A Murder Moist Foul: A Frosted Love Cozy Mystery (Frosted Love Mysteries Book 1) Read Online Free Page A

home office, working on cases, puzzling over clues and looking
for resolutions to loose ends.  He worked out at the gym every day and jogged
when the weather permitted it, but rarely indulged in personal time aside from
those pursuits.  He was smart enough to know that he was a shell of a man,
empty inside, but trying to make a difference in the world, and he was mostly
okay with that.
    Melissa found herself trying to
think of creative excuses to meet with the dashing detective more often, but
refused to examine her feelings in the matter.  She had been just fine on her
own (thank you very much!) for years now, and the thought of allowing another
person into her world was somewhat preposterous, particularly considering that
the person in question was a human iceberg.  She went through the rest of her
week on automatic pilot, just going through the motions of daily life, while
waiting to receive some semblance of hope from Detective Beckett.

Chapter 4
     By Saturday morning, she couldn’t
stand the suspense any longer and decided to take matters into her own hands. 
Stepping out of her burgundy cube car in front of Bodacious Bakery, Giacomo
Andretti’s somewhat dingy but well-known sweet shop that had thrived for years
in a much larger town roughly 45 miles from LaChance, Melissa took a deep
breath to steady her nerves and headed for the entrance.  The teenager working
behind the counter was quite friendly as she pretended to study the selection
of cakes and pastries while surreptitiously glancing about, looking for
something (anything!) that looked suspicious.
    “I’m sorry, sweetie,” she cooed in
her most motherly voice, “do y’all happen to have a ladies room?”  She knew
from having been in the bakery years ago that there were no public facilities.
    The teenager leaned over the
counter conspiratorially and said in a low voice, “I’m not supposed to do this,
but I can let you use the employee rest room if you promise not to tell my
boss.”
    “My lips are sealed, darlin,” she
beamed at him as he pointed, directing her to go down the hall and turn left. 
She went down the hall and turned right instead, heading for the kitchen. 
Entering the stainless steel commercial space, she quickly scanned shelves
looking for clues of any kind.  Bingo!  There it was…sitting on a shelf below
one of the massive commercial sinks was a large box of rat poison.  How they
were able to pass health inspections under those sorts of conditions is a
mystery probably best explained by the plethora of friends in low places that
Andretti had acquired over the years.
    One of Ben’s fellow grad students
worked part time at the mortuary, assisting with embalming and preparations of
the deceased.  He had discovered in some carelessly stored paperwork that the deceased,
one Darryl Davis, had been poisoned and that the tentative identification of
the substance causing death was thought to be rat poisoning.  And right here,
right now, in Giacomo Andretti’s kitchen, she had discovered a big box of the
stuff. 
    Taking her phone out of her purse
in order to take a photo, Missy froze when she heard a raspy voice with a heavy
Italian accent say, “And what is it that a beautiful lady is doing in my
kitchen?”  The words were friendly, but the voice had menacing overtones.  Melissa’s
heart pounded in her chest as she whirled to face the large Italian man.  She
plastered a wide smile on her face, fighting madly to keep her voice from
shaking.
    “Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry – I
wandered back here looking for the ladies’ room, am I going the right
direction?” she feigned innocence, hoping that her performance was convincing.
    “We don’t have a ladies’ room, but
I’d be happy to escort you to my employee restroom if you’d like,” he offered,
too smoothly.
    Missy was not about to allow this
man to escort her anywhere, but she once again worked up some sugar and spice,
hoping to get out of there