twelve and thirty years of age. She was fearlessly dressed in skin-tight olive green jeans that had designer thread-bare holes up one thigh and the opposite knee torn out. Her midriff-exposing sleeveless, high-necked, white top hugged her every curve, and her black eyeliner was nothing short of fierce. But she looked like she was about to cry and her full lips were pinched together as if to stop a tremble.

  These people loved Sarah. I'd be nothing more than day-old leftovers once she was gone. When I left Chicago, I'd thought I was running to something. My bleak days had gained new hope. But I was no better off today than I was yesterday or the day before... or any day before for the last three months.

  "Come on. I've got the papers in the back," Sarah said, grabbing my hand and pulling me along behind her. We rounded the corner of the grill-bar and then stepped through to a kitchen that was all stainless steel and industrial. Even the countertops were stainless steel. The place was spotless.

  Stopping abruptly, she parked us in front of a thin stack of papers.

  "I had my lawyer draw these up, and he said that everything in them was beyond fair and reasonable." She flipped through the papers. "You won't need to start paying me back until you either start showing a profit or three years have passed. There's no interest attached to the equity, and we can set up a payment plan based on your profit margin." She flipped to the last page and pointed to an empty signature slot next to a line that already bore her name. "This is where you sign."

  I flipped back to the front page. It read, "Purchase of Business Agreement." I was so stunned that I forgot to breathe until the room began to shift gently on its axis. I then gulped air like I'd been under water for ages. "You're selling me the café?"

  Chapter 3

 
Yeah, silly," Sarah said, concern creeping into her voice as she looked at me with confusion in her eyes. "I sent emails with all the details."

  I hadn't gotten emails and my smartphone had gotten turned off a month and a half ago because I hadn't been able to pay the bill. I'd talked to Sarah twice in hurried calls on a "borrowed" phone before sneaking it back into my women's shelter roommate's bag. Now some of the things Sarah had said as I'd listened with one ear to her and the other listening for the return of my roommate made sense.

  "You're selling me the café," I said again, this time with wonder in my voice as my gaze traveled to take in all that was around me. Tinker Bell must have sprinkled fairy dust on everything in those moments before my synapses connected with what was happening, because now everything sparkled. I was sure that it wasn't because of the tears gathering in my eyes.

  A clang sounded from the back corner of the kitchen and I peered around hanging pots and pans to see a short Italian-looking man with thick black hair beating a bowl of something pale, semi-wet and semi-firm. I didn't have a clue what it could be, and that's when it struck me. I didn't know a thing about cooking!

  "That's Roberto," Sarah whispered as she handed me a pen. "I'd have been lost without him. His food is amazing!"

  I took the pen, bent over the contract and signed it without reading it. The last time I'd done that was when I was eighteen and my twenty-seven-year-old fiancé put a prenup in front of my face and then made me feel rude and unloving when I wanted to read it before signing it. I hadn't read it then and I wasn't reading it now, but this time it because I was afraid that if I took the time to look the contract over, Sarah would realize what a mistake she was making and would take it all back.