First Chapter of Furballs and Felonies

“Your ex is coming here? When?” Luna Sage rolled her paint brush over the scuffed white walls of what had been the Golden Oldies Memorabilia Shoppe, leaving a smooth ribbon of buttery yellow, the color she’d chosen for her new bakery.

It might be more accurate to say her and my grandfather’s new bakery, since he had stepped in as a silent partner to help her get The Sweet Spot off the ground. He said it was purely selfish on his part because he was ensuring himself a hassle-free tenant. I also knew Stirling genuinely liked Luna. Since he never worried about money—for reasons that were still a mystery to me—I wasn’t surprised he wanted to help her.

He’d already done far more for me, which is why I’d put in an extra couple of hours at the antique shop before lending Luna a hand. I’d planned to take Aneksi back to my apartment first, but Stirling offered to take her home with him instead.

For a guy who claimed to dislike cats, he certainly seems fond of the little furball. Maybe it’s because Aneksi is no ordinary cat. I’m still trying to wrap my mind around the idea that she can talk, and that she was once a companion to Queen Cleopatra, making her at least as old as the oldest artifacts in our shop.

One of these days, that might seem normal, but right now, it still feels like I’m living through an episode of “The Twilight Zone,” or “Warehouse 13.”

I suppose that’s why I was so eager to help Luna get her shop ready. Don’t get me wrong. She’s helped me so much since I arrived in Citrus Grove and I owe her big time, but caring for this peculiar cat and constantly being on the lookout for the cursed Egyptian artifacts that were stolen from my grandfather’s secret underground vault, not to mention the mundane managerial duties of running Cuthbert’s Exotic Antiques, made an evening of paint, brushes, and girl talk extremely appealing.

Considering it was just the two of us, we were making impressive progress. The first coat of paint was almost complete, and it wasn’t even midnight.

“His text message said Tuesday.” I reloaded my own roller brush with more paint to finish my section. “And that was last week.”

“Rebecca, you know it’s Thursday, right?” she said. “Are you sure he didn’t mean next week?”

“Maybe. Or maybe he changed his mind.” I really hoped he’d changed his mind. I’d left Elk Pass, Montana, to put my problems behind me, and as far as I was concerned, Mason Morretti had been my biggest problem. These past few days, the thought of my ex-fiancé showing up in my new town had reduced me to a neurotic mess.

Since he’d texted to announce his travel plans, the stress of seeing him was definitely messing with my head. I thought I’d caught sight of him at the market, then again at Malone’s Diner, and a few times I thought I saw him strolling through Fountain Park, at the center of the traffic circle in front of the shop.

“Sounds like you don’t want him to come. Why don’t you tell him that?”

Luna was trying to be helpful, and I appreciated it, but I couldn’t tell Mason anything. I couldn’t call him because I didn’t trust myself to talk to him. I didn’t even trust myself to text him because something happened to me when it came to that man. It was like my brain turned off, and I stopped being me. I became Mason’s girlfriend or Mason’s fiancé or Mason’s whatever. It took me weeks and about two thousand miles to realize that, but now that I had, I couldn’t risk slipping back into that old pattern.

It wasn’t just that I was dating Nick Devon, either. That whole situation was still pretty new, and we were taking it slow since he was a part-time, single dad to his five-year-old son, Kevin.

There was also the fact that while we’d known each other for a couple of months, most of that time involved me either being a murder suspect or otherwise involved in one of his homicide investigations. Life was more complicated, I was finding out, when you dated a police detective.

“I’m not going to call Mason or text him or write him a letter or send smoke signals. I don’t want anything to do with him.”

“That’s fair. Have you told Nick?”

I was wondering how long it would take her to ask that question. I’d been dreading it, and I still didn’t have a good answer. “He’s busy with Kevin. Besides, what would I say? ‘Hey, my ex might be coming to town. I’m not planning to see him, but I thought you should know.’ That makes it sound like a bigger deal than it is. And it’s not a big deal. At all. Right?”

“Are you asking me? Because if you are, I say, yes, it is a big deal. Even if you don’t want to see him or want anything more to do with him, he was a big part of your life for a long time. You were going to marry that guy. It’s bound to bring up feelings.”

She had a point. If Mason hadn’t dumped me a few weeks before our wedding for my best friend—sorry, ex-best friend—he and I would be married right now. That thought struck me like a diesel truck to the gut. So, if nausea was a feeling, then, yeah, he was bringing up feelings.

“You should tell Nick,” she said when I didn’t respond. “I think you know it’s the right thing to do.”

Man, Jiminy Cricket has nothing on Luna. “You’re right. I’ll tell him. As soon as I see him.”

Considering this weekend was Citrus Grove’s International Festival—which, according to the posters plastered on local shop windows, including ours, was the town’s biggest event of the year and involved shutting down the traffic circle and side streets so community groups could put up food and beverage booths to sell delicacies from around the world, along with local businesses promoting their wares and services—I didn’t expect to see him soon at all.

Nick had already warned me he, along with the rest of the police department, had festival security duties all weekend.

I didn’t mention that to Luna, though.

While I considered whether I should feel guilty about the omission, she stepped back from the wall she’d finished and stared at it. “What do you think of this yellow? My grandmother stopped by yesterday, and she talked me into it. She said it would brighten up the place.”

“Is that the grandmother that runs a psychic shop in Laguna Beach?”

“It’s more of a year-round Halloween shop, but yeah, and she’s had it for decades. She must know what she’s talking about, right?”

“I’m sure she does. I like the yellow, but what do you think?”

Her lip twisted as she stared at the wall. “I think I like it. But then I wonder if I should go with sage green. That was my original plan. You know, to capitalize on my last name. But I’ve never seen a sage green bakery. Have you?”

“To be honest, sage green doesn’t make me think of cakes and cookies. It makes me think of a day spa or one of those bougie boutiques that stocks twenty pieces of ridiculously expensive clothing.”

That made her laugh. “That sounds like a no on the sage.”

“But what do I know?” I added. “You probably shouldn’t make a final decision tonight, though. It’s late, and we’ve been breathing paint fumes. See how you feel about it in the morning.”

“You’re right. I just want everything to be perfect when I open tomorrow. I guess I’ll have to be satisfied with pretty good.”

“Or perfect for now,” I suggested.

“Perfect for now. I like that. At least I have a display case and a real cash register, even if I won’t have much else.”

That was true. She had gotten both from Hank Malone, who said he’d found them abandoned at the back of his diner’s storage room. I wasn’t sure I believed that—both pieces looked brand new to me—but if he wanted to be a hero to the woman he clearly adored, more power to him.

“Remember, this isn’t your grand opening,” I said. “It’s only a pre-opening to let people know The Sweet Spot is coming soon. And I can assure you, people aren’t going to care what color the walls are once they taste your delicious cupcakes.”

For the past two days, she’d been in a baking frenzy in her home kitchen, whipping up batches of miniature cupcakes to sell at the festival. The mocha chocolate cupcakes were my personal favorite, but the key lime and strawberry shortcake flavors were close contenders.

“I hope you’re right.” Luna pulled away the blue tarps she’d borrowed from Hank to protect the equipment and the floor from paint splatters. “I’ll be disappointed if I’ve made a hundred cupcakes for nothing.”

The yellow walls complimented the pink tablecloth she’d thrown over the utility table Hank had lent her for the cash register and extra counter space. “They will sell. Trust me. People love your cupcakes and your petit fours and everything that comes out of that recipe book of yours. And they’re going to love this bakery. It’s already adorable. Once I get the trash out of here, you’ll see.”

I pulled the plastic liners from the paint pans and stuffed them into a garbage bag, then tossed in the empty paint cans and used foam rollers. When I had all the rubbish collected, I lugged the bag through the back door to the trash bins, which were in the alley halfway between Luna’s place and Cuthbert Exotic Antiques.

The day had been a scorcher, but the night had turned pleasantly cool. At this hour, only a few windows overlooking the alley still had their lights on, so I was grateful for the amber glow of the streetlight beside the trash bin.

Once I muscled the bag into the bin and closed the cover, I noticed Stirling had left a full bag of trash outside our back door. It wasn’t like him to do that. He made a point of putting our trash in the covered bin every night, so we wouldn’t attract vermin. He must have set it out and forgotten about it.

As I moved closer to it, intending to toss the bag into the bin, I realized the shadowy mass wasn’t a trash bag at all. It was a woman hunched beside our concrete steps with her knees pulled to her chest and her head bent down. Long, dark hair spilled forward, covering her face.

“Hello?” I called.

She didn’t respond. Was she asleep? I would have thought she was a vagrant, but her clothes were far too nice and clean. I’d never seen a vagrant wearing black heels, either.

“Do you need help?” I gently shook her shoulder.

The instant I touched her, she flopped to the side. That’s when I saw the blood.