Page 4 of Murder on the Page

“Why? Crime isn’t an issue in Bramblewood.”

Tegan slipped off her parka and tugged down the sleeves of her Demon Slayer anime T-shirt. In addition to enjoying books of every genre, she was a fangirl of movies, music, and video games. Plus she collected vintage comic books. “What the heck is this?” She picked up the key ring and twirled it on her finger.

“The same kind of key ring your aunt has.” I’d recently swapped out all my keys for the quick-release, pull-apart kinds. Too often over the past year, I’d needed to give a key to a workman, and my nails had suffered the consequence.

“Clever,” she said, pulling one off and letting it snap into place via the magnet.

I removed my to-be-read pile of books from the rustic dining table and plunked them on the colorful woven rug next to my tower of already-read-but-saved-to-be-savored-again books. “Darcy! Here, kitty.” I made kissing sounds. Yes, I’d named my cat Darcy. I’d dubbed my childhood cat Darcy as well. Once smitten . . . twice bitten. Darcy One was now in kitty heaven. Fortunately, my former fiancé wasn’t named Darcy or Fitzwilliam or any variation of Fitzwilliam Darcy ofPride and Prejudicefame, or I might have fought harder to keep him and been stuck to the man for life. “Where are you, boy?”

My tuxedo cat slinked from behind my stack of Jane Austen books. I swear, he could read. Of all things, he had a particular fondness forPride and Prejudice.Often I found him lying on the book, opened to a new page. He trotted to me and begged for a scratch under his chin. I obliged. Then he scampered to Tegan. She picked him up and showered him with kisses. Her husband was allergic to cats, so whenever she saw Darcy, she pretended he was hers. She put the cat on the floor, and he scampered to his barrel-shaped llama, a cat-scratching station near the dining table, and disappeared into the belly of the beast.

“Come with me,” I said.

I moved into the kitchen, Tegan followed, and I closed the floor-to-ceiling Plexiglas door. Darcy was pretty much hypoallergenic. I groomed him often enough to remove his undercoat, which earned me a good Cottage Food Operator health rating so that on the rare occasion when I couldn’t bake at Dream Cuisine, I could do so at home. To comply with the rating, I’d installed the see-through door to keep the kitchen separate from the rest of the house, and I fed Darcy in the dining nook. He wasn’t allowed to enter the kitchen ever.

I washed my hands, dried them on a cat-themed tea towel,slipped on my mesh-style chef’s cap to keep my hair in tow, and tied on a checkered apron. “Now tell me what’s going on with you and Winston.” I fetched all the mixing bowls I had in stock. I made a mental note to purchase more, plus another stand mixer for just such emergencies. I could store them in the attic, if needed. “I can listen while I’m baking. He cheated on you?”

Winston Potts was a computer geek in the bourgeoning tech industry in Asheville. He and Tegan met in high school. They’d both been seriously into coding back then, and they’d both been in the band. She’d played the clarinet, and he’d played the snare drum. Even though he went off to Duke and she enrolled at UNC Chapel Hill, she always felt they were destined to be together.Perhaps not.

“He admitted he’s been having affairs ever since we got married,” Tegan said.

“Are you kidding?”

“Auntie joked that I thought I married Mr. Darcy, when in actuality I married Mr. Wickham.”

“He should have come with a warning label,” I said.

She tried to laugh at my joke, but a sob caught in her throat. “Am I as dumb as a rock?”

“You were hopelessly in love.” I washed my hands and dried them with paper towels.

“I’m thinking of creating a Dear Jane group with the other women he dumped so we can commiserate. Either that or a murder club.”

“Bad idea on both fronts.”

“For now, I think I’ll stay at my mother’s inn until we get everything sorted.”

“You could stay here.”

“I don’t want to inconvenience you. Besides, I’ll be served two delicious meals a day there.” Tegan couldn’t make ice in a freezer.

My cell phone jangled in my tote. “Get that, would you?”

Tegan rifled through my bag. “I can hear it, but I can’t find it.”

“Outside pocket,” I said. “By the logo.”

She retrieved the cell phone. “It’s Aunt Marigold calling.”

“Answer it.”

“Hello, Miss Catt’s personal assistant.” She did a curtsy to mock me.

I stuck out my tongue while I cracked two eggs into one of the bowls.

“What? Auntie! Auntie, it’s me, Tegan. Can you repeat that? Auntie!” Tegan gawked at me. “I think she’s choking.”

CHAPTER2

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